KINDLY LISTEN UP
In reflecting on our observations of our clients over the past six months, we have noted a range of responses to the unusual situation in which we have all been living and working. Without question, each organization’s workforce has expressed an evolving set of emotions; what workers were feeling in the earliest stages of the pandemic has been largely replaced multiple times over as the duration of the crisis has lengthened. Keeping a finger on the pulse of employee needs and emotions has been one of our strongest recommendations to our clients; knowing where their workforce is “at” is a critical component of keeping employees engaged and productive. It also underscores the reality that what got workers engaged in February 2020 cannot be assumed to have the same effect in October of the same year.
So where are employees right now? While there are certainly idiosyncrasies by worker or organizational affiliation, the expressed needs and sentiments of employees have become quite focused and remarkably consistent. Right now, the biggest problem facing workers is also the engagement challenge for their employer, namely ongoing heightened levels of pandemic-related stress
While we are somewhat surprised by the consistency of worker sentiment across sectors, sizes and geography of our client organizations, what we are observing makes sense. Over the past six months, virtually every US worker has faced new stressors. In a survey conducted in April 2020, more than 90% of working adults in America reported increased stress related to the pandemic. Working from home and its attendant challenges or going to work in situations posing real risks to one’s health, facing enhanced uncertainty about the future (not limited to, but certainly focused on having a job) and maintaining constant vigilance about safety and health in all areas of our lives have supplanted other engagement-related employee concerns. What these three areas have in common is their immediacy, centrality and constancy. All are front and center, 24/7, urgent and omnipresent. If one were to invent the perfect stressors for human beings, it would be hard to improve on the bang-for-the-buck of these concerns.
Why should organizations care about the stress levels of their employees? Aside from a humanitarian perspective, these stressors are distractors. The raised anxiety levels of workers diverts attention away from their job responsibilities. Stressed employees are vulnerable to unhealthy, anxiety-numbing behaviors which make them less well, less focused and less reliable. Even before the pandemic, organizations recognized the value of the wellness of their workers. So, to their credit, most employers are concerned about increased employee stress and are motivated to address it.
Unfortunately, stress has soared for employees across all organizational levels. As a result, the question of how an enterprise can facilitate a successful program to minimize worker stress must consider the needs and roles of individuals in all strata of the organization. Certainly, no one has prepared any of us to deal with a pandemic-affected world, yet organizations are counting on their leaders—from executives through managers and supervisors--- to help employees through this challenge. But organizations cannot simply identify the issue of employee stress and leave it for leaders to address; without a plan, training and experience in this arena, they are unlikely to succeed in providing much needed, real relief. While everyone in the organization is reeling from their own particular stress experience, giving leaders responsibility for doing something they have neither the tools nor the bandwidth to do is likely to increase leaders’ own levels of stress, making them less likely to conceive and deliver a successful stress reduction strategy for their employees.
If there was ever a time for a straightforward, easy-to-implement solution to the challenge of employee engagement, this is it. The ideal would be super simple and universally understood. Based on our observations with our clients, we believe that enormous inroads in this arena can be made with a simple strategy relying on two major levers to reduce worker anxiety: listening and kindness.
The equation Listening+Kindness=Stress Reduction requires little explanation. It is composed of two elements both of which are well understood by most leaders. Listening and kindness are values that are both held and respected by most individuals who have responsibility for the wellbeing of others. But in “normal” times, they don’t necessarily rise to the level of highest priority values. This is the time to put them at the top of the list.
The plan is simple: Actively listen while you lead. Ask questions, request ideas. Encourage employees to offer their thoughts, without judgement or counterpoints. And do so with kindness and empathy. Once an organization communicates the need for its leaders to follow this simple strategy, leaders can be off and running. No significant training effort needed.
The good news about this approach is that leaders do not have to have all the answers. They can go directly to their employees for the best wisdom in this content area: after all, who has more expertise about an individual’s needs than that person him or herself? The activity of inquiring after someone’s situation is a demonstration of kindness; that is soothing in and of itself. And, in many cases, the recollection of a hand extended and offering help will remain in employee consciousness, like the safety net that is regularly in place for a high wire artist. It may never be used. But the knowledge that it is there can be enough to give that performer the ability to go where (s)he has not gone before. A heightened awareness that that they can count on a connection to their employing organization can go a long way toward taking worker stress down a notch. Kindly listen. It’s a small formula for generating significant results.