Tag: leadership skills

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The role of the chief people officer is changing in 2020

In the past, when a business encountered a crisis, the CFO was beside the CEO to help handle it. The current state of the world — from the global pandemic to the nationwide protests about systemic racism — has given the chief people officer a similar opportunity. 

While the chief people officer may handle return-to-office basics like providing masks and stocking an ample supply of hand sanitizer, they also face the more daunting specter of easing the stress of employees as they reintegrate into the workplace. 

“A lot of questions that might have been seen as questions of etiquette or personal choice are now questions of safety,” said Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post and founder and CEO of Thrive Global, a behavior change tech company that has been working with many HR leaders during the pandemic. 

Also read: Give managers the time they need to sharpen up their all-around skills

Chief people officers are dealing with the fundamental questions of putting people first, and now that is no longer abstract but very real for companies. “The health and well-being of employees for many companies was seen as a nice-to-have. Now more than ever, it is essential for the success of an organization, and that’s why HR leaders have such a critical role to play,” Huffington said. 

Addressing the well-being of essential workers

Employees are looking at their workplace and employer as a source of trusted information and to help them with mental health solutions, Huffington said.At Walmart, Thrive Global is making its behavior change platform available for Walmart associates — including frontline teams at stores and distribution centers — and their families across the US.

If a company doesn’t address the stress of employees — whether that stress is caused by health concerns, financial worries or something else — the bottom line and the survival of the company itself may be impacted, she said. Like Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky memorably said, she added, “Every CEO is a health CEO now.”   

“HR leaders no longer have to convince the C-suite that employee well-being and mental health matters,” Huffington said. “But now comes the challenge of moving from awareness to action, as they must help their companies go from knowing what they need to address to actually doing it.”

We need to normalize talking about our mental health in the workplace, according to Ellyn Shook, chief leadership and human resources officer at Accenture, one of the companies Thrive has worked with. Having senior leaders set the tone for the rest of the organization is key to this goal.

“The most senior leaders in the company [can share] their challenges and how they are recharging and practicing self-care, because those are the things that actually pay off around mental wellness,” she said. 

Also read: Unify those far away workplaces with global mobility tools

Relationships and conversations with other executives

The global leadership team at Bank of America has had to be incredibly nimble, creative and innovative in response to the challenges that 2020 has presented, according to Sheri Bronstein, chief human resources officer at Bank of America, another company Thrive has partnered with.

Also read: Human capital management: Enriching your human resources

“From the imperative to keep our 210,000 employees safe and healthy to recognizing the need for even more focus on diversity and inclusion, events of the past six months have led to more collaboration, learning and sharing between myself and my C-suite teammates than ever before,” she said. 

Bronstein also highlighted the importance of CEO support as the company moves forward to support a healthy workforce. Support from Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has allowed Bronstein and her human resources team to take bold, swift actions as it responds to the pandemic and the health and safety concerns that employees may have. 

These actions include “no layoffs through 2020 due to the pandemic, free, virtual access 24/7 to doctors, $100 a day to cover child- and elder-care expenses and a variety of resources to support the mental health of our employees and their families,” Bronstein said.

Shook also stressed the importance of building trust with other key stakeholders in the company. Executives working together to lead responsibly can help a company and its workforce come out of a crisis stronger and more resilient. 

“As we discuss physical safety and psychological resiliency, returning to the workplace and actions to fight racism in our organizations, an underlying theme of many of my conversations with other [C-suite executives] is humanity and the opportunity and obligation that leaders have to elevate their most important source of competitive differentiation – their people – especially during times of crisis,” Shook said. 

The opportunity to create lasting change 

The lessons organizations have learned from dealing with these crises will have a lasting impact on how they approach HR matters moving forward, Bronstein said. 

At Bank of America, she added, members of the C-suite will continue to collaborate with each other, “[maintaining] our focus on cultivating a diverse and inclusive culture, and offer programs, initiatives and partnerships that drive change.”

Shook compared the current state of possibilities for HR leadership to that of finance executives during the 2008 financial crisis. The chief people officer, much like the CFO of 2008, is a key leader in an organization right now, “guiding their organizations and people through these trying times where health, livelihoods, and equality are at stake, while also keeping a foot in tomorrow.”

“CHROs have always sat at an interesting crossroads to help their organizations elevate their people, or not – whether it be AI, a pandemic or inequity,” she said, adding the HR leaders who focus on people over process can navigate disruption better in the present and also help contribute to a better future.

At Accenture, for example, Shook said she and her colleagues have learned a lot over the past few months about how people work and how they can still collaborate and be innovative while physically distancing from each other. 

Due to this newfound knowledge, she said, “we are [not] taking this as an opportunity to think about how we go back to what normal was.” and

“This is an opportunity for lasting change,” Shook added. “For modern HR leaders, this has been an accelerant to create a blueprint for the future of work, rethink the social contract and drive even greater value for our people, businesses and communities. And, for those HR leaders who are less progressive, it’s an important catalyst to begin to create a resilient organization that is prepared for whatever the future holds.“ 

 

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How to improve manager effectiveness

on-demand workforce, benefits, freelancers, collaboration, communication

As the link between front-line workers and company leadership, managers have a key role in making a company run smoothly. But due to the nature of their job, they also have the potential to negatively impact business in terms of reputation, employee relations and business results. That’s why leaders must pay attention to how to improve manager effectiveness. 

Some 32 percent of employees do not feel that their immediate manager acts as a coach and mentor, according to a 2019 Mercer study.  Furthermore, 23 percent do not feel inspired by their boss and 29 percent do not think their manager evaluates their performance fairly.

Organizations may struggle with how to improve manager effectiveness, but it doesn’t have to be a struggle. Here are some basic guidelines for managers and company leaders to address this.

Also read: Employee communication how-to’s during a crisis

Advice for management

1. Build trust: Not cultivating team trust is where many teams fall apart, said Sari Wilde,  managing vice president at Gartner, whose areas of expertise include recruiting, current and future leadership, and critical skills and competencies.

Managers can build this trust several ways, she said.  They set out to build personal relationships with their team members. They can run their team in a way that embraces and celebrates individual differences.

Also read: How technology can help your employee engagement strategy

One exercise Wilde’s team uses to build trust and strengthen the relationships between employees and managers is called “Each One Teach One.” Each team member takes turns saying something they want to learn and something they’d be willing to teach someone else. This gives everyone the opportunity to get to know each other more and learn from one another.

2. Ask questions: Good managers don’t make assumptions about their employees’ work, Wilde said. They ask questions.

Ineffective managers may assume they know everything and tell employees how to do their jobs to a microscopic level. But it’s much more effective to ask questions, understand employee needs and realize the context in which they are working.  From there, they can break these assumptions or misconceptions and manage more accurately. 

Advice for leadership

1. Define effectiveness: Create key performance indicators for managers and specific, measurable objectives around those KPIs, said Andres Lares, managing partner at Shapiro Negotiations Institute. What do you want you managers to do, and why are those objectives important to the organization?

KPIs vary among supervisors. For sales managers, they include average sales per employee or this month’s sales compared to previous months. For other managers, they include evaluation results from team members and how many of them have earned promotions. 

Wilde also provided some KPIs for effective managers, including: skills preparedness, employee engagement, intent to stay at the organization and discretionary effort (how hard employees work).

2. Be patient: Have realistic expectations of how much time it will take to see results.

“If you want them to build trust with their team, they need the time to develop it and the time, from a daily or weekly standpoint to develop and manage their team,” Lares said. 

To help managers meet these expectations, they need resources and processes in place to help them, he added. Without offering the proper tools and formal processes, leaders are not allowing managers the necessities to actually achieve the organization’s goals. 

For example, at SNI, they implement manager field guides within the organization so that managers can use what they’ve learned in training. “This gives managers a tool to coach their people and establishes a cadence (time) for them,” Lares said. 

3. Rewards and recognition: Like any other employee who wants acknowledgement from their managers when they have done a good job at completing an important assignment, so do managers need that recognition from company leadership, according to Lares.

“Increasing their team’s productivity should be rewarded — for both the team and the manager,” he said, adding that this is much easier if KPIs have been defined and if managers are provided the resources to achieve these goals. 

Leaders continue to coach, train and invest in managers who improve. If managers don’t hit their KPIs, even with ample time, tools and processes available, there’s a possibility that the job isn’t a good fit for them. Leaders can potentially change their roles and see if that fits their skillset better. 

Effective managers will ultimately benefit the organization, Wilde said. “When you have a great manager, they are much more likely to create great managers underneath them,” she said. Managers should be good role models for the people below them at the organization. One way to recognize good managers is by assigning them high potential, highly dedicated team members. The manager will benefit, and the employee can learn under them and go on to become another effective manager  for the organization.  

The risk of not addressing ineffective managers

While how to improve manager effectiveness may seem difficult, it’s important to offset the many potential negative consequences of bad management. The axiom “people leave managers, not companies” exists for a reason. 

Ineffective managers may drive down team performance, limit creativity and risk-taking on the team and make employees want to leave, Wilde said.  As the author of the book “The Connector Manager: Why Some Leaders Build Exceptional Talent — and Others Don’t,” she’s found several reasons people leave managers. 

Some managers have an “always on” approach with the team, she said, meaning that they give ongoing feedback to employees so excessively that employees feel suffocated and stifled. “Always on” managers want to be the person to give advice, answer their questions and tell them what to do — even if they don’t know the answer. They may be trying to help, but being involved in every aspect of an employee’s work can be detrimental.

Managers aren’t helpless if their current management style isn’t working. They can work to improve their shortcomings and offset these potential negative consequences and ultimately  build a stronger team, making their organization strong as well.

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Leadership Skills: Inclusion and Empathy

Jenny just walked into your office and confessed her life is falling apart due to an addiction to Vicodin.

Tom just showed up in a dress and used what appears to be the wrong bathroom.

Your reaction to these events says a lot about how ready you are to be a manager in the coming decade. Your company is not likely to be of much help.

I recently finished reading Mike Isaac’s “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.” It’s the story of how Uber rose from humble beginnings to become a Silicon Valley unicorn, then stumbled from the top as its bro-tastic culture caused it to be tone-deaf to the world around it via repeated PR fiascos.

The cultural challenges led to the ouster of founder and CEO Travis Kalanick, who was replaced by former Expedia leader Dara Khosrowshahi (still CEO at Uber).

To illustrate the cultural overhaul underway at Uber, let’s look at some old founder-driven values under Kalanick, then compare those to new values rolled out under Khosrowshahi:

Old Uber Values: Meritocracy, toe-stepping, always be hustlin’.

New Uber Values: We build globally/live locally, we celebrate differences, we do the right thing.

Company values must evolve over time. Uber was late to make the cultural change, which underscores an important reality in most workplaces. Almost every people manager faces change happening faster than organizational infrastructure or company values can accommodate.

Great managers adapt before they are forced to and usually before the company sponsors cultural change.

Change is everywhere in society and comes at us fast. You’re reading about the drug use facing corporate America in this issue of Workforce. Opioid addiction, legalization trends and more are upon us. Company policy regarding hot button issues naturally trails the change we see outside the workplace. The fact that cultural change happens faster than companies can pivot is why one of the most important manager competencies in today’s world is rapid inclusion and empathy.

Consider the following realities:

  1. You’re a leader.
  2. You’re full of personal thoughts, a specific background and some bias.
  3. When change comes and you’re asked to consider the rights of yet another special class of people or individuals, you may react as if it’s a burden or worse. You can say it’s all gone too far. Some will agree with you.
  4. But you’ll ultimately acknowledge the rights and needs of the segment of people in front of you, or you won’t be allowed to lead anymore.
  5. History shows this cycle of events to be true. Look at all societal change and trailing legislation from yesterday’s Title VII to today’s LBGTQ+ conversations and emerging laws. Once societal change reaches critical mass, mandates come to the workplace. It’s just a matter of time.

Most of us don’t work for a company like Uber in crisis and as a result, cultural expectations related to inclusion and empathy are less clear. That means you’re on your own as policy at your company trails societal change. What if you weren’t late the game? What if you as a leader made it a priority to make all feel welcome and equal in your company and on your team?

Great managers adapt before they are forced to and before the company sponsors cultural change.

If that was your approach, you’d find the people in question — the special class of people currently causing others discomfort — incredibly willing to work for you and, just as importantly, freed to do their best work. You’d be maximizing your ability to get great work from the employees you have.

Many of you are HR pros and leaders working for companies stuck in the middle. Your company is slow to pivot on societal change for many reasons.

Also in Work in Progress: How to Hire Your First HR Leader

But that glacial corporate reaction to change is an opportunity. While you likely can’t change corporate policy in an agile fashion, you can still lead and train others on the business opportunity that happens when you treat people the right way.

When you’re early on inclusion and show empathy, a funny thing happens. Performance and the ability for someone to do their best work goes up. Word spreads about your empathy and the candidate pool expands. Managers start to have their own gravity from a cultural perspective

Also in Work in Progress: Are Your Leaders Credible? Are You Sure?

None of us are perfect when it comes to the change required as society evolves. But the best managers and leaders are moving quicker through the cycle to acceptance, and they’re viewed as a manager of choice as a result.

Uber was not an inclusive or empathetic company until it was forced to change. You don’t have to wait on your company to dictate inclusion. Be early on acceptance.

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3 Behaviors for Leadership Skills for the Digital Age

It’s not enough for business leaders to merely be “the man (or woman) behind the curtain” anymore.

In a world that’s rapidly becoming more technology driven, managers and executives must put in extra effort to create human relationships with their people — connections that are necessary for any organization to thrive in a complex and competitive marketplace.

The more your business is centered around artificial intelligence, robotics or other digital technologies, the more effort you have to make to be human and to create human relationships, to pry people away from their smartphones, to have face-to-face conversations, to appreciate people and to be honest.

Sure, digital awareness skills and abilities are important, but the more tech-focused we get, the more human leadership there has to be. Otherwise you’re just “behind the curtain.” Plenty of executives lead that way anyway, but in this environment you have to take greater steps to be more real — and effective — than the Wizard of Oz.

These are three behaviors that will help leaders make more meaningful connections with their people.

  1. Be trustworthy and fair. Whether your people see you regularly in person or you stay “behind the curtain,” your team has to be able to trust that what you say is the truth. That doesn’t necessarily mean you always share everything you know, but everything you do say has to be true. If you can’t share an answer to a question or some other information for a legal or strategic reason, then be upfront about that. Don’t make something else up, dance around it or shade the truth. You could say something like: “Because of FCC rules, because of a board vote, because of competitive pressures, I can’t go into this right now, but rest assured we are working on it and at the appropriate time we’ll share everything you need to know and everything you want to know.” When you speak you should tell the truth, and if the truth changes you should go back to your people and explain why.
  2. Be personal and approachable. The second vital behavior for leaders is that even if you stay “behind the curtain” and all anybody sees is the smoke and the floating face of the “wizard,” you still have to figure out how to be personable and approachable. Your people still need to feel that you’re a human being — and that they’re being treated as human beings. That means if you bump into each other in the hallway, you stop, look him or her in the eye and talk directly to that person. Don’t look down at your mobile device, mumble something and keep going. Don’t be that leader who’s going to the penthouse 40 floors up but doesn’t say anything in an elevator full of employees. If you struggle to make human connections with your team, consider holding office hours in the cafeteria two times a month for a few hours and announcing it to your team by offering to chat or answer questions. Maybe just two people will show up the first time. But the next time four people will attend, then eight. Before long you will have made real strides in changing the vibe in your organization.
  3. Provide and acknowledge meaning. This can be a hard one for baby boomers, who, broadly speaking, are often happy just to have a job. But today’s reality is that there are younger generations in the workforce who, while certainly happy to have a job, care more about the values that they hold and the meaning they derive from their work than previous generations have. In this case, the CEO will rarely be the person who regularly acknowledges meaning for low-level employees, but they can still do it periodically. Managers, however, can absolutely help in this regard by building this behavior into their regular interactions with direct reports. These acknowledgments of meaning can take place in performance conversations, weekly catch-ups or conference calls. They could be as simple as saying “Here’s how the work that you’re doing ties to our mission. Here’s how the work that you are doing is enabling our customers to do X, Y and Z. Here’s how what you’re doing, Bob, is moving this project forward exponentially.” Everybody wants to know that what they’re doing is not only important and appreciated, but fits in with the values and the mission of the company.

Increasingly complex times demand dynamic leadership, which calls upon business leaders to step out from behind the curtain and connect with their people on a genuine human level.