Company Culture and the Great Resignation
Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash
Through this pandemic, most of us have re-evaluated our relationship to work, whether it’s through remote work, struggling with unemployment or keeping a business afloat, or serving others as an essential worker. Now in the middle of 2021, millions of people are quitting their current job in this post-pandemic workplace. Leaders are trying to figure out how to fight the attrition and also to take advantage of the surge in job seekers. It’s no longer business as usual, and it’s now time to look at ways to shift company culture to fundamentally value the people who work there. Leaders, use the three Rs of Relationships, Recognition, and Revision to build strong company processes and systems for long-term employee fulfillment.
Relationships not Transactional Leadership
In the day to day of work, it’s easy to get caught up in transactional leadership. Corporations have quarterly goals to meet which get translated down to team goals and personal OKRs. We have launch dates, deadlines, and leadership presentations to march towards. The best leaders are able to balance both this transactional leadership of accomplishing goals as well as slow down for the relationships which are key to achieving these outcomes.
As we rise in our careers from doing hands-on work to managing teams and running companies, the performance of tasks and projects matters less than building relationships. People are drawn to both company cultures and leaders that create time for relationship rituals. Consider experimenting with some of these:
Take the first 5–10 minutes of each 1–1 meeting to connect with the other person as a human. You could ask about their weekend, their children, or simply what’s going on in their lives right now. Should this be unfamiliar or new in this relationship, you can be the one to share first. Be vulnerable and offer up insights into what’s happening with you.
In team meetings or company all-hands, build in relationship rituals such as shout-outs for team members, celebrations of success or mistakes, and highlights of individual stories.
Figure out which relationships are most key at work and intentionally build in structures to nurture them. Regular 1–1s, whether it’s weekly, monthly, or quarterly is a good place to start.
Recognition: What We Want Evolves
Traditionally, companies have looked at compensation and promotion as the primary way to recognize employees. Yet as I’ve found when supporting clients to negotiate for money and more, the changes of the last two years has many of us rethinking what we value.
Yes, companies should always have a fair system for performance reviews and monetary recognition. Yet even with those recognition mechanisms in place, people are still leaving. Increasingly, companies are recognizing how difficult the past year has been to many employees and are offering recognition that people need space and flexibility. Some examples I’ve seen include:
Some companies that offer unlimited PTO are enforcing the spirit of “unlimited” while also requiring that employees take 2-weeks of mandatory vacation
Leaders are modeling this behavior by taking their own vacations or midweek breaks and trusting their team to handle delegated tasks
Companies are offering choice for all types of work needs—people who never want to return to a physical office and people who can’t wait to leave their cramped work-spaces in a shared home
Company culture needs to evolve and expand the definition of recognition. That’s how they’ll meet the post-pandemic needs of more employees.
Revision: Always be Experimenting and Stay Open
Vision is the ability to think and plan for the future with creativity and innovation. Revision is being willing to adapt to unexpected changes with a fresh perspective. Leaders are dealing with unprecedented changes in ambiguous times. Some lean towards radical transparency, sharing every detail of the business with employees. Others are more measured and share on a need-to-know basis. To address the Great Resignation, there may not be one correct answer. Employees want transparency, yet leaders must continue to experiment with how much is healthy and how much is too much.
Bottom-Line
In the middle of this Great Resignation, leaders now have the perfect opportunity to make changes to best serve their people. Company processes and systems can be adapted to help retain and attract the best people using the three Rs of Relationships, Recognition, and Revisioning.