Because of the pandemic over the last couple of years, our virtual work world seems to be here to stay. One thing the pandemic has caused organizations to rethink is how work is done. What people do has remained pretty consistent over these couple of years, but how they get it done has made some seismic shifts, causing in part what some are calling a “talent migration.”
From my vantage point, an overwhelming part of the great talent migration has to do with workplace flexibility. I also think that this movement is away from what we all knew as a traditional flex model to hybrid work. In the traditional flex model, an employee could work (wink, wink) a day or so from home when needed. Some organizations even went as far as to declare a specified work-from-home day. The shift that employees started asking for, or perhaps even requiring through this crisis, is that they want to work from home indefinitely or want to only come into an office only when absolutely necessary.
This shift evolves as workers reprioritize what is important in their lives. Organizations need to brace themselves for new levels of competition and get used to not having as much talent around to compete with each other. At the end of the day, what wins this tug of war is the culture of the organization. Those organizations with great cultures will have much less migration than those that merely think they have a great culture.
There will always be a story of a person who leaves and triples his/her salary. I think we all tip our hats to them and say “good for you.” However, as leaders, let's not be fooled into thinking that people always leave just for money. Employees want to be fairly compensated for what they do. The leadership and cultural battle is going to be waged not on what the associate is asked to do, but on how they can do it.
I think the call for us as leaders is to engage strategic thinking around flexible, hybrid work. In leadership, the future belongs to the curious and flexible. Those who can engage a growth mindset, be curious about what the talent is looking for, and be agile with the changing business landscape will evolve and win. Those with a fixed mindset may get their way. The question is for how long. Like it or not, hybrid work is here to stay, in some form or fashion. Even long after all the viruses have mutated away or herd immunity is achieved, some mix of working from home for knowledge workers is here to stay.
Like many of you, I also had to learn to adapt to this new business reality. Everything from virtual doctor appointments, to picking out tile for a remodeled bathroom, to individual and group coaching sessions have gone from face-to-face interactions to options for a virtual environment. I am realizing that no matter how much I want work to go back to the way it was before the pandemic, it will not.
Since I am imploring leaders to have a growth mindset around hybrid work, I have been challenging myself to see what encouragement I could offer to enhance the skills of leaders to retain talent. This has led me to observe how people are interacting virtually.
Most of us have long gotten past some of the initial communication disruptions like dogs barking in the background, or cats climbing on keyboards, or people walking in the background of a video chat. The struggle became about being more effective with people when you are not in the same room.
Three Ways to Improve Communication in a Hybrid Work World
Focus on Energy. Judith Glaser in her book "Conversational Intelligence" encourages leaders to make communication about the exchange of energy and not information. She calls this Transformational Communication and it is a Share-Discover model versus an Ask-Tell dynamic. When you focus on the energy in the conversation, you create space by exploring others' perspectives, innovating, and creating. As a leader, you move from listening to the other person to protect yourself and your idea to instead listening to ensure you connect with the other person and they feel heard. The skill to develop here as a leader is for you to ask questions you don’t have answers to and to help the other person feel heard.
Principle of Physicality. This is a term I coined some years ago when working with sales professionals who had to be ready at a moment's notice to communicate with a customer. Pay attention to your physical environment. Get some good feedback from others on what your physical environment looks like on a video call.
What is your background? It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should be professional.
How is your camera positioned? Are you looking at it or is it pointing down at the top of your head?
What kind of lighting do you have? If you are not well lit, people can't see you very well.
How are you connecting with audio? Can you maintain a consistent audio connection for an entire call?
Give Trust. Many of us, with this hybrid model, have to rethink what trust means to us. The employment agreement we have had with folks has always been built on trust. The difference is we thought as long as we were coming into an office and could see the employees was that they were working. With the knowledge workers of today, leaders need to learn to set clear expectations for what and how work is to be approached and then trust that people are doing it. If there is a problem or a gap, then create psychological safety to address the gap. Don’t fall into the trap that the performance gap is the hybrid work model. You don’t know if this gap would not have existed if the person was coming into an office every day. Remember, the employment agreement is still built on trust. As leaders, we may need to spend some time thinking about what this means for us. If assumptions in how people work have been changing, what do we need to change to accommodate?
Flexibility is a significant part of a leader's emotional intelligence. Understanding and being flexible with how you feel about things prevents you from developing a fixed mindset. Stay open. Stay curious. If people are migrating away from your organization, work hard to find the real reason why.