The workforce has seen more disruption in the past few weeks than it has seen in the past decade. Some of the disruptions will lead to advances that many have championed for a long time. For example, we’re learning that the world doesn’t stop spinning when employees are working remotely and have the ability to set flexible schedules. These are two shifts in work culture that could lead to more diverse and inclusive organizations in the long run. We are also hopeful that our shared experience of this difficult era may help all of us be more empathic and thus, shape our workplaces through a more compassionate (and realistic!) lens of human experience. But for now, we have to lead through this crisis.
At CFW Careers, when we represent a client company, we seek to examine and highlight the tangible differentiators between employers. Employee perks come up often in this quest. These perks are typically designed to help organizations achieve employee engagement, defined by Dr. Lisa Nishii from Cornell University as “an individual's sense of purpose and focused energy, evident to others in the display of personal initiative, adaptability, effort, and persistence directed toward organizational goals.”
Over the years, we have seen all sorts of perks, from ping-pong tables and video games in the office to daily lunches with beer and Kombucha on tap. CFW Careers' annual candidate survey (conducted before the COVID-19 Pandemic) highlighted that employees do in fact care a lot about perks, but rarely the ones mentioned above. The “perks” candidates care about, in ranking order, include: work-from-home flex, stipends for mental healthcare or career coaching, free gym memberships, significant PTO, Summer Fridays, and office closure between Christmas and New Year's. What do all these perks have in common? They address the three pillars of employee engagement: Psychological availability, Psychological meaningfulness, and Psychological safety.
Now that we are facing a global crisis that requires working from home while many of us balance full-time childcare, financial concerns, and daily tasks amidst anxiety, the three pillars of engagement become more important than ever. What should you keep in mind as you seek to keep your employees engaged?
Start by ensuring psychological availability: a dimension of engagement based on personal circumstances. This is an employee’s sense of having the energy and resources they need to personally engage in the moment and in their work. You can protect employees’ efforts to renew their energy by facilitating work-life balance, providing learning opportunities, and giving feedback that allows them to feel confident investing themselves in their work. To ensure psychological availability, ask yourself the following questions:
Have you asked your employees about their individual circumstances at home?
Are you offering resources to help them cope with anxiety?
Have you helped your employees set boundaries so they have time to recover and rest?
If your employees have kids at home, have you discussed the flexibility that is required and how results will be measured?
Are there any employees that might be disproportionally affected by the crisis due to their specific circumstances? (i.e.,is one of your employees supporting extended family members who might have lost their jobs?)
Then, think about psychological meaningfulness, a measure of an employee’s perception of the direct impact and meaning of their work, which leads to increased engagement and personal investment. To foster psychological meaningfulness, consider the following questions:
Are your employees engaged with current work assignments, or does the nature of the work need to shift to become meaningful during a crisis?
What have previously been the intrinsic motivators for individual team members? Have these shifted?
Do they still feel connected to a sense of meaning in their work? And does it tie back to your company’s purpose?
Are you providing opportunities to learn and develop new skills while working remotely?
The most crucial dimension of engagement is psychological safety, which can only exist if the other two dimensions are present. This area involves your employees’ confidence that they have the freedom and security to participate, speak up and engage without retribution. Leaders should be thinking about the following:
Do your employees feel comfortable asking for what they need and having open conversations with their managers?
Are company leaders working to elicit candid conversations, showing the value of employee input, especially in time of crisis? Or does your organization favor top-down communication instead?
Are direct managers modeling behaviors that foster psychological safety?
Are leaders transparent about the company's situation and potential plans for lay-offs, salary reduction, or other measures resulting from the crisis?
Do your employees know how they will be supported in case circumstances change and lay-offs occur?
Do you have resources such as outplacement services, career counseling, or continuation of health benefits to support your employees in case of lay-offs?
If you reduce salaries, are you also reducing work hours proportionally to allow employees to fulfill family responsibilities?
Once you’ve thought about the above, you can start making informed decisions around how to shift "perks" to meet the needs of your employees during this crisis. For example, if a group of employees could benefit from counseling sessions, you can shift some of the food and beverage budgets to hiring a remote counselor. Or, if you are facing lay-offs, you can have an experienced outplacement counselor on call to ensure that employees can successfully navigate the transition.
At CFW Careers, we have been using our expertise and resources to support leaders as they navigate this new reality. Our mission of helping clients build dynamic workplaces that reflect our ideal communities and inspire individuals to seek, develop, and optimize their potential remains more urgent now than ever. Please send us a note at maria@cfwcareers.com to inquire about additional resources to help you and your team lead and prevail.