Alliance for Leadership Acceleration

Today’s leaders face a tough mandate. They’re expected to hold team members accountable for their actions—both in terms of fulfilling job duties and adhering to stated policies and standards—while at the same time practicing empathy. Leaders must help employees feel psychologically safe in their work environments and be understanding about the life challenges that everyone faces. This is a seriously tough balance to strike right now.

As the nation and world begin to find a new normal while dealing with the pandemic, stressors on leaders and employees are intense. Empathy is absolutely needed—particularly in a tight job market where workers can and will walk out the door at a moment’s notice. But organizations are also trying to get back to a “new normal,” driving a heightened urgency for efficiency and productivity. It’s not an easy situation for anyone. The first step to overcoming it is consciously recognizing that you, as a leader, need to think hard about how to balance accountability and empathy and, from there, find your own distinctive “sweet spot.”

Accountability Vs. Responsibility
Most leaders could define the words “accountability” and “empathy.” However, to conquer the challenge at hand, you need to develop a clear cognitive framework for each term beyond a simple definition.

Let’s start with accountability. Merriam-Webster defines the word as “an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.” And therein lies an important distinction that’s a good place for leaders to start building a deeper understanding of accountability: Accountability and responsibility aren’t synonymous, at least not when applied to the workplace.

Job responsibilities are the stated duties of a given position. They’re what you’re supposed to do. Accountability is whether you fulfill those responsibilities and—this is the important part—how willing and able you are to own up to what went right and what went wrong in the course of doing so.

On Being Empathetic
Now, let’s move on to empathy. I think most people would agree that empathizing means understanding someone’s situation and being sensitive to it. In some cases, it means you’ve been in virtually the same set of circumstances and know exactly what it’s like. Of course, knowing what empathy is and being empathetic are two different things. Leaders need to develop certain traits to demonstrate empathy while they’re holding team members accountable for their job-related actions.

In 2007, the medical journal Advances in Nursing Science published an article entitled “Toward a holistic conceptualization of empathy for nursing practice” by Theresa Wiseman. It contains four traits of empathy that have since been widely discussed and accepted far beyond the healthcare sector. They are:

1. Perspective taking. This means stepping outside of your own mindset and consciously trying to see things from another person’s point of view.

2. Staying out of judgment. We’ve all said it: “Don’t judge!” However, being judgmental tends to be a reflex. During interactions, avoid inferring that someone else’s response to a situation, whether emotional or actual, was invalid or wrong—at least until you’ve gathered all the facts.

3. Recognizing the emotion. Just putting a name to how another person is feeling can lead a conversation in the right direction. For example, if an employee comes into your office clearly upset over the actions of a colleague, your initial response could be, “It sounds like you’re angry.”

4. Communication. This is probably the broadest and most challenging of the four traits. It refers to being able to effectively express everything that must come after understanding the other person’s viewpoint, not judging them and recognizing the emotions in play. Leaders need strong communication skills to articulate and enforce accountability while showing empathy.
Tips For Finding The Balance. The good news is that some of the tools for striking the right balance may already be in place at your organization. They include:

• Establishing clear expectations of team members from the job descriptions you use in hiring to the work assignments given,
• Setting boundaries with employees that let them know you’re there for guidance and feedback, but they must be accountable for their own work,
• Providing regular, empathetic feedback through a comprehensive, consistent performance review process, as well as more frequently in team meetings and “check-in” conversations, and
• Creating a psychologically safe workplace, even if employees telecommute, in which failure is destigmatized and everyone can share freely knowing that their contributions will be valued.

Many leaders struggle with accountability because it feels punitive. No one wants to be the school principal taking students to task. But accountability is really more of a collaboration; you’re helping employees take ownership of their work, learn from mistakes and build confidence from their successes. And empathy? Well, it sounds simple, but it’s not always easy. Taking the time to learn how to show empathy and be an empathic leader is worthwhile and, I promise, it gets easier.

Have you ever been in a business meeting where you were the only member of a particular societal group, marginalized or otherwise? If so, did you have an opinion or idea to share but decided to keep it to yourself because you didn’t feel safe or felt you had to "hide" yourself?

Perhaps you believed all or most of the other attendees would immediately dismiss or harshly criticize the notion. Or maybe you felt that expressing the thought would invite retribution or exclusion later. Sadly, many people have had this experience. And it’s too bad—not only for the individual in question but also for the organization itself.

The issue at play here is called “psychological safety,” and it’s something that more and more employers are finding to be a major driver of building positive morale, productivity and innovation.

Here are some tips on how leaders like you can create a psychologically safe workplace.

Take the temperature.
The term “psychological safety” was coined by Dr. Amy C. Edmondson of the Harvard Business School. On her website, she defines it as “a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.”

The last few words of her description are key. Feeling safe to speak up or share in other ways isn’t only about having permission to do so; it’s about working in an environment in which one can take risks and make mistakes without worry of “losing points” on a performance evaluation or being reprimanded.

With all this in mind, the first thing leaders should do when looking to improve psychological safety is “take the temperature” of their organizations or teams—that is, assess how psychologically safe or unsafe your workers feel. This can be difficult! It’s natural to want to assume your employees can express themselves freely but... can they?

There’s only one way to find out: Ask. Start by holding one-on-ones with your people managers and honestly discuss the state of their teams. Is there strong participation in meetings? Do certain employees dominate discussions, while others hardly ever contribute? Are idea-sharing and feedback regularly encouraged?

Dr. Edmondson herself recommends that organizations conduct psychological safety surveys to gather a variety of data points and determine how much improvement is needed. Design a set of statements such as “If you make a mistake, it’s held against you” and “It’s safe to take risks on this team.” Then ask to what degree the respondent agrees or disagrees.

Throw a party.
Once you have a good idea of how psychologically safe your workplace is, you can take specific actions to improve the environment in which your employees work. These will obviously depend on your specific needs but could include:

• Openly discussing the topic to “break the ice,”
• Training or upskilling leadership or supervisors and
• Confronting problematic employees to clarify expectations or provide training and, if/when appropriate, putting them on performance improvement plans to eliminate toxic behaviors.

Generally, however, promoting psychological safety is kind of like throwing a party. That is, there are three primary things you need to do:

1. Choose and communicate the theme. This is not a “Let’s all get together and hang out aimlessly” kind of get-together. No, this is a theme party. Whether for your workplace in general or a specific meeting, you as a leader need to set clear strategic objectives and ground rules for participants so everyone is pulling in the same direction.
For example, if you’re focusing on innovation, state that up front. Identify the kinds of new ideas you’re looking for, but also let employees know that no suggestion is too big or too small. Say it and repeat it: Everyone plays a role in the organization’s success and future.

2. Send out the invites. Just as you would for a party, send an invitation to everyone. This might sound strange because, in a way, you “invited” every employee simply by hiring them. Nonetheless, some personality types need regular encouragement to really open up and share.
Many employees struggle with feeling a lack of psychological safety at work. It can arise from either negative aspects of organizational culture or personal issues of their own (or both). Participation takes practice. The more they’re encouraged—that is, invited—to participate in meetings or other types of discussions, the more their comfort levels will grow. Just be sure that when they do share, they receive positive recognition for it.

3. Be a convivial host. Just about everything you do as a host of a party you should do as a leader looking to strengthen the psychological safety of your workplace. Set the tone with your actions and attitudes. Welcome everyone to meetings or other discussions. Identify participants by name as much as possible.

As the saying goes, “Accentuate the positive.” For example, let’s say someone makes a bold suggestion in a meeting that immediately draws skepticism and counterarguments. Take it upon yourself to draw out some constructive aspects of the idea—even if it’s saying something like, “Although that specifically probably won’t work, it does help us narrow our focus.”

And, like any good host, if you identify someone intent on disrupting the proceedings in a negative or, worse yet, destructive way, move quickly to pull that person aside and neutralize the situation.

Failure is okay.
Above all, perhaps the most important facet of a psychologically safe workplace is the destigmatization of failure. Ultimately, as a leader, make it your job to help employees know and feel that failure is okay as long as they embrace their mistakes as learning opportunities and push forward with courage and passion toward the next great idea.

Keeping employees engaged has always been important. These days, however, it might be one of the most important challenges that employers face. Following “the Great Resignation” of 2021, and in a still-tight job market, you’ve got to go the extra mile to ensure workers are actively interested in their jobs or risk losing them and facing a staffing shortage.

Like nearly everything else, you can and should measure engagement. Doing so is the only way to keep tabs on whether your employees are getting close to leaving for greener pastures with another organization or starting up a gig of their own. Here are some ideas to consider.

Create A Feedback System
When one speaks of measuring anything, there’s usually a reflex to start rattling off metrics under the assumption that every organization has the data at its fingertips to perform the calculations. The truth is that to get good results, you need to first gather the right information.

So, the initial step in optimally measuring employee engagement is creating a feedback system. The key word there is “system.” Issuing an employee survey once a year and maybe discussing the results in a meeting will neither give you much to go on nor keep the issue of engagement top of mind.

A feedback system should have multiple inputs. These should include a thoughtfully constructed and carefully worded survey that enables you to quantify how employees are feeling about:

• Your organization as an employer.
• The quality of your organization’s products or services.
• Their day-to-day work.
• Their relationships with supervisors.
• Whether and how they see a future for themselves with your organization.

I've found that an annual survey is generally best because you don’t want to overload employees with questions or take up too much of their time.

That’s why your system needs other inputs, too. One possibility is focus groups: Perhaps you can meet with entire departments or just specific work teams to ask engagement-related questions and have a discussion.

Another input could be the performance reviews that you most likely already conduct once or twice a year. As part of the process, ask for some feedback regarding engagement.
And then there are your supervisors. These individuals interact with their employees regularly. You might design an additional survey just for them, or meet with them biannually or quarterly, to get their reads on the engagement levels of their teams.

Regularly Calculate eNPS
When you’ve set up a solid system for gathering employee engagement data, you can start choosing your metrics. One relatively easy choice, if only because it’s so immensely popular right now, is the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS): a score Leapsome discusses on its blog.

Despite its rather cumbersome abbreviation, eNPS has drawn many employers’ interest because of its relative simplicity. It typically entails asking a mere two questions of employees and then calculating a score based on their answers. The questions typically are something along the lines of:

1. On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend your employer to a family member, friend or acquaintance as a great place to work?
2. Also on a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend your employer’s products or services to a family member, friend or acquaintance?

The second question is key. While the first one asks a rather obvious question regarding engagement, the second query gets into whether the responding employee is really interested in what you do or at least believes in the quality of the result.
To calculate eNPS, you should count:

1. The number of respondents who gave ratings of 9 or 10 (these are called “promoters”).
2. The number of respondents who rated you between 0 and 6 (these are called “detractors”).

Anyone who provided ratings of 7 or 8 is considered “passive” and excluded from the final calculation.

To arrive at that final calculation, you simply deduct the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. For example, say you have 200 employees who respond as follows:

• 95 promoters (47.5%)
• 75 detractors (37.5%)
• 30 passives

So, 47.5% - 37.5% = 10%. This is an eNPS of 10.

Generally, any score above zero is good. That would mean more employees are engaged than those who aren’t. It follows that any score below zero—particularly if you dip to -10 or below—should be concerning. On the brighter side, if you score well above zero, perhaps in the 40s or 50s, you’re doing exceptionally well.

Because eNPS is so easy to calculate, you can use it several times throughout the year to monitor engagement. Again, you don’t want to pester employees too much, but pushing out a quarterly “quick survey” via email is feasible for most organizations.

To be clear, there are other metrics you can use to gauge employee engagement, such as the ones CultureAmp highlights. These include rates of voluntary turnover, involuntary turnover and absenteeism. Some larger organizations have even turned to marketing metrics to determine how quickly and actively employees respond to organizational announcements and messaging.

Calibrate Your Approach
At the end of the day, you’ve got to calibrate your engagement measurement efforts to the size and needs of your organization. Small employers, who can more easily determine whether everyone is pulling in the same direction, might not need to expend too much time and resources on engagement monitoring. But, as an organization grows, measuring and promoting employee engagement becomes more important and challenging. Find the optimal approach and you’ll be on your way.

With each passing year, it might seem like expectations grow for employers to recognize, encourage and improve inclusivity. And, more than likely, you’d be hard-pressed to find any leader who doesn’t support the idea of an inclusive workplace. But how do you get there? Or perhaps the better question is: How do you keep getting better at inclusivity? It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the terminology and issues involved. Let’s look at some of the fundamentals of inclusivity.

Defining The Term
Perhaps the most obvious place to begin addressing inclusivity is by defining it. The Society for Human Resource Management, now known simply as SHRM, defines it as: “The achievement of a work environment in which all individuals are treated fairly and respectfully, have equal access to opportunities and resources, and can contribute fully to the organization’s success.”

An important distinction to bear in mind: Inclusivity isn’t the same as diversity. The two terms are often lumped together and, indeed, they do relate to one another. In fact, you’ve probably encountered the abbreviation “D&I” used to categorize “diversity and inclusion” content. But, in an HR context, diversity refers to recognizing and embracing the many differences that employees bring to the table. These include various cultural attributes, spoken and written languages, educational achievements and work and life experiences. Inclusivity, on the other hand, is a conscious effort by an employer to integrate diversity into the workplace by involving and giving access to all people to achieve the work environment described in SHRM’s definition.

Distinguishing “Equity” From “Equality”
And here’s where we run into another important distinction. That is, “equity” isn’t the same as “equality.” Every employer should strive to treat employees equally in the sense that policies and rules should be applied and enforced consistently. You need to ensure processes for hiring, promotion and termination are free of implicit or explicit biases.

Equity means that you acknowledge the diverse aspects of your workforce and then take steps to level the playing field so every employee can feel included and valued and is provided with an optimal environment in which to do their best work.
So, for example, if you hire an employee with a limited educational background, perhaps you could offer that person additional coursework or training to put the individual on equal footing with coworkers who have college degrees. Another common example is helping workers with physical disabilities perform their jobs by providing special equipment or allowing them to work from home.

Broad Steps To Success
When and where should inclusivity efforts begin? Of course, there are many granular moves your organization could take to expand and strengthen inclusivity. But here are three broad steps that put most employers in a prime position to succeed:

1. Start with onboarding.
The moment a new hire walks in the door—or logs in to your organization’s network, as the case may be these days—set the tone from the beginning by:

• Including a written statement about inclusivity in your employee handbook,
• Explaining the initiatives and opportunities offered to contribute to inclusivity, and
• Asking new hires about their preferences (pronouns, for example), concerns and ideas.

2. Focus on resources and support.
For employees who are settled in, keep a close and constant eye on their ability to use the same technology, information sources, benefits and support as everyone else. Doing so can be particularly challenging now that many people are working from home. Be prepared for questions such as:

• What if someone’s Wi-Fi connection isn’t as good as other employees?
• If you allow workers to use their own phones, what if someone’s phone can’t support an app that everyone else uses?

If any issue arises, whether on-site or among telecommuters, take it seriously and address it immediately. Be sure to have in place a clear process for recognizing and dealing with inclusivity matters.

3. Set up a system of feedback and accountability.
Among the most important traits of an inclusive workplace is that every employee has a voice in discussing the topic and improving conditions on the ground. A well-crafted inclusivity survey issued once or twice a year can give you a substantial number of data points. Occasional inclusivity meetings can also be useful and even fun.
Lastly, particularly if yours is a larger organization, consider establishing a platform that allows for the tracking and reporting of inappropriate behavior related to inclusivity, diversity and harassment in general. It should allow employees to provide detailed information (date, time, individuals involved, etc.) about incidents. Today’s artificial-intelligence-based software solutions, such as Spot, are worth a look for this purpose.
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All About Community
At the end of the day, winning at inclusivity boils down to looking at your workforce not so much as regimented departments or teams but more as a united, close-knit community. After all, communities are, by definition, inclusive. And if you can build a good one, you’ll not only have a better working environment, but also a more productive organization.

There’s a special place in my heart for middle managers – they are THE essential “hub” of everything in your organization and yet, they’re treated like Rodney Dangerfield “I don’t get no respect.” Why is that?

They have tremendous potential for high impact in your organization but they face several challenges (which are not their fault):

1. They are stretched too thin as “working managers” with a portfolio of ‘deliverables’ on top of managing a team of people and a function within the organization.
2. They are not what we call “professional managers.” They have not been provided the learning, development and tools to professionally lead others.

We see it in just about every industry: a graphic designer becomes an art director, a land surveyor becomes a project manager, an architect becomes a partner. In their entry role, they do a standout job and are quickly promoted up the ranks, eventually finding themselves in management roles where they are expected to [intuitively] delegate work, communicate across teams, bring in business, and coach and mentor others.

Yet, without training or support they have to rely on instincts and often poor role models for how to manage and lead others. One example we see play out over and over is their reliance on their technical expertise to solve problems rather than engaging those closest to the problem in solving it. This comes out of a desire to have a positive impact but being the ‘heroic problem-solver’ for their team actually has a negative spiral effect on their organization that they don’t realize.

In our LEAP-Leadership Acceleration Program, our coaches teach them one of the simplest and highest-impact shifts they can make… Think of yourself as a FACILITATOR not a problem-solver. The very definition of facilitate is “to make easy” and the shift in mindset makes life easier for the middle manager as well as their direct-reports.

Learning how to facilitate does take a little practice but it’s a VERY learnable skill that nets quick returns. Here are some tips for making the shift from Problem-Solver to Solution Coordinator:

• Check Your Ego at the Door: It feels good to be the ‘hero’ who saves the day but good facilitators make the people around them feel like they did it w/out the help of the leader/facilitator. Let your people and their expertise shine. It’s okay to admit you don’t have all the answers and facilitate the process of finding solutions.​


• Develop Your Ability to Ask Questions Rather than Offer Solutions: Step into a ‘curious but dumb’ mindset. Pretend you know nothing about the issue and have no judgment about it either. Tell your people that you believe they know more about the issue and how to solve it than you do and then ask questions such as “what is currently happening?”, “when did this start happening?”, “what will happen if it this continues?” “who else is impacted?”, “who else should we talk to?” “why do you think this is happening?”, “what are your ideas for fixing it?” and so on. There will come a point when you need to summarize what you have heard from the team and make a decision based on your authority but it will be a facilitated solution and likely a better solution than you would have developed on your own.


• Actively Involve Others: See above. Make it safe for people to offer their perspective and ideas. Ask them how they would solve this if they were ‘in-charge’ for the day?


• Manage Content and Process: a facilitative approach is concerned with both what the group is discussing or deciding and how they are actually doing it. They appreciate and understand that the team may need to use different processes to achieve different outcomes. Facilitative leaders work with the team to establish shared agreements for how participants will interact with each other and do their work – that is the group process aspect. Content is what the group is discussing or trying to achieve. Both are necessary and a good facilitator manages these rather than managing the problem solution itself.

Facilitation skills might just be the best kept leadership super-power and your middle managers the best way to create a strong, healthy organization. We’ve been developing leaders through an integrated methodology since 2002 and the notion of being a facilitative leader is by far one of the most powerful ‘ah-ha’ moments in their leadership journey and it’s a skill they leverage forevermore.

Professional literature often draws rigid lines between leadership and management, suggesting that one is right and one is wrong. In reality, we need individuals who both do the right thing and are capable of doing things right. We need middle-managers who can help individuals and groups do the right things right – the very nature of facilitative leadership.

Show me an employer with a distrustful workforce, and I’ll show you a ship headed for rough waters if it’s not sinking already. When employees distrust leadership to a substantial degree, it affects everything. Decisions are made more slowly, learning curves stretch out, engagement suffers, productivity lags and, these days, workers might just walk out the door.

Yes, as employers continue to grapple with the “Great Resignation”—the trend of many workers voluntarily leaving their jobs—trust is more important than ever. Organizations that can build and maintain a strong rapport with their employees are poised to have a competitive advantage in the months ahead.

In fact, one could say that employers are at a crossroads when it comes to trust. According to the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer, an online survey of more than 33,000 people around the world, 56% of respondents believe that business leaders are purposely trying to be misleading by stating falsehoods. On the bright side, the survey found that “business” is now the most trusted institution, replacing “government.” Of survey respondents, 61% trust business, while only 53% trust government.

What this means is employers have an enormous opportunity to build and fortify their reputations as trusted entities, helping both themselves and their employees. Here are some ways you and your leadership team can build trust within your organization.

Talk about it.
Distrust arises from not only miscommunication but also the lack of communication. That is, when something isn’t talked about and is left to assumptions, those assumptions tend to lean toward the negative.

For this reason, employers should address trust openly. Tell employees explicitly that their trust matters to you and explain the ways in which you intend to build it. To do so, someone in a top leadership role—ideally, the owner of the business, CEO or another widely recognized leader—needs to issue a formal statement to this effect.

Be sure to keep any promises you make in such a statement. Moreover, if you outline various objectives, such as “Hire additional staff to reduce reliance on overtime,” update employees on these goals regularly until they’re achieved or revised. Perhaps the worst way to address trust is to say you’re going to do something about it but then let the effort slide into apathy.

Promote positivity.
Trust generally can’t exist in a negative working environment, so it certainly can’t flourish. When leadership establishes and actively encourages positivity, an “ecosystem of trust” can develop. This means that employees will more likely trust each other, as well as ownership and management.
Contrast this with working environments built around unhealthy competition and political (in the office sense) alliances. Pitting workers against each other, or looking the other way when this dynamic occurs, can produce some short-term results. However, in the long run, the toxicities that result from these experiences tend to lead employees to distrust each other and leadership.

To promote positivity, train workers to cooperate by teaching skills such as recognition of bias, active listening and effective communication. Reinforce your HR processes to resolve conflicts between employees quickly and fairly. Immediately investigate inappropriate behavior. Use 360-degree performance feedback to honestly tell workers how they’re doing so they can give you insights into leadership’s effectiveness.

To go the extra mile, check in with your people managers regularly to determine whether their teams are sliding into negativity. If necessary, confront the problem through team-building exercises or special meetings aimed at boosting employee morale and refocusing them on your mission.

Demonstrate employer expertise.
Sometimes the source of distrust within an organization isn’t so much that employees believe leadership is actively lying or unethical; it’s that they suspect those in charge lack competency as an employer.

This may sound harsh, but let’s face it, being a good employer today goes far beyond simply cutting a paycheck every couple of weeks. Particularly at a time when workers are leaving their jobs in droves, you’ve got to convey to them that you know what you’re doing. This includes:

• Engaging in a hiring process that respects applicants’ time and need for clarity.

• Providing an onboarding process that welcomes new hires to the organization and acclimates them to their working environments quickly and positively.

• Training employees thoroughly so that they can get up and running and feel good about their contributions.

• Administering payroll and benefits seamlessly with minimal complications or disruptions.

• Giving workers the equipment and technology they need to do their jobs well.

• Communicating frequently and transparently about the state and direction of the organization.
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• Recognizing employees as “whole people”—not just workers—who need work-life balance, mental health support and, every so often, some fun.
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When your workforce trusts you to care for them, they’ll also be more likely to trust your strategic plans and go the extra mile to perform their job duties at an optimal level. In short, engagement and productivity will likely rise.

The Power of Trust
Trust has always been important. Results of a 2017 study on the neuroscience of trust, published in a Harvard Business Review article of the same name, found that employees who work for “high-trust” companies enjoyed their jobs 60% more and were 70% more aligned with their employers’ purposes than workers at “low-trust” companies.
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The power of trust is only increasing. In fact, trust may be the X factor that enables some organizations to endure and thrive in today’s chaotic, shifting environment of pandemic-inflicted changes and evolving attitudes about employment. Work with your leadership team and advisors to put your organization on the right side of this trend.

Has the state of the American workplace ever been more in flux? Decades ago, once you were hired, you went to work. That generally meant going to a physical location, being provided with a workspace and equipment, and assimilating into the culture and routines of your surroundings.
 
Today you can get hired, on-boarded, trained and sent into action without ever leaving your home. Remote work was growing in prevalence before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the ongoing public health crisis has accelerated the trend exponentially. And many organizations aren’t looking back -- encouraging, even requiring employees to work from home. 

However, that’s not true in every case. Many employers are striving to establish a “best of both worlds” workplace, whereby those who wish or need to work on-site can do so, while those who prefer or have grown accustomed to working remotely can do that. 

If your organization’s leaders are struggling with a “hybrid” workforce, as it’s being called, they’re not alone. 

Recognize the Differences 
One reaction to suddenly having a hybrid workforce may be to “normalize” the situation one way or the other. That is, treat a hybrid workforce as if everyone works on-site and nothing has changedSept or, vice versa, treat all employees as if they’re working remotely. 

Although it’s important to treat everyone equitably, don’t ignore the intrinsic differences between the two. Look carefully at which positions are best suited for each. 

A couple of key terms that come into play are synchronous and asynchronous time. Synchronous time is that during which employees must synchronize their schedules for meetings or collaborative work. Asynchronous time is that during which employees can work on their own. 

Job roles that involve mostly asynchronous time are well-suited to remote work, where an employee can create a comfortable workspace and work during optimal times. For positions that entail a substantial amount of synchronous time, working on-site tends to make more sense. 

Software development organizations may tell us that their products enable seamless and incredibly productive collaboration, but human psychology has long indicated that in-person collaboration is more natural and intuitive. In fact, my spouse is a software engineer who was dismayed when his employer announced last year that the developers had proven they can work collaboratively from home and therefore would NOT be invited back to the office when it opened. Clearly employees can do great things together online, just that physical work locations and personal preferences can still serve a useful purpose as places of collaboration and socialization. 

Establish Clear Expectations 
Once a hybrid workforce is in place, establish clear expectations regarding “nuts and bolts” issues such as work hours and communication. These things tended to be implicitly understood when everyone worked on-site -- you showed up and left at a certain time and communication was handled face-to-face, on the phone or eventually via email. 

In a hybrid environment, leaders need to explicitly discuss these items with employees. Start with work hours, which have evolved quite a bit since the old days of “nine to five.” 

Remote workers tend to prefer and, indeed, rely on flexible hours to accommodate childcare and other inevitable home-based issues. Some on-site employees may still wish to adhere to a traditional schedule, but others might demand flex hours if that’s what is available to those off-site. 

There’s no single solution. Leaders need to recognize the distinctive cultures of their organizations, build consensus regarding what will work fairly and optimally for everyone, and keep their eyes on the prize: productivity. 

Another critical issue is communication. With people in different locations working flexible schedules, this can be a huge challenge. Leadership needs to set clear norms and expectations regarding: 

• Timeliness of responses (immediate vs. within a day vs. within a week) 
• Which communication channel to use when (video call vs. phone call vs. email vs. instant message) 
• ​Who needs to be involved (whole organization vs. department vs. work group vs. individual) 

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All too often, communication is left to chance or open to interpretation. A hybrid workforce demands an open and unambiguous accounting of how information will be exchanged. Leaders need to enforce the rules and remind staff when necessary. 

Master Technology and Build Trust 

The importance of technology cannot be overstated. There are many remote business communication platforms in play these days -- Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Chat, Zoom. Leaders need to learn all the features of whichever one your organization uses and demonstrate this knowledgeability to employees. You may want to invest in additional training to ensure a high level of expertise. 

On the flip side, there’s the human factor of the equation. Today’s employers face greater challenges regarding trust. Employees can and will acquire information from many different sources. They may distrust their employers’ motives in a time when organizations must make some very difficult decisions. 

Leaders of hybrid workforces must overcome the even greater challenge of managing employees in different locations and time zones, on various schedules, who may be comfortable with differing modes of communication. It’s not easy! Remember that trust is based on the mutual understanding that employees will deliver high-quality work while employers, as demonstrated by leadership, will act with clarity, transparency and honesty. 

It’s all about flexibility 

One thing’s for sure: hybrid workforces aren’t going anywhere. In 2020, 81% of more than 4,000 employees surveyed by online job board FlexJobs said they’d be more loyal to their employers if they were offered flexible work options. 

The key word there is “flexible” -- many employees value the ability to work from home, but many others still enjoy the experience of in-person collaboration. It’s the ongoing challenge of every leadership team to find the right balance. 

They would seem a perfect fit: social media and recruitment. After all, social media is all about people, and your organization is probably looking for a few good ones. But many employers don’t know how to start using social media to recruit talent and fill their open positions. Some have plunged in unprepared and found themselves overwhelmed by the amount of work involved and frustrated by the lack of immediate interest.

But the potential benefits of using social media for recruiting are considerable. Let’s face it: Social media may be the easiest place to find anyone these days. Most of us are active daily on at least one platform. And, once you connect with a candidate, you can engage in a two-way conversation. Through this interaction, and by perusing their public posts, you’ll get a much better idea of an individual’s character and personality before the first interview.

What’s more, recruiting on social media is becoming a more widely traveled avenue to hiring. In 2019, marketing research firm Clutch reported that 14% of recent hires found their jobs on social media. A 2020 Harris Poll commissioned by Express Employment Professionals revealed that 71% of hiring decision-makers believed social media is an effective way to screen applicants.

Here are some tips for getting in on this exciting trend without getting burned by unrealistic or unclear expectations.

1. Establish a bona fide presence.
The thing about social media is you can’t fake it. Most people — particularly Millennials and Gen Z — have been online long enough to intuitively detect a contrived or “preconstructed” social media account full of autogenerated posts.
If you’re serious about using social media for recruiting, you need to first find your voice on one or more platforms and show that you’re a real entity with actual humans sharing authentic thoughts and expertise. For organizations that haven’t done much online other than maintain a website, this could mean doing very little in the way of recruiting for a while as you amass a history of posts, establish a brand identity and, hopefully, build a loyal following.

2. Get employees involved.
​Having more than one social media account associated with your brand can help nurture credibility, assuming the tone and messaging are consistent. When your staff members are online, posting as excited employees of a vibrant organization, outsiders are likely to take notice — and some of them may even want to join up!
That said, this is a tricky area. Employees need to somehow demonstrate their individuality while staying as consistent as possible with your organization’s communications and remaining compliant with a stated social media policy. That last part is worth emphasizing: If you’re going to have staffers posting on your behalf, be sure you’ve laid out guidelines and provided some training about what’s OK and what’s not.

3. Devise a SMART strategy.
When business owners engage in strategic planning, one approach we suggest our clients consider is to set “SMART” goals. This system has been used with success for many years and the abbreviation stands for:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-Bound

This can be a good way to approach social media recruiting as well. Gather leadership and perhaps some particularly knowledgeable employees. Identify what you want to accomplish and how you might realistically get there within a reasonable time frame.

For example, say you have 10 open positions. You could set a goal of filling two of them (20%) by recruiting candidates on social media over, say, six months. Track your progress and hold update meetings to discuss what’s working and what isn’t.

At the end of the time frame, review whether you achieved your goals. If you did, talk about how you can build on that success. If you didn’t, brainstorm what impeded you and how to adjust your strategy going forward.

4. Share good content.
Along with not faking it on social media, you also need to “give as good as you get.” In other words, organizations can’t look at social media as a giant job board from which they pluck candidates and do little else. To gain attention, build credibility and get those all-important “likes,” employers need to share good content. This might include:

• News related to your mission or industry
• Fun photos or videos showing happy employees in action
• Links to well-written articles or blog posts demonstrating your expertise

Among the chief reasons to dedicate the time and resources to creating strong content is to draw the attention of passive candidates. These are people who aren’t actively looking for a job but who could be swayed to apply with an organization that really appeals to them. A collection of hiring statistics posted by LinkedIn Talent Solutions in 2015 stated that "70% of the global workforce is made up of passive talent who aren’t actively job searching."

To maximize the effectiveness of your content, you’ll need to use hashtags and niche networks to channel it toward those most interested. You’re probably familiar with the concept of a hashtag, but you might find it challenging to pick just the right ones without getting lost in the noise of social media. It takes some practice.

Niche networks are smaller social media platforms that cater to specific interests or professional backgrounds. For instance, Behance is a place for graphic designers to connect and share their work, while Stack Overflow is for coders.

Embrace the possibilities.
Employers were handed a historic challenge in 2021 with the "Great Resignation" — a marked trend of employees voluntarily leaving their jobs in reaction to the tumultuous changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic and other developments. If your organization is looking for talent, social media may represent an overlooked and underutilized way to find who you’re looking for.

Being a leader is relatively easy when everyone gets along. But when the going gets tough, and conflicts arise and escalate, leadership becomes exponentially more difficult.

Now, in and of itself, conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some might say it's essential to solving complex problems and accomplishing innovative breakthroughs. However, sometimes disagreements devolve into counterproductive relationships and even potentially dangerous confrontations.

In these instances, leaders need to know how to recognize conflict, react appropriately and resolve the situation in the best interests of their respective organizations.

A Popular Model From Myers-Briggs
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The first thing every leader should know about conflict resolution is that it’s a skill set that even highly introverted individuals can learn. Among the most popular frameworks for doing so is the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, currently marketed by Myers-Briggs. Study conflict resolution for any amount of time and you’ll likely encounter this model or something like it.

Many people assume that “conflict resolution” is a coded term for “compromise.” However, the TKCMI presents users with five strategies that range in intensity from unassertive to assertive and uncooperative to cooperative. As these words imply, there are situations in which a leader needs to put his or her foot down, so to speak, and others in which a less assertive approach is more appropriate. The five strategies are:

1. Forcing. This is the most assertive and least cooperative of approaches. Here, a leader uses his or her recognized authority to resolve a conflict without trying to satisfy the other party’s concerns (or either party’s if you’re tackling a dispute between two employees). A better name for this strategy may be “enforcing,” because you’re essentially enforcing stated organizational policies or rules — or even the law itself.

2. Collaborating. In this situation, a leader may be somewhat assertive but also greatly cooperative with the party or parties involved. You’re seeking to understand the concerns driving the conflict and find a solution that fully (or mostly) satisfies everyone.

3. Compromising. This strategy sits squarely in the middle of the TKCMI model. A leader seeking to find a compromise exercises moderate assertiveness and cooperation. The goal is to identify a solution that, as compromises aim to do, partly satisfies both sides of a disagreement.

4. Accommodating. In some instances, a leader must step carefully, minimize assertiveness and aim to satisfy one party’s concerns almost entirely. This is the most cooperative and least assertive strategy.

5. Avoiding. “Conflict avoidant” is a label many people apply to themselves, but it’s also a strategy to consider in very limited instances — such as when two employees are better off working out a disagreement on their own. Here, a leader is the least assertive and most uncooperative — basically ignoring an ongoing conflict and doing nothing to resolve it.

The Three R’s
With the TKCMI model (or something else like it) in mind, leaders can work on developing and refining their skill sets in conflict resolution. To help further simplify often complex situations, focus on the three R’s:

Recognize. Some leaders thrive on conflict to the point where they don’t even realize they’re creating it. Others avoid conflict so much that they work in a bubble and think everything is fine.
A good leader recognizes conflict and decides quickly whether it’s productive or potentially counterproductive. If the disagreement falls into the latter category, the leader then immediately decides which of the five strategies above (or perhaps others) fit the situation.

React. How a leader reacts to conflict can make all the difference. Procrastination generally isn’t a good thing. The longer a counterproductive conflict festers, the more likely it is to hurt productivity, quality and potentially even to escalate to a litigious or dangerous situation.

Leaders should:
​
• Listen actively
• Ask reasonable, appropriate questions and
• Show empathy, acknowledging everyone’s feelings and valid points.

Resolve. This would be the most important part of conflict resolution, of course. Yet finding a solution to a conflict is usually the most difficult aspect of the undertaking. Leaders should be prepared to exercise patience and provide themselves with the time and privacy needed to find the right answer.

When an employee demands an answer, or two employees are verbally sparring, leaders can face immense pressure to solve the problem right then and there. However, unless the matter is relatively simple (that is, a policy or rule clearly applies), a leader should reserve the right to hear the case and set forth a judgment later. There may be instances when the HR department or an attorney needs to get involved as well.

Rising Morale
As holds true for any skill set, the optimal first step in developing it is training. Many leaders are never trained in formal conflict resolution measures, so they never develop the proper skills. Or they develop their own methods over time — sometimes this works out well, sometimes not so well.
The good news is it’s never too late. If your organization hasn’t addressed the topic, you could arrange for an intensive seminar or a series of training courses to cover some of the major concepts associated with conflict resolution. Once your leaders know how to recognize and handle potentially destructive disputes, their confidence will rise and so should your organization’s morale, trust and productivity.

​How to Pick a PTO Policy that Works for Your People and Your Organization was originally published on Forbes.com

Everyone loves to take paid time off, but many employers struggle with the optimal way to provide it. Decades ago, PTO policies were relatively simple, but they’ve grown in complexity over the years as work-life balance has become a more prominent and widely accepted concept.
Most recently, during the Covid-19 pandemic, PTO has found itself in an even stronger spotlight as employees working remotely have been hesitant to take time off because, well, they’re already home. And many have felt a need to work harder as they’ve seen so many coworkers laid off or furloughed.

The truth is, picking the right PTO policy for your organization is very important. Although salary and benefits remain the twin pillars of competitive hiring, supporting perks such as flexible scheduling and time off remain critical components as well. Plus, as the pandemic has made abundantly clear, current employees need to regularly take days off to care for their own mental health and overall well-being.

Four Varieties

Generally, there are four broad types of PTO in use by most employers today:

1. Traditional. This is the PTO model that so many people encounter when entering the workforce. It gives you separate PTO allotments for vacation, sick and personal time. Typically, those allotments will increase as an employee gains service time.
2. Earned. Some employers don’t offer any PTO until an employee reaches a certain number of hours or days worked. Others provide only a bare minimum in case of an emergency. In any case, the idea is to incentivize new hires to stick with the organization — though earned PTO can be a tough sell for a job candidate who’s accustomed to having plenty of time off available.
3. Flexible. In recent years, this approach has gained popularity. It provides employees with a “bank” of PTO days from which they’re free to draw on as necessary. A flexible PTO model doesn’t distinguish between vacation and sick time. In a sense, it’s all personal time. One distinct advantage of this approach for employers (and employees, for that matter) is it’s easy to track.
4. Unlimited. This is the latest PTO “craze,” so to speak. True to its name, an unlimited PTO policy allows employees to take off as much time as they want or need without a manager’s approval. Obviously, employers will need to have faith in their employees to use unlimited PTO in a reasonable and responsible matter. (I’ll discuss this approach in greater depth below.)

Recent Developments
Overall, employers’ collective approach to PTO appears to be evolving toward flexibility. Although many organizations still stick to the tried-and-true traditional approach, the flexible model is gaining ground.
In May 2020, HR solutions provider XpertHR published the results of a survey (registration required) of employers in the United States. Out of the 457 responding organizations, 44% used the flexible model for PTO, while 48% relied on the traditional model. So, at least in light of this study, employers may be heading toward a 50-50 split when it comes to traditional vs. flexible PTO. And it would be unsurprising if flexible started to win out in years ahead.

Focus On Unlimited
The other 2% of respondents in the XpertHR survey reported using “other” types of PTO plans, including the earned and unlimited models. The latter approach, as mentioned, is considered a growing trend. Unlimited PTO speaks to the new world of remote workers controlling their own schedules and integrating time away from work on a more regular basis rather than the “two weeks of summer vacation” that so many professionals would customarily take in decades past.
However, converting from the traditional, earned or flexible PTO models to unlimited isn’t a simple matter. For starters, many employers who consider doing so often realize that they have employees with substantial amounts of unused PTO. Workers may expect cash payouts for this time if it’s going to “disappear” under an unlimited PTO approach, but that may not be financially feasible for the organization.

To cope with this, many employers continue to track each employee’s PTO until it's used up then convert the worker to unlimited PTO. The good news is, once all employees are working under the unlimited PTO approach, the administrative burden of reporting and tracking PTO, as well as paying it out if a worker leaves the organization, completely disappears.

And the bad news? Some employers have found that employees take less time off under an unlimited PTO policy because there’s no “use it or lose it” incentive to expend their allotment of days off. Plus, many workers are worried about appearing to abuse the privilege of unlimited PTO. Other employees may be only too happy to max out their use of the policy, which can lead to employment conflicts.

Careful Consideration
One could argue that employers are well within their rights to take an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to PTO. If the model you’ve been following is working for your organization from a hiring and retention standpoint, as well as for employees from work-life balance and wellness perspectives, that’s great.
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However, like so many other aspects of working, the expectations of top job candidates and valued employees do change over time. If you believe an adjustment, if not a complete transformation, of your PTO policy may lead to long-term benefits for your organization, give that change the due diligence and careful consideration it deserves.