“People don’t leave jobs, they leave managers” – new research demonstrates that this has never been truer, with over half of UK workers surveyed recently stating that they were seeking new opportunities due to their current manager.
Whilst the benefits of hybrid and flexible working are understood for both workers (74% of employees agreed) and businesses (69%), the lack of face to face interactions has caused some disruption to relationships between managers and their teams. With a lack of face to face meetings, increased working from home and a reported over-reliance on emails, managers need to adapt their style to suit the new ways of working. Less than half of those surveyed were comfortable discussing personal issues with their manager.
Great manager traits called out were treating people well (47%), listening to workers (47%) and showing respect to all members of staff (47%).
Face-to-face interactions and other natural moments to develop a rapport are fewer, so managers should look to enhance their toolkit with data and insights to better understand and anticipate employee needs.
The last 2 years have certainly taught us one thing, change is a constant. The phrase the “new normal” has been coined many times over the last year or so, but with varying employee experiences due to hybrid working and challenges in company culture and collaboration due to this, what does a “new normal” actually mean?
HR leaders are needing to approach the ever-evolving workplace, and there are some key questions this throws up
Fundamentally changing the workplace to be hybrid first – with 90% of organisations having at least some form of hybrid working, HR leaders need to consider how this impacts on company culture, how this changes the roles of managers and leaders in the organisation and how they can maintain collaboration
Dealing with a tight labour market – consideration is having to be given to increasing wages, potentially reducing working hours in a week and performance management to deal with the skills shortages and tightened labour market.
Changes to the employee/employer relationship – employees need to be listened to, with relationships now built on empathy HR leaders need to ensure that they are setting their teams up for success, acknowledging performance and treating everyone fairly.
One thing is certain – HR Leaders need to prepare for the uneven throughout 2022
One of the hallmarks of the next generation of work is that work will be different for everybody. The idea of the 9-to-5, 40-hour-a-week job is gone. If you have 1,000 people, you have 1,000 different employee experiences
At AMS, my colleagues and I have been enjoying getting back to the office. It might only be 1 day a week or month, or it might be a quarterly visit to the office of one of our customers, but there is an overwhelming sense of “getting back to normal”.
For me personally, I am enjoying it. I am a sociable person and have missed the human interaction you get in the workplace. I joined AMS during lockdown and it’s only in recent months that I have been able to meet my colleagues in person for the first time. Don’t get me wrong, being able to engage via MS Teams has been a blessing but there is no amount of video calls that can make up for an over the desk conversation, or a chat whilst making a cuppa to really get to know the people you are working with on a personal level. This part of returning to the office has been important to me.
However, there are still 36% of UK employees still working from home; this is not much of an improvement on the 47% of employees working from home in April 2020.
There are a few theories as to why this shift has been so slow – the commute time and cost, childcare issues, looking after “lockdown pets”, the feeling of better productivity working from home or simply that the office may have been closed during the pandemic and therefore there is no office to go to. But there might be one thing we had not considered.
People simply might not want to wear the once formal work attire of restrictive suits and uncomfortable shoes.
Just last week whilst in the office with colleagues we were discussing “office attire”. We all acknowledged that what people wear to the office has seen an overhaul since lockdown and we are seeing more people reflecting their individual style in more comfortable work clothes. I feel lucky to work for a company that has truly embraced this.
However, could this be a stumbling block to others returning to the office? Maybe it’s not just the comfort of the clothes, it could also be the cost of a new suit or work outfit that is deterring individuals from returning.
Whatever the reason it’s clear that there is still some way to go if businesses want to get people back to the office and it would be savvy business leaders who go out and engage with their employees and understand what it is that they want and that would make them come back to the office.
It might be advocating the ditching of a rigid dress code for something flexible that reflects the business needs of the situation.
Talent shortages and skills gaps are well documented; this report looks at where L&D is developing throughout 2022 to support organisations through these challenges, with some employees stating that they are taking their training into their own hands.
With two thirds of HR Managers stating that they have an increased L&D budget for 2022, there is a need to ensure that the training offered meets the needs of the 76% of employees who have stated that they would be more likely to stay with a company that offers continuous training.
Creating a culture of continuous learning is a key business imperative, and should no longer be something that occurs in the background. The normalisation of mental health needs in the workplace, created through the pandemic, has been seen as a great stride forward for many. Focusing on life skills, in conjunction with practical role based training, enables companies to proactively address mental health at work. According to the Epignosis survey, 78% of employees find it important that they receive life skills training, this is in line with the 77% of HR managers who are planning to offer this training in 2022.
Employees will be actively seeking out opportunities for L&D in a buoyant job market, its a key aid to retention for organisations to proactively work on their own programmes.
Workforce training, always a significant player behind the scenes in a company’s success, is about to have its day in the limelight. According to a new study, employees now see a vibrant learning & development (L&D) culture as a key part of what makes a company a great place to work in 2022—and beyond
The authors of “The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead-End Work” argue that women are more likely to be expected to undertake “non-promotable work” – the kind that is important to organisational functioning, but unlikely to be rewarded or even recognised. This includes tasks like writing up minutes from meetings, assembling entries for awards, serving on committees, selecting interns, organising holiday parties, and shopping for leaving gifts.
Their analysis of employee hours at a large consultancy firm found that regardless of seniority, the median woman spent about 200 more hours on non-promotable work each year than the median man – equating to approximately one month’s worth of dead-end tasks.
Women’s time and energy is being disproportionately expended on thankless tasks.
So what’s the solution?
Organisations and leaders need to change the way that work is allocated
Women need to get comfortable with saying no
Women need to help each other to protect time and boundaries
Men can help by putting themselves forward for these types of task
A new book argues that “non-promotable work” – the kind that is important to organisational functioning, but unlikely to be rewarded or even recognised – is the invisible hurdle to gender equality in the workplace, with women’s time and energy being disproportionately expended on thankless tasks.
As the “Great Resignation” focus shifts to “The Great Retention” this idea from PWC, as part of their more flexible approach to work “The Deal“, shows that you don’t have to create complex reward and recognition structures to have a really positive impact on employee perception and wellbeing.
The idea? To give staff who want it Friday afternoons off through the summer. Simple. The only caveat being that staff have done the work they need to through the week.
Their internal feedback on its impact on employee wellbeing has been hugely positive and overall internal perception of the scheme is that it hasn’t had negative impact on performance and productivity. Quite the opposite…. And all it takes is a little trust and respect between employer and employee and you have another way to improve engagement and connection.
Most savvy employers are putting wellbeing at the heart of their redefined Employee Experience with programmes focussed on the broad spectrum of physical, social, occupational, emotional/mental, financial and spiritual dimensions. Speaking as a Talent Acquisition specialist, I can say it’s a genuine pleasure working with businesses that recognise the importance of this and who try to live and breathe those commitments. It certainly makes me feel positive about the connections we make between those organisations and their future talent….
If Covid has given us anything, it has fundamentally reduced the gap between what employees’ value and what employers are offering. And let’s face it, it’s good business. Higher wellness and engagement = increased productivity and lower attrition. And with the global Corporate Wellness Market set to reach $87bn in value by 2026, it’s an excellent business in and of itself.
Time to get to work on my own leadership about that summertime flexibility!
“We knew summer working hours would be popular with our people, but the positive impact on wellbeing surpassed expectations. Not everyone could take every Friday, but they benefited from less email traffic when they did and a chance to switch off properly
We’ve been talking about the Great Resignation for a while now, but this is an interesting angle on the topic. Most concerning, is how many workers are choosing to leave the workforce entirely, or taking on different roles.
This reminds us of the need to think about lifelong learning, individuals may have many careers across their working life, and retraining and reskilling is at the forefront of enabling this.
In the past, spikes in voluntary attrition often signaled a competition for talent, where in-demand workers left one job for a similar but better one at another company. This most recent wave of attrition is different.
According to a report by Adobe, 51 percent of enterprise employees would like to have complete flexibility when it comes to their schedule, in contrast to only 16 percent of respondents who said their ideal work week would have no flexibility at all, but rather “start and end work according to a set work schedule.”
Interestingly, respondents in Germany were the most keen to embrace flexible working hours and 56% of workers surveyed reported working higher hours now, than before the Pandemic started.
Younger workers spoke the loudest, with 73% of Millennials responding that they would switch jobs to another with greater flexibility if their salary and job description stayed the same, according to the report.
Employee dissatisfaction presents a serious risk to business- more than a third of the workforce plans to switch jobs in the next year.
Interesting statement below! There has been much debate on the effectiveness of DEI training in helping to build an inclusive culture. It’s my strong belief that the deployment of training alone will not help to shift the dial in enhancing a company’s inclusive culture. It is one of several levers to deploy in order to see sustainable change.
At AMS we have worked hard to develop a wide programme of DEI training – focusing on conscious inclusion, inclusive leadership, allyship and microaggressions. It’s a mix of facilitator led and e-learning modules, bringing colleagues at all levels together, to learn in a psychologically safe place.
Our training programmes along with our multi layered DEI strategy – with global leadership support, backed by clearly articulated and understood values and behaviours, helps us to progress our inclusive culture.
DEI training is a key enabler, but it needs to be incorporated with other DEI initiatives to create better environments for employees.
Today, diversity and inclusion (D&I) programs are widespread in corporate America, but there’s a problem: They’re often ineffective at actually creating better environments for employees.
I have been lucky enough to see first hand the power of mentorship, both as a mentor and mentee, throughout my career. I have been involved in mentoring both inside and out of work, most recently mentoring a young woman at high school, through The Girls Network. These programmes do not just enable you to learn when you are being mentored, they also significantly develop your skills base when you are the mentor yourself.
Mentoring programmes are well known and established in many workplaces, and their success can be seen through higher retention rates and more engaged employees. A more fluid and open approach post pandemic is now needed, enabling leaders to develop their teams to enjoy personal growth both in and outside of the workplace.
Here are three ways in which mentor programmes can evolve;
Restructure relationships – typically mentors are in place because they have more experience than those that they are working with. The rise of reverse mentorships helps to change that dynamic and celebrate learning from a different angle.
Reset transparency – ensure that a wide range of topics is covered, nothing is off the table!
Relocate learning – we no longer need to engage in mentoring in a formal work setting, this change can open up different ways and environments for our learnings.
Just as the pandemic and the Great Resignation have forced us to rethink how we work, they also require us to reassess how we engage employees and support personal growth within (and outside) of the workplace.
