Turning The Great Resignation into The Great Revival

Turning The Great Resignation into The Great Revival

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Hi everyone and welcome to today’s webinar Turning the Great Resignation into the Great Revival hosted by HRDQ-U and presented by Kevin Eikenberry.

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My name is Sarah, and I will moderate today’s webinar, the webinar will last around one hour. If you have any questions, please type them into the question area on your GoToWebinar control panel, and we’ll answer as many as we can during today’s session.

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Today’s webinar is sponsored by the HRDQ, What’s my Communication Style Online Assessment and Training Course. Dramatically improve communication skills of your employees through a better understanding of personal style, and the effect on others. What’s my communication style assessment is just 20 minutes to an aha moment.

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Learners engage in a proven process that identifies their dominant communication style and the communication behaviors that distinguish it, then it to teach, it teaches them how to flex their style with colleagues for optimal communication.

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Learn more at hrdqstore.com/wmcs, where you can take a free test drive of the online assessments. Today’s presenter is Kevin Eikenberry, Kevin is a recognized world expert on leadership development and learning, and as the chief potential officer of the Kevin Eikenberry Group.

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He has spent over 30 years helping organizations across North America and leaders from over 40 countries on leadership, learning, teams, and teamwork, communication, and more twice, he has been named by inc.com as one of the Top 100 leadership and management experts in the world and has been included in many other similar lists.

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Kevin, is the author or co-author or contributing author to nearly 20 books, including Remarkable Leadership, The Long Distance Leader, and the long distance teammate, both with Wayne Turmel.

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Thank you for joining us today, Kevin.

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Sarah, it’s my pleasure to be back with you again. I don’t know how many of these we’ve done. It’s quite a few.

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And I’m glad to be back and I’m glad to be with all of you live from Indianapolis of all of the things that Sarah just said about me. There’s one thing more important than all of the rest.

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And that is that bullet, third from the bottom, that I’ve been leading a team, A hybrid team form over a decade. And so, I think it’s important to recognize that.

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What I’m going to bring to you today is going to be very practical. And in many ways, I’m coming at this from the same place.

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You are trying to figure out how we make sure that we’re leading our teams successfully, getting the great results that we want, and keeping, retaining and attracting the talent that we want and need as well.

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So, here’s what I can tell you.

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There’s some things that we know noises here that I don’t know what they are.

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There are some things that we know about what might be bringing you here.

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And I’m guessing you’re here because you’re trying to figure out all of this stuff about the great resignation. You’re trying to figure out how we can get and keep the talent that we want and need. And so let me just dive right in and say, here’s the reasons that we created this.

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We created this session in conjunction with HRDQ-U, because we know that organizations are experiencing this phenomenon these phenomena.

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They are having talent turnover there, finding challenges in finding talent, they are having uncertainties and dealing with all of it.

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And the fact is that all of that’s true and I have a noise and I don’t know what it is, everybody.

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And, sorry, while I solved that problem, whatever it was, uncertainties in the way we work.

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And the way work is done is all right here. Right?

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So, the reality is that we’re dealing with a new level of resignation. We’re dealing with the need to find and perhaps, replace talent that we lost or have left us over the last couple of years.

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And we’ve got all of this uncertainty about the future of work, and we need solutions for all of it.

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Right?

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And so, what we know is that, if we want solutions, we gotta think about how we’re gonna get there and the way we’re gonna get there. We’re going to think about what are the causes of all of this and helping you think about the causes of this great resignation in a new light.

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We want to give you, help you create some new internal conversations in your organization, because chances are, you’re here thinking about your larger organization.

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You may be here as an individual leader, but chances are, you’re here thinking about this from an organizational perspective. So we’re gonna give you some ideas that you can use to have the conversations inside of your organization. And we want to leverage what people are looking for and how to provide that to them in your organization.

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Because if the idea I’m going to share with you today is about, how do we become a talent magnet?

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So we get to know what people are, what will attract people, so we can make that attraction happen. And we’re going to assess your culture, to retain and attract the best talent.

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And really turn this thing that people are calling the great resignation, into a great revival for your organization.

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Because if we can, if we can put the right people in our teams, then we have a chance to create something new and better than we’ve ever done before. And that’s what we really all want, is great. Great results. So, so why does all this matter? Well, if we get the right talent, then we have a better chance! Right?

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And if we get teams that are successful in this future of work, then and if we can create a thriving culture, we will get high retention and the results that we want.

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So that’s really what we’re after. That’s why we’re here.

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That’s what we’re trying to accomplish is what I want to help you with for the next hour or so.

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And, you know, when, when you look back at the last two years, I have been telling people that it’s, like, then, that we’re looking at the world in fast for. We’ll put it in the future. And fast-forward.

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You know, when you when you hit that, the DVR button on your TV, and it does all this stuff of fast forwarding, we were already moving toward a more flexible workplace. We were already moving toward people working from different locations. We were already moving in that direction, slowly.

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But the last two years, literally, as of today, two years, we pushed the fast-forward button and we’ve moved everything quickly. What do I mean by all that? Well let’s recap the last two years. We had a global pandemic.

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You know that and so that gave us an immediate change to the working environment, right. And even if you have folks who didn’t leave because of the nature of their work in a factory or warehouse, a hospital or a restaurant, but it’s still changed the working environment and the expectations that people have about work, right. And so, there were drastic changes to the business circumstances.

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Without question, right? And so, and all through that there was this ongoing expectation of a return to normal. You remember how that was?

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We had one client, in March of 2020 that said, hey, well, we’re gonna send everybody home for two weeks, we’ll see in two weeks.

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Memorial Day, that was the fourth of July and then it was just started school, and then it was Halloween.

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And then it was 2021, and we kept doing that, and we’re still, in some ways, kinda waiting, right?

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And in the meantime, here’s what’s happened. There’s been exhaustion and anxiety and uncertainty. There’s been a heightened awareness of mental health challenges. There’s been additional isolation and disconnection that people are experiencing. And we’re all having this new experience about how we do work.

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And maybe most importantly, we have these new expectations about how we could work, and maybe many people want to do work.

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It’s all creating new challenges.

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So, this is what we’ve all lived. We know that, but all of that relates to where we’re headed because it’s all of those things that helps to create this thing that we’re living in in our webinar titled Calls It The Great Resignation. So, what are we experiencing? Well, again, some are calling it the Great Resignation, Senator calling it a great reshuffle.

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I’ve heard it called the great re prioritization and the great relocation and the Great realization, and the Great re-assessment and the great reflection.

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Call it all those things.

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What we call, it maybe doesn’t matter, in a way, but if you look at all of these things, they fall into two big chunks, right? And the first two are the ones we think about from the organizational perspective. People are resigning, and people are reshuffling.

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But all of the rest of the list is really about what’s going on inside of people’s heads, right? Are they’re prioritizing?

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Do they want to relocate?

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Are they reflecting? My point to this?

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Is that whatever we call the phenomenon, and the data that I’ll show you in the next slide says, it’s real.

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That some of the things feel like they’re more organizationally focused.

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But the larger number of these things in terms of what it’s being called are all about what might be causing it from the individual’s perspective. And that’s gonna be important for us to think about as we go, that, here’s what the data says in the US, and I know that’s where most of us here are from.

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The reality is just look at the blue line. That’s the line. The blue bar, that’s the one that matters the most. That’s people quitting!

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Right? And if you look at that since 20 11 up through November of this past year and there’s probably December data now but you can see that it’s an all-time high and the number has continued to grow. People will continue to quit that now we had a little drop right at the start of the pandemic because I’m not going to quit.

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I’m gonna hang out here for a while.

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But it’s continued to grow, people making the choice, to leave one job, perhaps to look or another. And so it’s not just something we’re feeling, it’s something that’s real. Here’s what the US data tells us.

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And so is it really a great resignation? Or is it an opportunity? Is it an inflection point for us where we, as organizations, can create?

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The great revival? I believe that if we do the kinds of things that we’re going to talk about today that you can create. A great revival from this because here’s the big point. The big point is that this is a moment that matters.

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Now in my professional life, at my age and you can see by the gray hair, I’ve been doing this for a day or two.

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I believe this is one of the three biggest moments where work has fundamentally changed in my working lifetime. We had the, the introduction of the PC in the workplace.

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We had the introduction of the Internet, both in the workplace and in the world, and, and now we have this, this change in where and how we work.

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And I believe all of them have had a fundamental created fundamental changes in the way work is done.

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I think it’s pretty obvious to see.

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And two of them are passed and we can look back at them, and one of them were living in the moment. But the other thing is, I believe this is the biggest impact of all three have the longest impact of all three and happened in the shortest period of time.

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So it’s, so, if we’re experiencing frustration and anxiety, and if that’s causing people to feel this are teams to feel the same way, and might be one of the causes for some of this job movement. This is a moment that matters.

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And if we can figure out how to get this right, or get better at it, then we get a chance to be successful, both now and far into the future.

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All right.

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So, in our book, the Long Distance Leader, we introduced a model that we call the three O Model of leadership. And it’s pretty simple, but I believe, is profoundly simple. And what it says is, this is that leadership is about the …

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outcomes, others, and ourselves, that, as leaders, we are responsible for reaching valuable outcomes, Right, goals, targets, objectives, et cetera. That’s our job as a leader to reach those valuable outcomes doing it, not alone, but with and through other people, our teams are people.

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So leadership is reaching valuable outcomes with them through others and Who we are plays a big role in that.

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right, and how we respond, and how we lead helps make the other two Os happen. Well, I believe that this picture helps us understand what’s going on in our world right now.

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And here’s what I mean, that right now, as we look at all of the conversation in the Business Press, and all of the conversations we’re having in our organizations, we’re saying, we’ve gotta get the work done.

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And we got our people all wanting something that they never wanted before. And, and we’d really, some people would really like to bring everybody back in the office, so we can keep getting good business results.

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And other, and the team is saying, but we got good business results.

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When we, we’re working from home, and we want to keep working from home. And so there’s this tension between the two.

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That matters a lot, and we have to be thinking about that tension.

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And in fact, a lot of the frustration that we’re experiencing right now is related to the tension, or finding the right balance between outcomes and others, That’s a big part of our job right now.

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So if we’re having a great resignation, it’s in part people looking at this tension and seeing how it impacts them.

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So if we’re trying to move from a resignation, to a revival, we’ve got to understand the causes, We’ve got to understand our people, specifically, not just the overarching stuff, but what’s going on with our folks? Both in terms of what they want and need? And then we want to focus on becoming a talent magnet, I mentioned that earlier. A lot of people are calling up saying, we’re in a war for talent, I think that’s the wrong metaphor that the right metaphor isn’t to be out there.

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Battling to how to own something.

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Or to achieve something or to, know, that’s sort of a model. And we’re sort of seeing that in our world right now, right? That’s, I think, the wrong metaphor.

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The right metaphor is how do we attract the talent.

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And if we are a magnet, we’re keeping the talent we’ve got, and bringing others towards us. And I believe that that’s what we want to do, and if we want to create a great revival, that’s what we need to do.

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So, now, it’s time to get specific.

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Let’s start by understanding the causes.

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Well, as I said, we’ve put the future of work on fast-forward for two years, so there’s a new construct for work in life.

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People are thinking about work differently now than they ever did before.

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And even people who are working in a face-to-face, a real-time situation or warehouse, in a factory, et cetera, they, even if they haven’t had the chance to work from home or have that kind of flexibility, they know people in their lives that have.

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And, so, how the world thinks about work and where and how we work is changing. And it’s changing forever.

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And that’s one of the causes of this, because now people have a new picture of what’s possible.

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In the fall of 2019, the number one requested PERC, for people when they took a job, when they were looking for a job.

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The number one requested perk was I’d like to be able to work from home once in a while.

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Well, has certainly not where we are now, right? Where we are now is in a very different place from that. And so, whether that’s what we want in our business or not, we have to recognize that that’s where people are at.

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So what this is doing, is, it’s, it’s giving people the chance to look at new opportunities to consider new ways and places to work.

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And I will tell you that the other cause of all of this is not societal. It’s not people having a chance to sit back and think about it. It’s not a locked down, so they didn’t have anything else to do, but think about it.

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It’s also an indictment of us, because no, people leave jobs because of bosses.

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And so, if we can do the kinds of things that we’re going to talk about today, and if we can help our leaders and our organizations do the kinds of things we’re thinking about today, we can flip this script, All right? So, we’ve got to understand the causes of what’s brought us to this point.

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People in many cases, are saying, I don’t like the way this business is working.

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I don’t like the way that is. I’m being led.

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I don’t like the culture here.

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And so much of that has, has an impact, is impacted by us as leaders. Right?

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So, we need to understand our people and their needs.

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And so, I would straight up say to you, and I know that many of you are here in HR kinds of roles. And hopefully, you’re doing some of this, and have been, if you’re here as individual leader, I’m hoping you’re having these conversations as well.

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But what are your people telling you about, what they like, and don’t like about where they are? What are they telling you about their worries and concerns? What are they telling you about their stress level?

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What are they telling you about why they’re leaving or staying?

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And yes, maybe I’m talking about stay interviews and exit interviews, but I’m talking about more than that. Like, do we really know where our people are. And what does your turnover tell you?

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All right, why are people staying or leaving?

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And maybe this is the slide that you will leave with as your action item, and say, we need to really understand this better, because we can, we can talk about the popular press, the Business Press, saying, here are the issues, here are the things. But the reality is, we didn’t know what’s going on with our folks.

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In our geographic area, in our, in the nature of the work that people are doing, et cetera.

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So, make sure you’re doing this, OK.

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And then, where we’re headed for the rest of our time is really to focus on these five ideas for becoming a talent magnet.

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And this really becomes the outline for the rest of our time together, right?

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To become a talent magnet as an organization, has to balance outcomes and others, we’ll talk about that in a second. We’re going to talk about engaging our people, creating greater engagement, improving our culture, providing flexibility, and improving leadership skills.

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If we can do these five things, or as we move in the direction of these five things, we have a chance to become a magnet for talent, to keep the great talent we have and to attract the talent that we want and need, right. So, again, this is where we’re going to head for the rest of our time together and let me just say, that if you have questions or comments, be putting them in the question area. Sarah will see them.

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I can see them and we’ll stop and answer them as we go. And Sarah, Sarah will tell me if she says, Hey, Kevin, the minister.

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And I’m happy to answer it as we go.

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And hopefully, we’ll have some time at the end to answer your questions as well, OK. So, let’s talk about each of these five things as strategies for becoming a talent magnet. So, we can we can say yes, there is this resignation going on. But we’re going to use this as an opportunity to revive our business.

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Because, if people are moving around, that means that there’s talent that we could be attracting that can help us reach our business goals.

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So I want us to see this as an opportunity, and then create opportunities in our organizations, because alright, so let’s talk first about balancing outcomes and others. And this is the picture that I was showing you earlier. So let’s talk about these things we need to understand. Then wants and needs of the team. That’s partly what I was talking about before, but what do our folks want and need? They are two different things.

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And.

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People will tell us what they want. It might not be exactly the same as what they need. I’d encourage you to talk about needs first and wants second.

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Find out what others the team members, want and need, and then we need to understand what the wants and needs of the organization are.

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And again, so let me give you an example of wants versus needs. organizationally.

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There are a lot of senior leaders that I’ve talked to in lots of organizations. They’re like, Man, I really want everyone to come back to the office.

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Well, why wouldn’t, why wouldn’t they want that? That’s what’s worked for them. They’ve succeeded and grown in their organization because of that. That’s what they know. It’s not wrong to want that.

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But the question isn’t, whether just whether they want it, or whether they need it to get the results that they need.

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Right. So what are the wants and needs of the organization, or the wants and needs of the folks.

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And too many people right now are saying, well, those are, those are separate.

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And too many leaders are saying, well, I just want them all to come back.

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But they. But if I make them come back, they’ll leave the organization.

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And so it feels like we’re at opposite ends of a spectrum.

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But the reality is, as much as leadership needs to, to address the wants and needs of the team, team members, want to be in an organization where the work matters. And so one of the reasons people are moving is to find more meaningful work.

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So they care about the organization’s needs to the point here is that both of these matter to everybody, alright? What we’re after here is finding a balance, not winners and losers, and if you think about the word balance, it means that it’s always sort of moving, right. There’s not a single spot. There may not be a perfect answer.

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But, in fact, how do we keep adjusting this to find a way to balance the needs and wants of the organization that needs and wants to the folks balancing, getting great outcomes with and through other people?

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It’s at the heart of us leading.

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This is the first of the things, if we can continue to work on this.

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Work with our teams, understand what they want and need, and help do that In the context of getting great business results, organizational results, then we’ve got a real Schott, not only at keeping the talent we got getting the talent we want and need, OK. So, that’s the first of our five points.

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The second one is engaging your people, but I think there’s maybe been a question Commends Sarah and I can’t see at all. I just noticed there’s one there. Is there something that we should, we should talk about before I go on?

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Yeah, we had a comment come through from Lori and Laurie said, the reason most people are leaving us for more money. It’s crazy how much money the companies are paying them.

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I’m going to address that. So, thank you Laurie.

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I’m gonna address that in a few minutes and that’s, that’s more true in some industries than others for sure. And there’s no doubt that if what people are gonna get, you know, and we’ve got clients that are saying, you know, we’ve got, we’ve got people that are offering people, 30, 40% raises.

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Well, there’s no doubt that at some point that that attracts our attention.

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Alright.

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We also have clients that have lost people getting 30% raises that have come back because it wasn’t just about what might they might have left for the money, but when they realized that maybe it wasn’t all of what they wanted.

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Right.

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I guess the reason that I’m aye, I’m not really pushing back. I know it’s true.

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I know that’s the marketplace. But what, and you may be saying, Not, just loria, but all of you may be saying.

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Yeah, but but we can’t just race No, R, payroll. And that way, maybe you can and maybe you can’t. What I’m going to say to you and the rest of this webinar is that it isn’t just about the money.

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Now, maybe some cases where the money is so overwhelming, that that may be a challenge, and we can’t really address that.

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I can’t really address that for you on this webinar, but what I can help you address are a bunch of other factors where you have far more influence than you realize.

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And so, what, while that backed, maybe true, and it’s certainly more true in some industries, in some areas of the country than in others.

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The reality is that there’s a lot of other levers we’ve got to work on, and we’ll continue on as we go. So thanks for that, Sarah and Lori. So the second of the five points is to engage our people.

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Now, this word, and this phrase employee engagement, it’s kinda been around for the last, you know, 15 years or so, and lots of discussion, lots of books written about it.

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Everyone’s talking about how leaders need to be employee engagement is important, and L&D organizations and HR organizations are all focusing on employee engagement, and that’s all well and good to a point, but we need to step back because we’re missing part of the boat, in my opinion.

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So, let’s talk about, first of, all, what engagement actually is, right. The more we use a phrase like that of them, as things become buzzwords, they become buzz words, because they are important concepts, which this absolutely is, but they become buzzwords.

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And they, they get talked about so much, that they almost lose their meaning, like we all nod and agree they’re important. And then we’re like, well, we don’t really know.

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Yeah, we ought to have that.

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What is it, really?

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Well, first of all, it’s more than job satisfaction. Like job satisfaction isn’t enough.

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in order for people to truly be engaged. Lots of people can be satisfied with their job. It’s OK.

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It’s fine.

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And by the way if you are married or have a significant other for serious case if you have a fiancé, if that if that other person in your life it says to you well things it’s fine. It’s fine. Do you know that it’s perfect? Of course, it’s not.

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Of course, it’s not like OK, is not awesome Right, fine is not fantastic, and so engagement is about. it’s OK. Engagement isn’t it’s I’m satisfied.

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It’s all right, and it’s more than a paycheck like if you quit getting a paycheck, you’re going to quit coming to work like I understand you, none of you are the dude in the movie office space that kept coming to work when they quit painting like we all know that if we don’t get a paycheck, We’re going to stopped, but we also know that if you’re only there for the paycheck you’re clearly not engaged.

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It’s not just about the paycheck going back to the point. We were talking about a few minutes ago, right?

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Paychex important, of course, bigger paycheck good for a while. But all the research says that the impact that the bigger paycheck has is short-lived, really. Here’s the point. None of that is engagement.

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Engagement is caring.

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People caring about the work.

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People caring about the purpose of the business.

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People caring about their co-workers and teammates, people caring about who they’re delivering work to, whether it’s inside the organization or outside the organization.

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And when people care, they’re engaged.

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Right, and when people are engaged, when they care, they’re willing to raise their hand and provide some discretionary effort to help meet a goal, to help make something happen.

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To pick up, for someone who’s out, I’m not talking about being volunteer hold, because see, all of this is, is about people being committed, not simply complying.

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That’s employee engagement.

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So, the question that I have for you, since we talk about employee engagement, being something leaders, are supposed to be doing.

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Here’s the question, can you make someone care?

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You cannot.

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The engagement ultimately belongs to the individual. It’s their choice.

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Now, as a leader, are there things that we can do that make it easier for people to make that choice, or harder to make that choice 100%, All of the work that’s been done, and all of the study that’s been done, all of the writing that’s been done about employee engagement, is, it is right. There’s a lot of things that we, as leaders, in organizations can and should be doing to help people make this choice. But ultimately, the choice is theirs.

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And we have to think about this, not as something we can control, but as something that we can influence.

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So, let’s think about, how are we going to influence people to make this choice.

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Right?

28:37

So, I want to step back and I want to step back and just think about ourselves.

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like, what’s in it for us as individuals to choose engagement? Why should we because you see that word discretionary effort, I think, well, as this means, this just means they have to do more work.

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Why would we choose this? Well, here’s, there’s a whole list, and I’m gonna put them all up here and talk about them.

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So, when we are more engaged, we enjoy our work more.

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When we are engaged, we see a bigger picture. We see how we fit into something bigger.

29:12

We see that we have more meaning in our work, when we are engaged.

29:16

When we choose to be engaged, will have better working relationships, And I was with a group of about 60 leaders earlier today, and I asked them I was with them virtually. And I asked them what their biggest concern is about the future of work right now. And the number one answer was disconnection.

29:35

Poor relationships.

29:37

Poor communication.

29:39

And then the next tier of things was all related to talent, which is why we’re here, but when we choose to be engaged, we will have stronger relationships, because we care about people. So, we will do what it takes to have those stronger relationships, and then we benefit, as a result, when we choose to be engaged, we will see opportunities where we can make a difference. We will, we will. We will be proactive. We will have greater productivity.

30:03

And ultimately, we will get noticed, and in a world where people aren’t all working in the same place anymore.

30:10

This last one is super important. We spent a lot of time working with clients around this, especially from our, our newer book, The Long Distance teammates. We call it ethical visibility.

30:20

People are wondering, how will I be noticed, how will I be visible when I’m not in the office where the bosses? Let me just tell you.

30:26

If you’re doing the stuff on this page, if you’ve made the choice to be engaged, you will be noticed in a positive way.

30:34

So, like, we all like this stuff. So now, the question is, how do we help people see the value in engaging?

30:42

Well, this is a list, so how do we, as leaders support people making the choice to be engaged, where we can share the ideas we just talked about, We can help them see that. Here’s another thing that we can do, we can help people see the big picture of their work.

30:57

If you’ve got a team of people, who are now working at home, or remotely.

31:05

Our, our view of the world is shaped by our environment.

31:10

And if our environment is walking into an office building and seeing the name of the organization and seeing the pictures on the wall and seeing metrics, the monthly or daily metrics on monitors in the lunchroom.

31:22

That’s different than looking at the north end of our dining room table.

31:27

And so one of the things that we, as leaders can do more than before, is to make sure we’re sharing the big picture, helping people see where we’re headed, why we’re here, and helping them create meaning for themselves in their work, 100%.

31:45

We can absolutely expect people to be engaged, how we can’t force them. This isn’t about compliance because it is their choice, but we can say, this is what it looks like.

31:57

Here, being successful here means being committed to the work. So, helping people see that. Here’s what it’s looking for, what we’re looking for and, oh, by the way, then we support those behaviors. We recognize those behaviors.

32:10

We reward those behaviors maybe monetarily, but not necessarily giving people positive feedback, giving people encouragement, when they’re making the choice to be engaged.

32:24

When we, when we do the things on this list, we are being a positive influence for people to make the choice to be engaged. And when people are engaged, they’re more likely to stay.

32:33

And when people walk into or see a team that’s engaged, they’re more likely wanting to join that team, aren’t they?

32:41

Oh, there’s one more thing that we have to do as a leader.

32:47

You will not have an engaged team If you’re not.

32:53

So we go back to the last slide and look at all those benefits, and I actually asked you to think about it for yourself first, because we’ve gotta choose to be engaged.

33:02

Because if we aren’t, they won’t be.

33:05

And if, and if you’re looking at this from an HR perspective or a learning and development perspective, how engaged are your leaders?

33:15

Right?

33:15

Because how engaged they are will have a huge impact on how their ability to engage or support the engagement of their teams.

33:25

Super, super important.

33:27

Sarah, anything else that’s command before I go onto the third section here, I hope we can continue on.

33:35

Then I shall do that.

33:36

So we’ve talked about balancing outcomes and others.

33:39

We’ve talked about engaging our folks and what that really means, and how we can, some ways we can go about doing that.

33:45

And then the third thing that’s a huge piece of a talent being a talent magnet is culture.

33:52

It’s another one of those words that everyone talks about all the time. It seems like maybe it’s talked about more now than ever often, talked about now, in terms of, I wish we could get back to the one we used to have.

34:02

But it’s interesting to me that as many senior leaders, that I’ve talked to the segment, that we need to get back to the culture that we had before. We had so many senior leaders talking to us in 20 19, same, and we are working on our culture. So somehow, the longer we lived away from that old norm, the more it’s, like, the good old days syndrome, and were started as a minute was so good. But maybe it was good in some ways, but it probably wasn’t perfect.

34:25

Probably wasn’t.

34:26

Right. So let’s talk about culture a little bit and sort of unpack it a little bit.

34:30

Like we unpacked engagement. And here are some thoughts about culture. Number one is, you have one.

34:37

Any group of people brought together and there’s a culture, because all culture is is, that’s not very good English. But here’s what culture is, the way we do things around here.

34:51

What gets you promoted around here?

34:54

What’s important around here, that’s the culture. Culture ultimately is the way we do things around here. You already have one and it’s always changing.

35:06

It was changing before a pandemic may have changed a lot as the context changed over the last couple of years but you have one, you had one fact, I would say it this way.

35:20

There they are three cultures for you to be thinking about. There’s the culture you had, the culture that you have, and the one that you want.

35:31

And if the one you’ve got now isn’t the one that you want, I wouldn’t say, I wouldn’t ask the question, how do we get back to what we had, but how do we get what we want?

35:41

So, make it a.

35:47

Goal, to create an aspirational vision for your culture, and this isn’t something for you to do as an individual leader, or for you to do an HR, but to engage the organization in a conversation about this.

36:00

one more thing about this before I go on, and that is that there’s it, there’s a macro culture for your organization, however big your organization is.

36:11

Then there’s There are micro cultures, right? In individual locations and individual divisions, individual offices, individual teams, and we all sort of know that it’s not the same on every team.

36:21

And the more we make it micro, the more impact individual leaders have on it. A lot of times, individual leaders say, well, you want to talk about culture, Go talk to senior leadership. Well, that’s fine for the macro culture, that you’re you have a culture of the way you do things around you, right?

36:38

Here, every day.

36:41

And I would say, if you wanted to do one thing to impact your culture in a positive way, it could be a negative way, as well.

36:48

But if you wanted to positively impact your culture, improve the way you have meetings, you want to have one thing that you could do tomorrow to make it, to start to change your culture.

36:57

Change, your meetings, right?

37:00

So if you want to create an aspirational vision, you need to think about what are the components that you’d want in your desired culture? Because right now, as the world continues to change, we have a chance to make a change, because you can create an inflection point right now.

37:17

I don’t know where your organization is exactly. In terms of, we’re hybrid. We’re not. We’re waiting. I don’t know.

37:25

But we’re still in all of this massive change, which means you’re at an inflection point to say, what do we want to accomplish. And quite honestly, we can simply say, man, we’re having trouble attracting talent. What is it that we want?

37:39

Right?

37:39

In terms of our culture, how do we want it to look and feel here, getting great results, and meeting the needs of our folks? So we need to engage our team in doing this. This isn’t something that leaders go off and have a retreat and come in and say, here is our Cultural Vision.

37:58

But rather, something that we need to engage the organization in, because it’s, our culture, it’s not Joes culture.

38:06

I remember I’ve done this with multiple organizations, but one organization is the CEO said, hey, we’ve been through a merger. We need to create a new culture and how to, how do you help me? How can we create a new culture? I said, first of all, Steve, it’s not your culture.

38:18

It’s the organization’s culture.

38:21

What you’re doing is leading it, what you’re doing is opening up this door and, and suggesting that, we need to think about it, But, if it’s just yours, it will never work.

38:31

So, we, we, we, all of us, regardless of the role that you’re in, can play a role in pointing us in that direction.

38:41

Right? And what are some of the components that might be involved in that? And you say, well, that seems really big, would be that, well, what do? What do we want in terms of engagement? Collaboration, and communication? What do we wonder how people contribute? What do we want in terms of empowerment and accountability?

38:54

Purpose, meaning context, like you can insert your own components here. But you can start to think about this in terms of, what do we want it to look like here and feel like here and be like here?

39:05

Even if here is virtual, right?

39:09

That’s really where we want to try to get, OK? Culture.

39:15

Huge component of being a talent magnet.

39:19

People are looking for, not just the work, but the way we work.

39:26

And if we’ve got and open, clear, successful energize and I’m just using some general words here, culture, it’s a place. People aren’t going to want to leave.

39:37

And other people are going to want to come to.

39:40

All right. So the fourth of our five components in terms of becoming a talent magnet.

39:47

Excuse me, is around flexibility.

39:50

So because I wrote a book called The Long Distance Leader that came out before the pandemic co-wrote that book, a lot of people have said, OK, Kevin, what’s the future we’re going to be? And my answer, our answer has been the future work is flexibility.

40:06

By the way, one of the reasons this looking at the future of work is so difficult, is there’s not a single one, right? Answer, used to be those basically, one, right? Answer. Either came. You know, if you, if you’re in what we could call white collar work.

40:17

If you were in an office kinda setting, you, basically, the right answer as people came to an office?

40:25

8, 2, 5, 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, right?

40:27

Like, and anyone who didn’t work in that way told people, well, you know, I don’t work the normal work week.

40:35

Know, I work second shift, I work. You know, in a factory. I work for doing whatever. And everybody, everyone sort of said, Here’s work.

40:42

And then here are the hero, that the changes from that, the deviations from that, but now, all open to decide to decision, right?

40:53

So flexibility, to me means where we work and physical location, right?

40:58

When we do our work, time of day, day of week, time zone.

41:05

How we work, the tools that we’ll use to do it, who we work with, I believe that we will look back in 15 years and say that some of the ways that, especially in the US, that we categorize employees or independent contractors, like some of that is going to have to be reworked. because the way we think about this, you know, we’ve got stories of people who did two full-time jobs during the pandemic. right? They did one part of the day, another one part of the day, like, who are we working with? Does everyone a full-time employee does that matter, even?

41:37

All open questions.

41:40

It all, and all of this needs to be determined, like there’s not a right answer here, except in the context of our organization, and then out, and the nature of our work, and the outcomes we’re trying to reach, and the expectations that we have, and the processes that we need to follow.

42:01

So, all of this, we’ll need to be put in for our organizations, need to be put in context of outcomes and others, and finding that balance.

42:11

Between them.

42:14

Flexibility.

42:16

This next slide I’ve hinted at this a little bit, so let me just let’s talk a little bit more about this. And there was some conversation about pay and all that, and that’s certainly a piece of this. And why are people leaving anyway? Here’s what the research that I’ve read says, and pay, I didn’t put pay on this list. Pay is definitely on this list. But what I have is the rest of the list besides dollars.

42:36

People are leaving to find work They can be passionate about.

42:40

People are finding or leaving to change careers They’re leaving to work for themselves.

42:44

The lift and entrepreneurial activity. People are leaving to create a better work-life balance. They’re leading to find a better working environment. They have greater flexibility. How many agencies have we just been talking about? They are leaving because they want to be able to work remotely and they don’t have to commute, they are leaving to be better compensated. Of course. I said it wasn’t on the list, it actually is. And they’re leaving to find a better boss.

43:08

Well, that’s a lot of stuff.

43:10

Well, let me just make an observation.

43:13

My observation is that an awful lot of these, we have some impact on as leaders, almost all, Like, if someone’s really decided they want to change careers, or they want to work for themselves, then that’s probably not something that we have, much, we can say about, And we should probably say, you know, good luck, and, and we wish you the very best, all of the rest of these, all of the rest of these, all of them in light blue, we, as leaders, can have an impact on, and we’ve been talking about all of them over the last few minutes, haven’t we?

43:49

Every one of them has an issue we, as leaders, can impact.

43:52

We can’t change alone, but can we help people be more passionate about their work? We’ve been talking about that. Can we help them find a better work-life balance? Yes. Can we help them find a better working environment?

44:05

Yes. Does that relate to culture, 100% flexibility? Sure.

44:12

Now, some of these, you say, well, it’s out of my hands, whether people can work remotely or not. And inside of my hands, how much people get paid, I get that, but might we have influence on even those two probably? And by the way, finding a better boss is, that’s us.

44:25

Right, because the number-one reason people leave job.

44:28

It’s still, they fired their boss.

44:32

Right, so that means that, given the other four things we’ve been talking about, there’s one more big leverage point.

44:42

If we want to create, a great revival, the great Revival starts with leadership.

44:48

And the truth about leadership is: it’s always been hard.

44:51

And it’s harder now than ever.

44:54

There’s no doubt about that.

44:55

That the fact is that there are big differences in the way we’re working now compared to ever before. one of those is, it is far more complex than ever. And as we’ve been saying, there’s more than one right answer.

45:07

More than one final answer.

45:08

May not even be a final answer, but an ongoing, a set of adjustments to continue to help us address the needs of the world and the marketplace, right. And so we’re in this new situation and there’s plenty of unknowns for everybody.

45:24

So that makes it more complex, the straight up complexity of, of some of my people I don’t see all the time or ever.

45:32

Right?

45:32

And the reality is, even if we want, we can’t go back.

45:38

You can’t step in the same river twice. And we can’t just go back to the way it was. In fact, I would say why would we want to go back to the way it was before the pandemic because look at all of the things we’ve learned.

45:52

We’ve learned so much in the last year, two year, two years. We’ve learned so much in the last two years.

46:00

That has helped us be more flexible and more resilient, and we’ve learned new communication tools. And we’ve learned how to use our webcams and 100 other things.

46:09

And we’ve learned that, yes, we can collaborate and that doesn’t require us to necessarily B in the same room, to collaborate, that there are ways to use a whiteboard that don’t have to be the one on the wall.

46:23

And 100 other things, right?

46:25

So, we can’t go back and I would say we don’t necessarily want to go back. So here’s the question. If the world is changing and the complexity is changing, the question is are leaders changing? And there I read some research the other day that said that I don’t remember now. I don’t have it in my notes in front of me.

46:43

Where I read this research I think it came from IBM Research though they said that it one year into the pandemic, so maybe a year ago they surveyed Senior Leaders and 71 71 percent of them said, Yeah, I have to change.

47:01

And that sounds pretty good and they were, they were touting this research, isn’t as good that these leaders are wanting to be flexible and wanting to grow and change to which I say.

47:09

And by the way, the number of pre pandemic was like 20%, but when I hear 71%, I say what about the other 29% Are leaders changing?

47:18

And I’m, I’m saying is we have two.

47:23

If we want insanity no. Right. Doing the same thing, expecting the same result.

47:30

So if we’re experiencing this loss of talent, if we’re experiencing that, now, we’ve maybe thought I have some new things to think about, about why that is. Then the question is, what can we do, look in the mirror and say, what can we do? Or as organizations, what can we do for our leaders to help them be more successful? So what can leaders do to create a revival?

47:47

I’m gonna give you some very practical things that you can do as an individual leader and that you can help support in the leaders in your organization, for the leaders in your organization.

47:54

Never wanna spend less 10 minutes or so, of our time, all right. And I’m going to keep moving in order to do that. So first of all, we have to practice empathy.

48:05

Great leaders have always been empathetic.

48:08

Most leaders got better at it during the pandemic.

48:11

The bar has been raised forever.

48:15

Right?

48:16

And, one of the ways that we create a scenario where people know, like, and trust us, as leaders, which is one of the things they’re looking for, a job.

48:24

A leader that they know, like, and trust, is, that, when we can be empathetic to understand their situation, right? The next is, we need to get better and better at creating meaning and purpose.

48:36

Especially for people who aren’t in the building every day, they need to understand how they fit in, and what they’re doing matters, and how it matters.

48:45

And so, we can’t just have the once a year meeting that talks about the annual strategic objectives, but rather to be continually talking about why, what we do matters in the world, and how we’re impacting our customers, and how it’s changing.

49:02

Things for the better for them, when we can create meaning and purpose.

49:05

Then people are going to want to stay here that are job.

49:12

Leaders need to be leading, great, one on ones, not just having one on ones, I hope you’re doing that, but leading great ones.

49:19

But one on ones that are co-owned by the leader and the team member, Where the team member has the chance to share what they want to talk about.

49:28

And preferably for them to go first, before we go, and to have a one-on-one that creates opportunities for ongoing coaching and feedback, and isn’t just an exchange, and isn’t just a transaction of a checklist, but is an interaction.

49:43

That’s where we can.

49:44

one of the places we can practice empathy, notice this, that if you’re leading a team, or your leaders are leading teams that aren’t all in the same place every day, that means they’re having fewer communications with people.

49:56

Which means every communication has greater impact, because there are fewer of them in total, everyone takes on a bigger impact, right?

50:03

And so leaders can create a great revival by building relationships with their team members and helping their team members build relationships across. Now, our research and all the work we’re doing with Live, with love with organizations is saying that, generally speaking, people have figured out how to keep the relationships relatively strong with the nuclear team, the intact work teams, so to speak.

50:26

But it’s that next circle of folks, right, that we’ve sort of tightened in on who we have relationships with in that, and the end, those internal customers, and suppliers. Maybe not so much anymore. And maybe that’s where we need to spend some of our time.

50:40

Another thing that we as leaders need to be doing is to be helping to create and support mental fitness.

50:48

Right? We think we know about physical health, and then physical fitness, the same thing here. We aren’t mental health professionals, that’s not our role.

50:56

And yet, we can help people be proactive about being mentally fit.

51:01

And we can make sure that we, as organizations, are thinking about the things that we can do, along with perhaps providing them with outside resources, but, but what can we be doing to, to manage?

51:12

Understand the implications of work-life balance, Stress levels, anxiety levels, et cetera.

51:17

Reducing some of that loneliness and disconnection to create greater mental fitness.

51:23

And certainly, we need to be growing and learning for ourselves, and as a role model, and then building the specific skills that we might need.

51:33

So these are things leaders can be doing 100%.

51:37

Every one of us can be doing as leaders, and we can be supporting the leaders in our organizations to do this, as well.

51:45

All right. So, so, what can organizations do?

51:49

So, this last slide is sort of what organizations and what leaders can do. What can organizations do? Well, organizations can create purpose beyond policy.

51:58

I know, especially the bigger the organization is, we have to have some policies about where people work. And some of those things like, yeah, but we can’t stop with that.

52:06

We have to help people understand that a little bit more, right. And we have to figure out ways to find flexibility wherever we can. And you say, well, listen, Kevin, lead. Our organization is manufacturing people in factories. Well, how can we find greater flexibility?

52:20

Are there ways that we can look to do that? I don’t know the answers.

52:24

I know the questions that you can be, asking yourself, and your teams, when we understand, when we all understand the outcomes, then we can start to think about what are other ways we can get to those outcomes, right?

52:38

We can move towards a aspirational culture, we can engage everyone in the creation of these other three things, as well as just in the work itself, and organizations can be growing their leaders, growing their teams, for sure.

52:55

So, we’ve got a few minutes left. So, what I’m gonna do is put up a question slide, and I think a couple of things maybe have come in.

53:02

And so, as Sarah shares in the what she’s already got, already has, sorry, you can be typing in the other things you’d like to ask about, maybe something you want me to say more about? Or whatever.

53:16

So, Sarah.

53:18

Yes. So, if you have any questions, please type them in the question area on your GoToWebinar control panel. We have a little under 10 minutes here to answer those today.

53:31

The first question we have is from Alex and Alex asks, how long will the great resignation last?

53:40

Well.

53:43

You know, I had a bullet on the slide a while ago, Alex, that said, you know that the social construct or the social, the sense of work has changed, So, no, I don’t know how long the numbers will stay at this historically high levels of people quitting I don’t know the answer to that.

54:00

If I did, I No, no, no, that I’m not smart.

54:04

But what I know is that some of these causes that we’ve talked about aren’t going away, right? People are looking for something more than they used to look for, they’ve experienced something new, and they’re going to try to find it.

54:18

I think the bar has been raised in terms of what people are looking for from the work, And I think at the end of the day, that’s good news.

54:26

So, no.

54:28

From an economic perspective, from a macroeconomic perspective, it won’t last forever, but I think some of the underlying causes that we’ve talked about today are going to be around, I think, some of what people are expecting from work, expecting from leaders expecting from workplaces.

54:48

It’s changed.

54:50

And, and we have to adapt to meet those new things.

54:59

Great. And then we have another question here from Tiffany. And Tiffany wants to know, how can you ask your employer for flexibility and remote work?

55:09

Well, the short answer is, ask. Just asked. But I think I know without having a lot more context, Tiffany, it’s hard for me to answer that. Exactly.

55:18

But what I would say is, if you feel like, what, I’m what I’m hearing, which might not be true, but what I’m hearing in the question is, I don’t know how they’ll take it. So I don’t know what the culture or the level of openness or how safe it is to ask the question. But, if you feel some level of safety, in general, I would just ask it.

55:35

Right?

55:35

But, but what I would say is, however, you ended up coming at it, don’t come and think about outcomes, and others. don’t just come at it. Like, well, you know what? I need more flexibility.

55:46

Like, don’t come at it from that perspective, come at it from, I’d like us to figure out some ways, still great.

55:53

Get great business outcomes, and give us some and look at how we do the work differently.

56:02

Mutton far fewer leaders are going to are going to squelch that question.

56:09

When they see that you’re coming at it, looking at the big picture, and not just what you want, it’s just like, you know, if you’ve got, and I’m not saying any of us are little kids, but if you’ve got a little kid, and it’s always me, me, me, me, me, then it’s good, they’re not very influential.

56:25

And so if you come at your question, Tiffani, from the perspective of the organization, you got a much better chance of being heard, and then having that that move forward.

56:37

What’s next?

56:39

Great. So, we have another question here from Jack. And Jack says, what are some other specific things leaders can do to retain talent?

56:49

I’ll give you another one that you can do. You can listen more.

56:53

You can talk less.

56:56

You can spend more time understanding where others are.

57:02

Rather than just trying to.

57:06

Push through your initiatives.

57:09

You can worry less about grabbing the power that you have it by your position and focus more on the opportunity to help people grow and achieved.

57:21

I’d say that Great. And then we have a question here from Stephanie and Stephanie said, management that doesn’t understand that they are the problem is a big factor and what I have seen from employers lately, a lack of respect for staff, attitudes, and being unprofessional, are common. How can you approach this?

57:43

Well, and there’s one of the underlying things, like people are saying, I’m not going to put up with that anymore, I’m gonna leave, right. Like, if that’s what I’m experiencing, I’m gonna, I’m joining the great resignation, so to speak. Right.

57:54

So, if your, what I hear in that question is, I don’t really want to go, but I need people to understand that. Right? Or, if I’m in HR, I need my leaders to understand that. I would share some of the ideas that we’ve talked about today.

58:07

And say, listen, the number one reason people are leaving is you, because now, I’m guessing a little bit, but if you’re in, Stephanie, if you’re an HR and leaders say, you gotta get me more people that, People just keep leaving and they’re blaming on an external factors. We need to get them to look in the mirror.

58:25

And, and, you know, maybe they need some support. Maybe they need some coaching.

58:33

Maybe they need some training, or maybe they need a different shop when it gets right down to it.

58:41

What else you got, Miss Sarah?

58:43

Great, yeah. one more, I think. Yeah, we have time for one more, and that’s gonna come from Jennifer, and Jennifer says, how do you really get the upper management to understand the culture aspect that it’s really not, quote, their culture?

58:57

Well, here’s the thing.

59:00

A lot of times, depending on how big the organization is, senior leaders don’t really understand what their culture is.

59:06

Everywhere else, it’s a call it the undercover boss syndrome, right, where people went out and put on makeup and false mustaches and figured out, like, what was really going on in the organizations.

59:17

And I think one of the things is that sometimes senior leaders are, are blissfully unaware of what the culture really is, the micro cultures around the organization. So it might be, It probably needs to start with helping them have a new awareness. Because they are, they just don’t know, or they’re, or they’re in denial.

59:35

So that’s probably where I’d start. I know we need to start to wrap up, and so I’ve got a couple of things to say, and I know Sarah does as well. So let me just say this, the most important thing that you could be doing right now is saying, what am I going to do with this?

59:47

What’s the now what question? My favorite to question. Some very specific things That, I mean, that’s for you to ask yourself, specifically, but. in general, there are some things that you can do, and they include keeping your head up and keeping, looking to the future. If we just get locked into our day-to-day challenges of, we got to recruit. Or we got to do this. We ended at, like, we got to lift our head and think about the bigger picture.

1:00:10

That’s what I’ve tried to do for us all today, we gotta keep listening to our folks.

1:00:15

We’ve gotta keep focusing on this outcomes and others balance. And understanding the tension between the two.

1:00:20

We have to keep adjusting, because the reality is that this isn’t about getting to a single right place right away, but to keep moving in the right direction.

1:00:29

And, maybe you need some help, and, you know, you need some outside help, and that’s probably why you come to a webinar like this, and I’m so glad that you did. I’m gonna put this up, but we’re gonna get to, to let Sarah close in a second, but you’ve got the handout here, which has this slide in it.

1:00:45

All I’m really saying here is, there’s lots of resources that we have to offer in terms of free resources and my LinkedIn page on all sorts of video.

1:00:55

Twitter, two websites with blogs, right down there at the bottom.

1:00:58

If there’s anything we can ever do to help, I hope that you’ll ask, and I’m not saying, here’s what the check is going to be, right?

1:01:05

Like, I’m just saying, let us be a resource to help you if you’ve liked what you’ve heard today.

1:01:10

And there’s other ways we can be of help, we’d love to know How we can help you get a question we didn’t get to send me an e-mail Send me a LinkedIn note, and I’ll be happy to answer any way that I can right now. I’m going to hand it to Sarah, because she’s going to wrap it up.

1:01:22

Great, thanks, Kevin. And today’s webinar was sponsored by the HRDQ What’s My Communication Style Online Assessment and Training Course. Take a free test drive at hrdqstore.com/wmcs and learn how you can flex your style for optimal performance on the job.

1:01:40

If you’d like to learn more on topics like today, HRDQ-U memberships offers over 200 Human Resource webinars, keeping you in the know with the industry trends, as well as workforce virtual seminars on key training topics for your employees. You can learn more at www.hrdqu.com/memberships, and that is all the time that we have for today. Thank you very much for joining us today, Kevin.

1:02:01

My pleasure, as always.

1:02:04

And thank you all for participating in today’s webinar, Happy Training.

1:02:09

Thanks, everybody.

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