Authenticity and transparency break down the barriers between leaders and non-leaders, allowing the best ideas to come from anywhere within the organization. (Photo: Shutterstock)
In a world riddled with uncertainty—the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather events, and global political conflict, to name a few—creating a flexible, nurturing employee experience is no longer just nice to have. It is imperative.
Organizational resilience can feel like a lofty goal to achieve during a time of unprecedented individual hardship. Yet, the future will almost certainly become more unpredictable, not less. The ability to guide an organization and its people through uncharted territory while balancing the company's objectives with employee wellbeing is now a necessary skill in an HR leader's toolkit.
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At the onset of the pandemic, Momentive engaged CBRE Workplace to drive an initiative, Reimagine Work, with a goal of revamping its workplace experience while remaining true to the company's core values. Our shared goals were centered on employee flexibility, accelerating business outcomes and positioning for increased talent attraction and retention. The CBRE team helped create a highly flexible hybrid working model through extensive research, stakeholder management and a deep dive into Momentive's operating model, vision and people. We later internally branded as @Choice, in which Momentive employees are empowered to determine where and how their best work gets done based on their individual needs and team goals.
Here's a roundup of the top lessons we learned from Reimagine Work. These insights can be applied when building your own workplace experience that prioritizes people in the face of the unknown.
1. Lead with authenticity and transparency.
Instead of trying to have all the answers, be open to being vulnerable. Admit when a concept or decision is still under development and invite employees to weigh in through pilots or feedback sessions. Authenticity and transparency break down the barriers between leaders and non-leaders, allowing the best ideas to come from anywhere within the organization. Keeping all levels of employees informed along the way builds trust and credibility. It encourages us to take risks and iterate, and it fosters a willingness to tolerate ambiguity during transformation.
2. Provide agency for employees in a hybrid world.
It is more than a choice. Employees crave agency. Whether it is hybrid, remote working, flexibility or mobility, having self-agency in where and how we work is here to stay, and organizations are increasingly designing the work experience to the dynamic needs of their employees and the business. People have varying preferences regarding where, when and how they work. Covid-19 has been an accelerant on employee expectations around where, how and even when they work.
We tackled this by setting guidelines at the organization or team level for broad aspects of remote work, then empowered employees to choose how and when to use the office. We found this model to be the best approach for maximizing employee engagement and happiness, talent attraction and retention and business outcomes.
3. Dig into the data to uncover unique needs across demographics.
Data creates the what and the why behind how an organization can make effective decisions. The first step is constructing and enabling solid data collection methods and structures so that valuable information is constantly being gathered to inform decisions. We ran a series of employee engagement and work preference studies and conducted a robust analysis of this data, slicing by various filters like employee tenure, generation, role, location and department.
This exercise yielded some surprising findings. For example, we expected younger employees to be drawn to remote work at higher rates, when in fact, we found that our Gen Z teammates want to spend time in the office to learn the ropes and gain hands-on mentorship from more experienced colleagues. This unexpected insight was invaluable to ensuring that our new hybrid working model catered to the more sensitive needs of this population.
4. Embrace experimentation with pilots.
Rarely are we given permission to boldly experiment in a low-stakes environment. Pilots enabled us to do just that. Prototyping the tools, methods and behaviors necessary for success in a change to hybrid working—or any organizational change—allows for short-term experimentation without the long-term investment of time or capital. Throughout Reimagine Work, we ran pilots with small, controlled groups of participants with the clear notion that it was okay to fail. Pilots allow for iterative improvements to ultimately inform a version worthy of long-term implementation.
5. Gather employee feedback continuously.
Organizations aren't just made up of people; they are the people. Each of these people has a voice that deserves to be heard. And change is always more successful when those who are impacted have a voice – even if they don't always get what they want – it is important they feel heard. A two-way feedback loop is critical when undergoing any organizational change, and it becomes particularly paramount given the uncertain landscape in which we currently live and work.
Employee feedback can and should be collected through multiple channels and mediums, such as surveys, 1:1 meetings with managers, centralized digital spaces like Slack channels, or with open, "ask me anything" office hours with organizational leaders. Not all feedback can be acted upon, but it often uncovers previously unidentified gaps that can be filled.
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