2021: The Year of "I Quit"
According to a recent survey and featured in an article in Forbes, 2021 is going to be the year of decreased company loyalty and the employee break-up.
After surviving 2020, a lot of companies believe that their employees are just grateful to have a job. While it might be true, that those who did not experience layoffs or furloughs are thankful to have not gone through that—what we are hearing from employees is a completely different tune.
2021 is going to be the year of turnover. People went through hell and back during 2020 and many are struggling to stay positive. They understood we were all just trying to figure things out and survive last year, but now they are looking to their companies to see how they are going to intentionally fix the disengagement, increase resources & support, and redesign culture & the employee experience in a post-covid world.
About this time, people are wrapping up Q1, performance reviews, and finally solidifying their goals.
Now is when we get going. But before you push down on the gas pedal, you need to know some important data around the hot topic: retention & employee engagement.
According to a recent survey and featured in an article in Forbes, 2021 is going to be the year of decreased company loyalty and the employee break-up.
After surviving 2020, a lot of companies believe that their employees are just grateful to have a job. While it might be true, that those who did not experience layoffs or furloughs, are thankful to have not gone through that—what we are hearing from employees is a completely different tune.
“I’ve never felt more disconnected from my team”
“I am extremely burnt out and don’t know how much more I can take”
“I am at the point of just quitting”
“Something has to change”
“I’m just waiting to see if anything changes, get my bonus, and then I’m out”
“I’m just keeping my head down and doing my work, but I’m already looking for something else”
I can guarantee you, 2021 is going to be the year of turnover. People went through hell and back during 2020 and many are struggling to stay positive. They understood we were all just trying to figure things out and survive last year, but now they are looking to their companies to see how they are going to intentionally fix the disengagement, increase resources & support, and redesign culture & the employee experience in a post-covid world.
If this is not on the company’s agenda, they are going to find themselves with an expensive problem, regrettable turnover:
Backfilling their best employees
Training new colleagues
The cost of new employees ramping to full productivity
On average, it takes a new employee 8 months to reach full productivity. This means, you will spend the majority of 2021 hiring and training new colleagues it you don’t make the investment in keeping your most valuable asset: your people.
Here are some best practices that are shaping the future of being a best place to work:
Embrace remote and flexible work: People are looking for options and if you are not talking about changing your previous expectations of being in an office 5 days a week, then I can promise you, most of your people are looking for a new job. Even with a vaccine and offices reopening things are not going back to pre-covid days. There are those with health issues or other reasons that they don’t feel comfortable coming back to an office or getting the vaccine. Their kid’s schooling may have changed or need to care for family members, the list goes on. One of the top priorities for people right now is the ability to have flexible work options. Flexibility of when to come to an office, able to work from a different location, or being able to work different hours than 9-5. Companies that can explore ways to do this efficiently and keep engagement high, will be the places people are begging to work for. If not, you can be sure that you will lose a significant portion of your workforce over the next year.
Find ways to cut down on meetings: People are tired of zoom and meeting after meeting. Look to implement tools and software that allows people to get glimpses into the work being done without having to go to another meeting. There are amazing tools out there like Slack, monday.com, Asana, and lots more. Look for ways to streamline and drive connection without needing to be on video all day.
Create ways for people to connect and engage that are meaningful: People miss the human connection. So find ways to create fun during the day and as you begin to open up, do it with the human approach before work productivity. Encourage colleagues in the same town to do socially distanced lunches, if they are comfortable. Host small gatherings or small group working sessions that can be socially distanced and make sure fun and connection is included. Host happy hours, that people can join virtually but with no other agenda but fun and getting to know each other.
Prioritize development: One of the best ways to keep employees is to show them they have a future there and a way to grow with the company. Many coaching clients have come to us saying they are wanting to look for a new job because their company doesn’t seem to have ways for them to get promoted any time soon and they feel they have reached their ceiling. Take the time to create truly transformational leadership development and career pathing programs, that show people you are serious about keeping them and making them part of the company’s future.
The future of work is shifting at the speed of light, but one thing is for certain, it doesn’t look like going back to pre-covid workplace culture.
The future of workplace culture is exciting and probably has the ability to be more authentic than ever before, but we have to be willing to leave our previous ideas behind and create something new.
If you need help on how you can practically implement any of these best practices, reach out.
Here at Brave Leaders Group, we have been helping fully remote and dispersed workforces design brave cultures & build engaged, high-performing teams for the last 6 years. We understand the unique challenges and create customized solutions for companies that are serious about growth and having strong cultures.
We’d love to learn more and help you design a place where people love to work and thrive.
The Myths about Purpose
In leadership, one of the most common complaints I’m asked about is burnout:
How to avoid burnout | What do you do to fix burnout | What are the signs of burnout...
It’s a hot topic because it is so common. I often think of burnout like cancer for your work. It starts in one area, and over time it slowly starts to creep into every area of your work:
Your projects
Your co-workers
Your relationship with your boss
Your energy levels
Your ideas and problem solving
Your focus & motivation
Eventually, it’s taken over. Most people think they can manage it while they figure out how to make a change. Quickly, and almost silently, it starts to creep into their personal life. Before you know it, you’re unhappy at work and taking it out on your friends and family, and start looking for things to numb the unhappiness. This is where the signs of a mid-life crisis or full-blown breakdown start to show up
Lots of people speculate over what causes burnout, but over the last three years, I have been researching and studying burnout. Through my interviews and research, what I have come to find is that the leading cause of burnout is disconnection from purpose.
An independent research & consultancy firm has been performing research for over 60 years through conducting assessments in the area of motivation and unique work style. What they found is that when you are working outside of your inborn personal traits around your motivation style- the individual can only adequately perform for about 6 months before their performance drops or they burnout. So much of our motivation is tied to our ability to work connected to our purpose, so it is no surprise that disconnection from purpose accelerates and causes burnout.
We are not made to live outside of our purpose or out of alignment with our strengths, values, and motivation. These my friends are what causes us to be unfulfilled in our work, our health to deteriorate, and our relationships to suffer.
Knowing and being connected to our purpose is essential for high performance, self-motivation, thriving relationships, and overall success.
If you read that and are discouraged because you don’t feel like you have any idea what your purpose is, don’t be. A few myths around the idea of purpose that we have to address:
Purpose = knowing what career or job you're supposed to be in. Purpose is not about a particular job or career. It has nothing to do with that. It’s about how you live your life, how you show up to others, and the choices you make. You can actually be living out your purpose in almost any career- as long as you are rooted in your purpose.
You can’t live your purpose until you quit your job and pursue your passion. Sometimes living your purpose looks like making a career change, but not always and it definitely doesn’t require you to. This is the main thing that holds people back from living fully in their purpose. They live in this place of “one day”. Until I (you fill in the blank), I’ll just be waiting to finally, one day, get to walk out my purpose. This is a lie. Purpose is deeply etched inside who you are and how you decide you are going to live your life, and you can start living from that place today- without anything in your present circumstance changing. In fact, doing this often helps the places that are out of alignment with your purpose start to shift and you start to see change happen naturally, without forcing anything.
Purpose = passion. Passions are things you enjoy doing or spending your time on. Purpose is about your identity and intentionality. How you show up to the things you are passionate about is your purpose.
Purpose is about making my dreams come true. Your dreams coming true is not your purpose. Dreams are wonderful and we have forgotten the art and practice of dreaming big, but your purpose is not wrapped up in your dream (or past dreams). Purpose is the combination of an internal posture with outward service.
When leading from purpose, that last point is essential. Purpose is grounded in service. Yes, it is great to have dreams and goals you're going after, but your purpose is more about the areas you serve others in.
Purpose-driven leaders are servant leaders. What does this practically look like:
They look for ways to serve their teams and customers. How can they make their lives better? How can they improve their work or life?
They listen to understand and then meet them where they are
They help raise the bar in other's lives and then help to bridge the gap for each person to reach higher and go further
They sacrifice their own comfort for the betterment of their team
They make room for others at the table and give those below them opportunity to shine
They are committed to helping others grow. They promote publicly and correct graciously
It’s vital that we shift our thinking on what purpose is. When I first start working with leaders, their purpose is often self-serving but in doing the work, what they find is that in reality purpose is mostly others-focused.
The internal aspect of purpose is about intentionality, how we see ourselves, and how we commit to living outwardly. From there, purpose is lived through an outward expression to others and to the great things we find ourselves a part of.
It’s time to commit today to lead from purpose.
How purpose-driven is your leadership? Choose 1 or 2 areas you will commit to working on to reconnect your purpose to your leadership and your personal life.
Need help discovering your purpose? Go here to schedule a call to learn more about how you can discover your purpose and start living & leading from it in every area of your life.
What is Courageous Leadership
This is culture, and now with so much of the world working virtually, we’re realizing it. So many of the companies that depended on their casual Fridays, ping pong tables, and free snacks are discovering that they didn’t do the real culture work and their employee’s have taken off their rose colored glasses and don’t like what they see.
This is why leadership is crucial. Each one of these things are dependent on the leader to create the atmosphere for them and ensure they are upheld.
What is courageous leadership?
This week in the United States, we hosted our first Presidential debate. For those who don’t pay attention to the media, I will just tell you that the majority of analyst and the American people agreed that no one won that debate—it was the equivalent of two 3-year olds fighting over a swing-set. I watched in disbelief that these were our candidates. These two men are the ones that the American people are going to have to choose from to lead the country. Both of these men felt that how they behaved is appropriate for someone in leadership. My, how our standards of leadership have fallen.
Someone messaged me and asked what brave culture and courageous leadership look like. “How does that show up in the workplace and how do you create it?”
There is a lot to unpack in those questions. Which is why it’s so rare to find. There is so much surface level aspects to leading that we typically focus on, that are useful skills but don’t require you to truly dig deep into what it takes to lead with courage.
In order to have brave culture, you have to have brave, courageous leaders. That’s because leaders are the largest contributing factor to culture. You can’t have great culture with terrible leaders—you just end up with good perks and benefits.
Culture is:
how people feel when they walk into the office
how open they feel to speak up in a meeting
who has a seat at the table
if inclusion is actually a reality in the teams or just a good slogan
how safe it is to bring your whole-self to work
how values are lived, expressed, and used in decision making
This is culture, and now with so much of the world working virtually, we’re realizing it. So many of the companies that depended on their casual Fridays, ping pong tables, and free snacks are discovering that they didn’t do the real culture work and their employee’s have taken off their rose colored glasses and don’t like what they see.
This is why leadership is crucial. Each one of these things are dependent on the leader to create the atmosphere for them and ensure they are upheld.
I’ve looked a lot at leadership and I’ve found it’s not how you lead when things are good, when you’re inspired and motivated, or when things are growing and energized that matters. It is
When our opinions and ways of doing things are challenged
When we are frustrated or our buttons are pushed
When our resources are cut
When you have a choice of taking the easy way out or doing what’s inconvenient for you
When you have to choose between yourself, your own comfort, and your own way—or sacrificing it for those you lead
This is when your leadership is actually put to the test and you find out if you are truly leading or merely managing with influence.
I read an article in the midst of quarantine and it said that lots of companies were finding that their leaders were using Covid as an excuse to cut people they had issues working with (aka “low hanging fruit”) but couldn’t make a case for previously. I was appalled. What an example of how watered down and superficial our current leadership programs must be if these were the leaders we were creating—ones that would cause undue harm, at the worst possible time, just to make their jobs easier rather then doing the work of leading and developing those they lead. This is not leadership and it shows just how much we have stripped the humanity away from our culture.
There is not a simple step-by-step answer on how to create brave cultures, but I can tell you it starts with creating brave, courageous leaders.
How do we do this? You start with yourself. You must do the internal work to understand your own triggers, your breaking points, your limitations, where your selfishness kicks in, your insecurities, your fears, and learn how to dive into those places and do the internal work so that you can lead others well, even when the going gets tough and you’re in your low points.
Leadership is hard. You will have people you don’t like, and who might not like you, that you will have to lead. You will have people challenge you. You will be put in circumstances that will require you to choose between tremendous sacrifice, patience, and dying-to-self or choosing to make yourself more comfortable and your job easier.
You can’t have both. You can’t be self-serving and be a leader, they are fundamentally opposed to one another. Leadership, true leadership, is a life-long act of guiding while serving others above yourself.