Lifting Company Culture in a Post-COVID World
Oooof.
The world has landed with a thud on the other side of “epidemic-COVID-land” and most of us still aren’t sure which end is up and what “normal” looks like now. If that is you, you are not alone. Work has changed, and the vast majority of people are dealing with some combination of:
New or changing work arrangement (in-office, work-from-home, hybrid schedules….oh, my!)
A new job (or maybe an old job that has changed quite a bit)
New colleagues that you have never met in person
Re-acclimating to in-person events, conferences, trainings, etc.
Trying to figure out how to calculate drive time into in-person meetings
The random COVID quarantine that still pops up from time to time
The chaos of the past couple of years combined with all of the necessary pivoting, constant changing, & unrelenting “newness” of work environments has left company culture & employee engagement is suffering. Suffering isn’t even the right word. Floundering? Aimlessly wandering about? Left stranded on the cliff of the unknown?!?!
If the Great Resignation wasn’t enough, we are now navigating an epidemic of “Quiet Quitting.” Organizations & leadership are reeling and asking the question, “What do we do about company culture & employee engagement and how do we get out of this funk?!?!”
While we can’t offer you a blanket culture solve in a pithy blog article, here are a few ideas to consider:
Acceptance: Things are not going back to the way they were. Full stop. Stop trying to put the sleeping bag back into its original little bag. Probably everything that you had planned before COVID needs to be refreshed, rethought, adjusted, or totally scrapped.
Empathy & Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: Organizations are made up of, run by, and dependent on HUMANS, and the humans have been through a lot. Most, if not all, of the humans have suffered loss of some kind, which as caused them to reprioritize. Most people have not fully recovered and recalibrated. Chronic stress levels are still incredibly high. What will solve this? Empathy. Acceptance of the fact that no one has all the answers (even you, & your boss, & their boss). Time. Lots of time.
Re-Socializing Takes Effort: 2+ years is a long freaking time. We have forgotten how to be normal social humans. The extroverts withered. The introverts became hermits - extreme hermits. The ambiverts forgot all of the extroverting skills that they had spent a lifetime honing. Collectively, we must all consciously put in the effort to re-socialize ourselves. We are a world full of preschoolers learning how to play on the playground again.
Focus on Connection & Communication: Organizationally, if you are going to invest in culture training, employee engagement initiatives, or burnout prevention resources, focus on connection & communication.
The long tail solve for disengagement, overwhelm, burnout, chronic stress…….connection & community. We are not talking about trust falls or pep-rallies. We are talking about activities, exercises, & trainings that engage teams around human-centered problem solving, inquiry, & real conversation. Collaborating around how to improve teams & systems. Building solutions. Working to understand one another on new levels. Interactions that help us see one another as three dimensional human beings.
Architectures of Success: It is safe to say that most of us feel a little beat up right now. Pushed down a few too many times. Blindsided once too often. Plans disrupted more times than we can count.
Confidence, happiness, & trust (aka positive organizational culture) are built through the patterned repetition of measured risk & reward interactions. We can’t win all the time because then winning doesn’t mean anything, but employee engagement does require some degree of predictability & hope. People have to believe that their efforts are worthwhile.
Want to lift your organizational morale? Architect learning & training opportunities for success. This does not mean giving everyone a participation trophy or giving everyone a pass. It means setting clear & reasonable expectations. It means celebrating the process of deconstructing, reconstructing, & learning. It means making things challenging, but not impossible. It means giving real feedback, recognizing effort, & celebrating wins.
Your team & organization don’t need you to have all the answers, but they do need you to lead & support the journey out of the funk. They need you to try things and admit that you don’t know if they are going to work. They don’t need a toxically positive cheerleaders, they need coaches.
We have all been through enough to not be pacified by empty rah-rah promises and overconfident claims. We need coaches that talk real talk and are committed to supporting us during the ups & downs. We need coaches that believe that the most important work happens during practice. All of us need to both receive and BE that support for one another.
XO,
Anna Baeten @ Failure Lab