Employers and employees are stuck in a transitional phase. During the pandemic, the focus shifted to employee wellbeing. This included keeping employees safe and providing them with the tools they needed to work from home. Flexible hours and hybrid work became part of an employer’s benefits package.
What about now?
Since then, people have become attached to their personal routines, whether it’s washing the clothes, walking the dogs, or taking care of loved ones. These routines can boost our well-being, increase our productivity, and even fit with other team members’ preferences. Some personal routines may not work for everyone, and we might need to adjust our expectations about what’s reasonable.
Employers are also under pressure to increase growth, adapt to market changes and deal with increasing costs. It is more important than ever to ensure that every team maximises its performance. Some are losing faith in the advantages of hybrid working, and are returning employees to the office. This can have a negative impact on employee engagement, productivity, and retention.
Now is the time to develop next-level relationships
Recent research by Pecan found that three themes are at the core of a culture fit for the future. First, ‘next level relationships’. Leaders need to develop adult-to-adult, transparent and inclusive relationships with their team in order to achieve success. Leaders must be able to navigate the fine line between being flexible and inclusive, while still being firm about what is needed to get a team performing at its best.
Leaders need to reset the expectations and psychological contract when the balance between employee needs and employer needs is out of balance. This will result in high performance and engagement.
We have found that the devil lies in the details when we work with clients to help them evolve their culture. Leaders often implement policies and principles inconsistently due to a lack of confidence and skill in difficult conversations. Direct-talking managers also are in short supply. This creates an unproductive and unfair environment, with some people feeling ‘burnt out’ and others ‘coasting.’
Question yourself…
Your organisation:
- How consistent are the expectations of managers regarding working hours and location with each other?
- How innovative is the organization in achieving career goals?
- How well balanced is the responsibility of people for their wellbeing?
- Do you run the risk of going too far with employee welfare
It’s time to take action if you are falling short on any of these fronts and stuck in an unclear mismatch between expectations of employer and employee.
Next-level relationship tips
You can reset the relationship and create next-level relationships by following these steps.
- Focus groups and a quick survey can be used to determine what works and what doesn’t.
- Find stories that illustrate this from different employee perspectives , and for the employer perspective
- Re-define the simple principles that guide the contract between an employer and employee. Include reasonable expectations regarding
- Hours of Work
- Location of Work
- Career aspirations
- Second job
- Qualifications study
- People leaders need to develop the mindset, tools and skills necessary to have socially intelligent “reset” conversations with their team. These conversations should be a reflection on what is working and not working in the team. They also raise awareness of habits that people have developed but are not working.
- Support leaders in having emotionally intelligent adult-adult discussions to recontract with individuals when needed
- Strengthen the confidence and resourcefulness of everyone to manage their own health
Learn how to reset your hybrid working approach by focusing more on the quality and quantity of conversations than the policy. Pecan’s Hybrid Refresh service is one of its core services.
