Tag: employee engagement

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Leaders: Control or Connect?

Posted on by Red Slice

Recently, I learned (another) leadership lesson from my parenting journey:

Are you trying to control or connect?

My defiant son is learning to navigate who he is in the world, apart from Mom and Dad (if I dare slip up and say, Mommy, he is quick to correct!). You can imagine the arguments, stress, exhaustion – on both sides.

I’ve embraced positive parenting or conscious parenting. But I was raised quite differently and sometimes, well, I mess up.

And by mess up, I mean lose sight of my goals to get a short-term hit of self-righteousness.. 

My goal is to raise a healthy, empathetic, kind, self-aware, self-sufficient human boy. My goal is to encourage him to speak up for himself, express his creativity, and develop a growth mindset.

But those goals go out the window when your kid back-talks you, rolls his eyes, or refuses to do something you’ve asked him to do a million times.

A wise therapist reminded me (several times), my goal is not to control my son. In the macro sense of course. I’m not going to allow him to run out into traffic or anything. He is his own person with unique strengths, challenges, and preferences.  He is becoming who he is becoming and if the goals listed above are truly my goals, then I have to remember to seek connection more than compliance. 

This will ensure we have a close relationship for the long term, so when things get harder for him as a teen and an adult, his Dad and I can still have influence and he will still feel safe talking to us and being honest. No parent wants a child who keeps important secrets or cuts ethical corners to avoid punishment.

That doesn’t mean I let him do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

That doesn’t mean he has no guardrails or expectations.

But in those tense moments, when tempers start flaring, it might FEEL good to shout and scream so loud that I will him into compliance. Or I can take a more graceful tact, regulating my own emotions while still seeing who he is AND standing firm with my boundaries. Being a model for him with my own behavior so he knows what to expect and strive for.

So leaders: Ask yourselves:

Do you want control or connection?

Tight-fisted, authoritarian control may get you short-term compliance, to be sure, from demanding a return to the office, tracking keystrokes and badge swipes, or publicly berating someone at the next team meeting for screwing up – but what does that buy you in the long run?

What are your goals?

Are your goals really to force disengagement (for their own mental health, in that kind of environment), encourage the bare minimum, foster resentment, and lose good, talented people to your competition?

I don’t think so.

Or would you rather create a high-performing team for the long term that collaborates, innovates, solves problems, and gets things done – all while remaining extremely loyal to you and the organization? 

You can still set high expectations.

You can still set boundaries and guardrails.

You can still have difficult conversations and get people to take responsibility and face consequences.

AND…you can do all of that while still prioritizing connection over control. 

Remember your true goals. And choose connection over control. I promise it will be worth it for your goals in the long run.

Photo credit: RD Smith, Unsplash

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Going Back to Office Life: Do Employees Fare Better at Home?

Posted on by Red Slice
PhotoCredit: Ben Kolde, unsplash.jpg

How do your employees work best? Well, it requires leadership empathy to understand your team best and help them thrive. Today’s guest post addresses the hot question right now of going hybrid or not is the recipe for future performance success. Guest Blogger Stephanie Hendricks is a full time freelance contributor to many leading small business growth publications. Including SmallBizTrends, SMBCEO, and Noobpreneur. In her free time, she enjoys traveling the American West in her sprinter van with her dogs.

When COVID first struck, most businesses wouldn’t allow their employees to work from home. For the most part, they simply didn’t want to relinquish control. There were also questions of efficiency.

Although remote work proved extremely lucrative, reducing office costs and other expenses, most companies couldn’t wait to bring people back. Unfortunately for them, some employees got used to the idea of working from home. Economic data indicates that this approach is the best option for both sides.

In this article, we’ll analyze whether or not working from home is actually worth it. Check it out!

Tackling the fears

So far, several studies have analyzed the impact of remote work. Given that most companies had to send their employees home, we have ample data to make some conclusions. Here are some general data:  

  • 51% of companies declared they’ll return their workforce to offices within the next year.
  • 53% of workers have had at least one infection in the office since they all returned.
  • Approximately 20% of employees now have a hybrid schedule.

One of the major concerns for employees is how they would adjust mentally to the newfound situation. Every third person said they were happy to return to the office. Interestingly enough, one-third of the workforce doesn’t want to come back. So, we’re split even in that regard.

Aside from the fear of COVID, there are other reasons why people don’t want to come back. For example, they’ve seen how productive remote working can be. During this period, employees experienced less stress and had more time for family and friends.

There are also less common reasons why some people don’t want to return.

“Employees that work in an esthetically unappealing environment are less willing to return,” according to the Collection, a premium office rental in Los Angeles. According to their data, the quality of the workspace has an enormous impact on employees. After enjoying all this time at home, they don’t want to return to a gloomy environment.  

Impact on productivity

The reason why most companies wouldn’t let their employees go home is that they feared losing productivity. And truth be told, some teams really struggled to meet their deadlines. This isn’t particularly surprising, given all the comforts and the lack of control.

But, there were also opposite cases. Some people worked even harder as they had much more free time on their hands. Among others, they felt free and didn’t experience the same level of stress as they would in the office.

Here is some data that would interest you:

  • According to a smaller Ergotron study, 40% of people worked longer while at home. The National Bureau of Economic Research shows something similar. According to them, the average work day was prolonged by 48.5 minutes during peak COVID. Based on that calculation, a person that has a 40-hour work week would annually work extra 193 days.
  • Another positive improvement has to do with balancing a job with personal life. According to the same Ergotron study, 75% of people said they’re now more productive at work while having much more time for their family. A few other studies corroborated similar data.
  • As previously mentioned, remote work also had a major positive impact on stress or, better yet, lack thereof. Out of all the people working from home, 29% experienced moderate job-related stress. This is down from 33% in 2019 when employees were still in the offices. Remote work had a similar impact on extreme stress, and these numbers fell from 17% in 2019 to 15% just a year later.

Other important figures

Based on everything we’ve shown you so far, it seems that remote work is fantastic for employees and companies alike. Here are some other interesting tidbits that favor working from home:

  • Employees were able to save 8.5 hours every week just because they didn’t have to commute. Annually, this would accumulate to 408 hours saved.
  • One of the reasons why remote work was so efficient for companies is because it allowed them to eliminate social interaction. For 70% of employees, social interaction is every bit as important as getting their work done.
  • Aside from having a positive impact on mental health, working from home was better for physical health. People who don’t visit the office exercise 30 minutes more during the work week.
  • Approximately 62% of employees have to work alone to reach maximum efficiency. That being said, being at home allows them to reach their maximum potential.
Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Why Does Purpose Matter?

Posted on by Maria Ross

When was the last time you eagerly dived into a task you didn’t connect with, believe in or understand?

If I told you to spend hours creating a complex spreadsheet  but never told you why, or where your efforts would lead, how inclined would you be to do it?

Yet every day, employees are asked to produce deliverables, attend meetings, or spend time away from their families on work that means nothing to them – or work they can’t connect to how it makes customers’ lives better.

As humans, we all need purpose to keep us motivated and engaged. Otherwise, work is just drudgery. (Tweet This!)

I could cite thousands of books, surveys and studies here to back up my point. Like this.  Or this. Or even this.

But we all inherently know this to be true! Employees who understand where their efforts lead, who can see a correlation between their efforts and external effects feel more satisfied, motivated, and positive about the work they do every day.

Who among you doesn’t have a story about getting “in the zone” and tackling a task where, at the end, you were rewarded with real impact and meaning?

And who among you doesn’t have a story about how miserable you were being a cog in the wheel, without any understanding of how the hours you spent led to something that really mattered to colleagues, customers, or community?

We want to matter. We want a destination to drive toward. When we find meaning, we are more engaged. And we also want a say in what that destination looks like and how we can get there. We crave autonomy.

And when we get it? Look out. Your employees will unleash massive potential the likes of which you’ve never seen.

So before you roll your eyes at launching a “Purpose Project ” or decide that all that feel-good stuff is a waste of time, think about what your organization’s goals, financial or otherwise. Would you rather spend a bit of time working together to define a purpose everyone can rally around, and thus operate at maximum capacity – increasing retention, innovation, and loyalty? Or would you rather limp along by cracking the whip and naively expecting soul-drained individuals to work at their best for you (which they won’t)?

Make the time. Articulate your purpose. Gather input. Share it. Live it. Think of this work as a fuel-boosting additive to make your company engine run better!

Does your organization need help aligning on and articulating your purpose, brand story and values? I have wrangled the most feisty teams to success with my unique and efficient process. Let’s chat.

Photo Credit: Darius Bashar on Unsplash