Category: Workplace Culture

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The 8 Things to Expect From a Highly Competent Diversity Consultant

For 20 years, I’ve been a diversity trainer and consultant – as an internal employee, subcontractor for other firms, and president of my own company.

Aside from providing excellent value to my clients, my goal has been to improve the reputation of my field by raising the bar on what organizations expect from diversity and inclusion work and D&I professionals. One way I do this is to educate potential clients about what they should look for in a consultant and how to engage with them. Here are eight things I tell them to expect from a highly competent consultant that will get results that matter.

They will want to do some intake. Probably lots of intake. A highly competent D&I consultant won’t simply do a training session if that’s what you ask for. That’s “old school” and very likely a waste of your time and money (see When Diversity Training Is a Waste of Time and Employers’ Money). No ethical, highly competent health professional would write a patient a prescription for a medication they request without first conducting a thorough patient history, ordering lab tests and making a diagnosis. It’s no different with D&I practitioners, and the good ones are experts just like your physician. The consultant will want to ask lots of thought-provoking questions, talk to key stakeholders, and perhaps review your existing data or documents. If there’s no contract in place yet, it’s OK to ask them to sign a non-disclosure agreement before handing over your confidential information, but be prepared to share information openly. If you don’t, you hinder the consultant’s ability to identify your root problem, assess fit with their style and expertise, and make appropriate recommendations. It also gets your partnership off to an untrusting, inequitable start.

They will help you define your goals and outcomes. Every organization begins with some sense of their problem and what they want. The competent D&I consultant will help you figure out what you need. They will work with you to define your concrete, mission-critical goals. Diversity is not an end, it’s a means to an end that’s already top of mind for your organization and its leaders. An excellent consultant will help you figure out how to get results that already matter. Be prepared to answer questions like: What is your No. 1 pressing problem as an organization right now? Your major pain points? What’s keeping your senior leaders up at night? How do you want to go from good to great? What specifically do you want people to do, think or feel differently after this project? How will you know this project was successful? Having top leaders and key decision makers involved in the intake process ensures you’ll get the most robust, accurate answers. An excellent D&I consultant will help you tie D&I work to those goals and pain points to yield a high return on your investment of time, talent and budget.

They will recommend a solution that meets your goals. Training is only a solution if lack of knowledge and skills are the problem. Most organizations who request training don’t need it. What they usually need is help improving leadership, holding staff accountable, revising policies and procedures or gathering baseline data. Training may be one aspect of addressing systems flaws or leadership deficits, but rarely produces meaningful results on its own.

They will help you assess impact. Ask your consultant how they plan to demonstrate results and ROI. A highly competent consultant won’t be surprised by the question – they’ll be impressed. They should have a good understanding of quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods, including the four Kirkpatrick levels, and how to apply them. Make sure in your contracting that goals, deliverables and evaluation of results is included. At a bare minimum, I provide all my clients with a written report of results (including quantitative and qualitative metrics), my recommendations and concrete next steps. For long engagements, have regular mid-point evaluations to assess project effectiveness and adjust your plan if needed.

They have expertise outside of D&I. The best D&I practitioners have a background in organization development as well as D&I. Many have first-hand leadership or industry experience, while others are skilled at designing and delivering training. Some are certified or credentialed coaches, while others hold certificates in specialty models, assessment tools, or communication techniques. Ensure that your consultant possesses a robust yet relevant skillset that will add depth and value to your work together.

They run an effective business. Whether the D&I professional is an external or internal consultant, expect them to be reliable and professional. They should communicate clearly, be reasonably available, respond to messages, keep their word, honor deadlines, and avoid starting work without a clear and thorough written contract. They will set boundaries to ensure you stay within your contract, and don’t get too much of their time and expertise for free. They will handle invoicing and financial transactions smoothly, use technology effectively, provide any tax or insurance documents you require, and address your concerns with a customer service-oriented attitude.

They leverage their expertise and push back gently. Don’t engage a D&I consultant unless you’re willing to partner with an expert who will use that expertise. Their role is to set you up for success by providing sound advice and analysis, and to see what you can’t. They will ask questions or push back if you make an inaccurate interpretation or ineffective decision. Expect them to listen well and answer all your questions, but to direct you if you need direction. Don’t be shy to ask the consultant for research or best practices to back up what they’re recommending, or to explain what informs their opinions.

They walk the talk. No one is perfect, but it’s reasonable to expect a highly competent, ethical D&I consultant to speak and act more skillfully and inclusively than most when interacting across differences. They should read and stay current in D&I developments, be in regular reflection about their own identities and impact on others, and do ongoing “personal work” to disrupt their ineffective biases and improve their emotional intelligence. The way they engage with you, your staff, and the public (i.e. on social media and blogs) should align with their espoused values and the general goals of D&I.

A highly competent, ethical D&I consultant, who is also an excellent fit for your organization’s culture and current needs, is a critical partner in your ongoing success. Don’t treat this role as anything less, and keep your expectations high. You’ll be glad you did!

The postings on this website represent my own personal views and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Korn/Ferry International, Futurestep, or any other organization with which I may be affiliated.

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Eliminating the ‘Offense’ Isn’t the Goal of an Inclusive Workplace

There’s good news and bad news about our current preoccupation with eliminating offensive language and behaviors from the workplace.

The good news is that the feelings and experiences of a wider swath of humanity matter more now. Women, people of color, LGBTQ individuals, immigrants and folks with disabilities are no longer expected to simply conform and comply, which is good for morale, productivity and the creation of a more humane society. The bad news is that the focus on avoiding “offense” is ineffective, even harmful, because it’s looking in the wrong direction.

“Offense” is about feelings; a person feels offended when they experience another person’s behavior as insulting or disrespectful. There are two problems with over-focusing on avoiding offense.

The first is that anyone can be offended by anything. In a diverse workforce, the possibility that someone will be offended by any particular behavior or decision is higher than ever before. This possibility can (and does) paralyze leaders out of fear, preventing them from making bold decisions — or any decisions. A hyperfocus on avoiding offense can exacerbate a fear-based culture, create a walking-on-eggshells environment or fuel leadership inaction.

The second reason is that keeping everyone happy all the time is not the purpose of an effective leader or a mission-driven organization. An effective leader’s purpose is to make decisions, aligned with clear goals and values, to ensure the organization’s mission is realized. Such a process may be collaborative and generally respectful, but it’s not about pleasing all the people all of the time. It’s about knowing whose feelings and opinions matter most. Creating a more inclusive workplace isn’t about including everything and everyone because that’s neither possible nor effective.

However, the more important issue hidden underneath the preoccupation with “offense” is that creating a more inclusive workplace isn’t always about feelings and opinions! Creating a more inclusive workplace is about getting out of each other’s way. It’s about creating an environment where brilliance and excellence flourish, because more people can bring more of their full selves into that environment. What gets in the way is less what is “offensive” and more what is oppressive.

Oppression exists when a person’s group membership endangers, in a meaningful way, that person’s life or livelihood. Oppression is not about feelings, nor is it always about intent. Where there are habits, beliefs, assumptions and processes that systematically and unfairly disadvantage members of one group compared to another, there is oppression.

Where some groups are thwarted — due to no fault or deficit of their own — in their ability to live physically unharmed, experience good health, earn a fair and dignified living, be safely and adequately housed, and meet basic needs for food, education and belonging, there is oppression. In the workplace, where some groups are unfairly thwarted — due to no fault or deficit of their own — in their ability to be hired, earn fairly, be mentored and developed, be promoted, receive opportunities and choice assignments, contribute their talents and ideas, influence decisions and work free of significant danger, there is oppression.

Oppression is a strong word. It’s a tricky concept because it’s mostly avoided as a topic of meaningful conversation in the U.S., and because it exists independent of feelings. Members of an oppressed group may “feel” oppressed — or not. They may feel offended by a particular behavior — or not.

That doesn’t mean oppression isn’t affecting their lives. Meanwhile, members of a non-oppressed group may also feel offended by a particular behavior. They may even feel like they are oppressed. That doesn’t mean they’re actually oppressed; it usually means the status quo shifted. For example, some white people feel oppressed because we hold less of a majority than we once did in both numbers and cultural dominance. Some men feel oppressed because they are now being held accountable for behaviors that were never OK but now bring meaningful consequences. While being white or male may feel more uncomfortable than before and bring more risk and vulnerability than it once did, as a group whites and males do not experience meaningful or unavoidable endangerment of their lives and livelihoods due to their race or gender, especially compared to people of color and women. That which feels offensive doesn’t always indicate oppression.

When thinking and talking about oppression, it’s important to bear in mind the concept of intersectionality — the way every person has multiple identities that intersect. Therefore, no one person is either oppressed or non-oppressed because we’re complex beings. Most of us are both. White men that are working class or who experience poverty are oppressed in their social class identity (but not in race or gender). Women who are white or grew up wealthy are not oppressed in their race or class identity (but are in gender).

It’s uncomfortable to think and talk about oppression, especially in the workplace. Perhaps a different term is a better fit for your culture, but addressing oppression is key to D&I effectiveness. Rather than focusing on “is this going to offend someone?” focus on “What are the habits, beliefs, assumptions and processes at work in our organization that systematically and unfairly disadvantage members of one identity group compared to another?”

Don’t guess but instead gather data. Start with your hiring and promotion rates, retention and turnover metrics, employee engagement results, productivity and error rates, levels of innovation and creativity, and customer satisfaction ratings. Dig deeper by looking at your HR policies and procedures, onboarding process, organizational strategic plan, market share, marketing and publicity materials, revenue and costs, complaints and lawsuits. Find out what’s getting in the way of your people bringing their full brilliance and excellence to work, and what’s impeding your ability to attract and engage top talent as well as ideal customers.

Creating a world that works better for more of us is about avoiding and disrupting behaviors and systems that are oppressive (hurting people’s lives and livelihoods), not just “offensive” (hurting people’s feelings). It’s not that feelings don’t matter; every person’s shame, anger, fear and pain deserve empathy and understanding. It’s just not the role of the workplace to meet all employees’ emotional needs, and feelings don’t necessarily reveal oppression.

That which is viewed as “offensive” should be heard and explored, but don’t get caught up in avoiding “offense” at the expense of dismantling oppression. That is a far more serious problem that the workplace is better equipped to address.

Susana Rinderle is president of Susana Rinderle Consulting and a trainer, coach, speaker, author and diversity & inclusion expert. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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How to Manage Subcultures in Your Organization

This article originally appeared on Talent Economy.

You’ve felt it. Engineering believes sales overpromises. Supervisors roll their eyes at management. Operations thinks HR is a waste of time.

You are one company, but why aren’t you one team?

The issue is that you’re dealing with culture. And not just company culture — I’m talking about the nuance and power of subculture. It shows itself starkly when something that seems like a great idea to management is appalling to employees.

For example, United Airlines experienced this the hard way in March 2018 when they tried to implement a new bonus plan. They replaced a small quarterly bonus for every employee with a lottery that paid spectacularly for only a handful of people. Employee anger and frustration with the new plan hit the media and management pulled the program within a day. It’s possible that program appealed to management’s culture and violated the values of the employee subculture.

What is culture?

Culture is made of the unspoken rules that drive behavior, particularly when no one is looking. When a group of people engage in behavior successfully, they repeat it. That repeated behavior is your company’s culture.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Edgar Schein will tell you to look closely at values. Some are pivotal — they are essential to belonging to the group. Others are peripheral — you can compromise on those and still be a member. Those pivotal values are what anchor our people to their organizations. It’s imperative we understand the common values that link people and create active subcultures.

Knowing each of the subcultures for the groups within your organization can impact execution across your business, including how you hire, develop employees, collaborate, address quality, solve problems, deliver services and deploy projects.

Clearly, a one-size-fits-all culture strategy does not work. Again and again we see companies using just one lens to view a new initiative. And even if the change itself might work well for all subcultures, leadership often insists on using only one way to communicate and implement the initiative for everyone. No wonder we trip on unintended consequences.

Here are the five ways to manage subcultures:

1. Identify where the subcultures exist. Before you can manage something, you need to study it. Subcultures can form based on business unit, geography, job type or position, department or industry. They form wherever people interact regularly and can be based on something as simple as start time or smoking breaks. Think about your departments, functions, geographic and facility locations, and formal and informal communication channels. Draw maps of your organization with these commonalities in mind to find a natural starting point.

2. Determine the active culture and subculture. There are many reliable tools available to do this scientifically: Gallup CliftonStrengths, DiSC, InColor Insight, Myers-Briggs, the Organizational Culture Inventory and Culture Index, etc. These tools highlight nuance in how we prefer to communicate, collaborate, process information and persuade. They can also tell you how a desirable quality, like the analytic need to collect data before deciding, might show itself negatively when a person is stressed (analysis paralysis). This information can help you work other organizations with compassion and avoid misunderstanding.

That said, your informal observations are just as useful. List unifying themes, common behavior and stories from the grapevine. Identify examples of people regarded as heroes and those who are not. These data points can flesh out or validate your determination of a culture.

3. Think whole, part, whole. When you are communicating to a subculture, tie your message to the shared values at the organizational level (whole), then tie to the subculture (part), then end with the message that relates to the whole. Consider how Howard Schultz addressed the arrest of two African-American men in a local Starbucks on April 18. His approach followed roughly this pattern: I am ashamed; it’s not who we are as a company (whole: company values). The store manager has left the company. Let’s meet with the men (part: local community and demographics). Let’s close the entire company for training on unconscious bias (whole: company values).

4. Address dysfunction. Sometimes, a subculture can “go rogue” and become destructive to the overall organization. Researchers refer to this as a counter-culture. When this happens, you have four options:

  • Ignore. Sometimes attention feeds an issue and not acknowledging the noise snuffs it out.
  • Confront. Direct conversation sometimes can cause people to observe and change their behavior.
  • Enlist the crowd. Groups do self-correct, particularly if the overall group is large and generally positive and the toxic subgroup is small.
  • Eradicate. If it’s clear the dysfunction is an insurmountable barrier, firing might be your only option.

5. Engage the subcultures. When you plan a change, enlist your subcultures to design with you, all at once. Your overarching agenda will knit them together, and the solution will be better suited for the subcultures.

After 9/11, the Department of Justice used this approach to plan the rollout of a new computer system. They gathered representatives from more than 50 local sites for a working session to plan logistics, communication and training to introduce the new system. More than 300 people worked at roundtables with flipcharts, answering specific questions about how their office would manage this, followed by reporting out their work. Others in the room modified their initial plans based on the ideas they heard there.

The unifying construct was the agenda. The resulting design was appropriate for each office, and the organization described it as one of the best deployment efforts they’ve seen. Why? Because it was actively considered subculture.

The best managers pay as much attention to what’s happening in the culture as they do to stock prices, customer feedback and product quality.

Your success as a leader depends on your ability to influence behavior. This means connecting with people in a way that makes sense to them and validates their connection to their group and the organization. Your understanding of culture and subculture are your path to that connection.

Tricia Emerson is founder and president of Emerson Human Capital Consulting, the author of three books on leadership and change management and a regular contributor to Forbes. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. 

 

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Author Addresses Dying for a Paycheck — Literally

Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of ‘Dying for a Paycheck.’

Jeffrey Pfeffer takes a direct approach when talking about the harmful health effects a negative workplace can have on employees. The professor of organizational behavior at the graduate school of business at Stanford University points out that these effects can happen to someone in any industry.

In his new book, “Dying for a Paycheck,” Pfeffer provides evidence and examples to support his claim that negative workplace environments are hurting — and in some cases killing — employees. Workforce intern Aysha Ashley Househ spoke to Pfeffer about why he thinks wellness programs don’t work and how the government should regulate management practices.

Workforce: What do you think sets your book apart from the other information out there on this topic?

Jeffrey Pfeffer: I think there’s several unique contributions. Number one, we did this aggregate estimate of the workplace exposures and their total effect on health in the U.S. and compared the U.S. to other countries and tried to show how much of the inequality and health outcomes comes from people getting sorted into jobs with these different characteristics.

And secondly, we look at the health insurance or health programs that they [employers] offer and whether those programs prevent people from accessing medical care. And I think there are the two dimensions of whether or not companies offer health insurance at all and the costs. And of course, the percentage of companies offering employer-sponsored health has gone down while the costs born by employees has gone up.

But even for the companies that are offering employer sponsored health insurance there’s often a financial burden for employees, and so you can see data that suggests a significant fraction of the U.S. workforce is unable to get their prescriptions filled or access medical care. A fair percentage of those people are in fact insured. And in fact, a reasonable number of people who file for bankruptcy because of medical expenses also have health insurance.

Number one, if you are concerned about health care costs, which everybody seems to be, you ought to focus on the work environment because that’s a source of a lot of the stressors, which create chronic disease. Number two, we ought to take human sustainability as importantly as we’ve come to take environmental sustainablity. This idea that we can use people and spit them out I think is just not a very humane, not a very good way to do things. And third, I wanted to highlight in this book that this is a problem that extends well beyond a single industry or a single occupation, that this is really an extensive problem that cuts across industries and occupations.

WF: What do you think is the ideal wellness program?

Pfeffer: I think wellness programs fundamentally don’t work; that’s what the evidence shows. And that is because they are an attempt to remediate the effects of a bunch of bad working conditions including things that we didn’t even study in the statistical estimate. Things such as gender and race discrimination and workplace bullying.

So, you have workplaces in which people are working long hours, people don’t have job control, people are facing economic insecurity because of layoffs and scheduling issues. And then what employers have tried to do is put on what I would call a Band-Aid. We’re going to offer you yoga or a little exercise. And what we have learned from the quality movement is that prevention is much better than remediation. So instead of trying to put in health and wellness programs to try and remediate the effects of toxic work environments, you ought to prevent the toxicity in the first place and then you wouldn’t need to try and remediate it.

And the other reason why health and wellness programs don’t work is because they are focused on individual behavior. So, I want you to stop smoking, I want you to stop drinking, I want you to exercise, I want you to eat better. But the evidence suggests that alcohol abuse, drug abuse, eating disorders are affected by one’s environment.

I remember the quote [in the book] from the woman I called Kim who worked at Amazon. She said, ‘I would basically do anything, take any drug, to try and numb the psychological pain I was feeling from my workplace.’ So, the idea that I’m going to give you some kind of diet and exercise program independent of removing the workplace environmental stresses that have caused you to engage in these unhealthy behaviors, it can’t possibly work. You need to change the environment, and then the health and wellness programs will work.

WF: What’s your advice for people in a stressful job, but can’t leave?

Pfeffer: Leave. [Laughs] The first thing I would tell people is you need to get social support and spend time with friends, and spend time with your family, and spend time in other environments. I mean the macro suggestion is if you’re in a toxic environment at work, spend time to the extent possible in nontoxic environments outside of work, which will give you relief from that. But in order to do that, you need to be able to have time to actually do that.

My facetious suggestion of leaving is not completely facetious. Once you have ruined your physical and psychological health by being in these harmful, toxic environments, it is very hard to reverse that damage. If I said to you, you’re in a place where they’re poisoning you, and you can’t leave the place… there’s no answer.

WF: What do you think it will take for businesses to realize they need to put their people first?

Pfeffer: You know what it’s going to take? You’re not going to like this answer. I think your readers will really not. It’s going to take a big lawsuit. Somebody is going to get sued. But somebody will bring a case and basically say you have a workplace that is causing people demonstrable, physical harm and we’re going to sue you on that.

WF: How can organizations put their people first?

Pfeffer: Employers need to recognize that they have a stewardship responsibility for the well-being of their employees and they ought to monitor things like prescription drug use, and they ought to monitor things like people’s physical and mental well-being. Employers doing surveys — it’s really pretty easy to put on an item that says what is your current health status on a five-point scale. And you can see this again, my parallel with the physical environment I think is a pretty reasonable one. They could do reporting on their human well-being as well because human sustainability is just as important as environmental sustainability.

WF: You mention how government should play a role. What should it do?

Pfeffer: Years ago, the government said if you put toxins into the air and the water and the soil it’s not just that you harm people, but you have externalized cost. Preventing the discharge is much cheaper than cleaning it up once it’s out there. And therefore, the government said we’re going to regulate and place regulations on this and we’re not going to permit you to externalize your cost on the larger society. And I think the parallel is direct. If I work you to the point where you are now physically, or psychologically, or some combination of the two unable to work, you’re now a cost that has been externalized onto the larger society.

And I have data in the book from studies not done by me, on how companies that don’t provide health insurance or don’t provide adequate health insurance, or adequate wages — you then rely on some form of public assistance. Again, the larger society pays. I think the government has a role to make sure that companies are not able to externalize their cost of employment on the broader society.

WF: Are there warning signs employees can look out for before they accept a job?

Pfeffer: So it’s kind of a funny one. When you interview, the people who are going to be your co-workers. Ask them what drugs they take. There’s a woman from Salesforce, and I quote her in the book and [she says], “I joined Salesforce and one week later I went on anti-depressants.” And she and I were talking more recently, and she said, “most of my friends at Salesforce are on anti-depressants. I should’ve asked, ‘Are you on anti-depressants?’ for my job interview.” [Laughs]

And it’s kind of facetious, but it’s kind of not. In some kind of subtle way, ask people, are you taking sleeping pills, are you on ADHD medicines, are you on anti-depressants? And you know if the percentage is pretty high maybe that tells you something.

WF: What is one thing you want people to take away from the book?

Pfeffer: The Bob Chapman quote: Your employer’s more important for your health than your family doctor. Employers really are the cause of the health care crisis. Most health care spend is on chronic disease; Chronic disease mostly comes from stress and stress comes from the workplace. So, if we want to fix the health care crisis and the health care cost crisis in this country, the place to begin is with the work environment.

Aysha Ashley Househ is a Workforce intern. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. 

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Think You Need Cultural Sensitivity Training? Think Again

I’ve been getting more requests for cultural sensitivity training lately.

The scenario is almost always the same: Manager has a habit of saying inappropriate things to staff or customers. One day, one of those staff members or customers files a complaint, or shares evidence of the bad behavior on social media (or both). The organization then launches a frantic search for “cultural sensitivity training” for the offending manager.

If your organization is on such a frantic search, or would like to avoid being in that position, these are the inconvenient truths that will actually solve your problem. Usually, “cultural sensitivity training” won’t.

Training is a solution only if lack of knowledge or skills is the problem. Does the manager know what behaviors are appropriate and inappropriate? If they do and they’re behaving inappropriately anyway, then training won’t fix the problem — you need accountability and progressive discipline (or termination). If they don’t, training may actually help. But if this is the case, the manager’s gap in knowledge and skills raises two questions: (1) How were they never onboarded or trained properly in the first place? (2) How were they hired or promoted into a leadership position without first possessing necessary basic skills in empathy, emotional intelligence and effective communication? The answers likely point to systems flaws that must be addressed to avoid similar problems.

Trainers can’t do a manager’s job. Trainers cannot hold your staff or leaders accountable for doing appropriate behaviors in the workplace. That’s their boss’s job.

If a person has been allowed to treat people inappropriately over time with no meaningful consequences, the problem is a lack of leadership and accountability in your organization. Leaders who allow a handful of people, or one person, to bully and disrespect others, bring down morale and put your reputation and revenue at stake are poor leaders. They are stifling productivity and innovation and creating risk and liability for your entire organization.

Take a stand for your excellent employees, your mission, and your future, and put a stop to the inappropriate behavior. It’s a sad fact that many capable people who excel at their jobs are rewarded by being promoted into a new role (leadership) that requires an entirely different skillset. Leadership is difficult, and it’s not a fit for everyone. If you’re struggling with being a fair yet decisive leader who holds people to high standards, examine your willingness to grow and get mentoring and coaching if you are.

“Cultural sensitivity training” is insensitive, insulting and “old school.” Sensitivity should not be your goal. It’s results. Behaviors that disrupt or destroy an inclusive culture get in the way of results. Behaviors that interfere significantly with people bringing their best selves to work should not be tolerated, and only accountability makes this happen. “Sensitivity training” rarely provides people with clear behavioral guidelines and communication skills. It can encourage an eggshell-walking culture that reinforces a power imbalance and the patronizing notion that non-dominant groups (women, people of color, LGBTQ, etc.) are fragile and need special handling. It doesn’t usually invite them into exploring their own power and opportunities to build skills while dominant groups are being taught to be more “sensitive” by confronting their blind spots and negative impacts.

A more effective approach starts with (again) asking the right questions: Did the person know the behavior was inappropriate? If not, what larger issues lead to the gap? How will the person be equipped to be more effective moving forward, and held accountable for doing so? Also, what opportunities does this situation present in terms of our work culture? How can we give each other feedback about a boundary being crossed? How can we all take ownership for our experience in creating an inclusive culture that’s appropriately mistake-tolerant? A skilled facilitator can help you explore these questions together, and an effective trainer can help your team develop more skills to bridge behavioral gaps. “Sensitivity” may be an intention, but should not be the goal.

Cultural sensitivity training doesn’t cure an a**hole. Intent does not equal impact. Sometimes “good” people do and say “bad” things because we weren’t thinking or didn’t realize the negative impact of our actions.

Once provided with feedback about the impact of our behavior, and the reasons for that impact, emotionally healthy and psychologically mature people take in the information, mend the relationship and adjust their behavior. People who are unwilling or unable to see other perspectives, insist on the “rightness” of their bad behavior, demonize those who experienced a negative impact, and respond to solution-oriented feedback with resistance and blame have a bigger problem. Anyone can have a shame-and-blame reaction if they’re blindsided by feedback or under tremendous stress. But if shame-and-blame is their pattern over time or general attitude, the question becomes: Is this person a good fit for their role, or for your organization?

Rehabilitating sociopaths is not your job. Getting meaningful results that matter and supporting your effective team members to create more excellence should be your goal.

Susana Rinderle is president of Susana Rinderle Consulting and a trainer, coach, speaker, author and diversity & inclusion expert. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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Nearly Half of American Workers Admit to Engaging in Workplace Revenge

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

And every time I scratch my nails
Down someone else’s back I hope you feel it

Alanis Morissette

Revenge. So natural, and yet so wrong. “Turn the other cheek” is always the preferred practice, and, yet, often life is more “smack you in the cheek” as you turn away.

Even at work.

According to a recent study, 44 percent of workers admit to partaking in some type of workplace revenge.

The top 10 acts of revenge range from the silly to the diabolical to the downright nasty:

  1. Cause a purposeful decline in the quality or quantity of work.
  2. Spreading an unflattering rumor about a co-worker.
  3. Quit a job in an unconventional manner.
  4. Hide a co-worker’s possession(s).
  5. Get a co-worker fired.
  6. Sabotage a co-worker’s work.
  7. Tamper with a co-worker’s computer or work equipment.
  8. Eat a co-worker’s lunch
  9. Disseminate private information from a co-worker’s social media.
  10. Delete work from a co-worker’s computer.
Here’s the most troubling part. Of those who admitted to taking revenge, 83 percent got away with it, and of those that got away with it, 83 percent had no regrets. Also, of those caught, 55 percent suffered no repercussions whatsoever, and only 11 percent were fired.
Moreover, this conduct might not be unlawful. Generalized workplace bullying is generally legal. Mistreatment against co-workers is only rises to the level of unlawful harassment if it’s because of some protected class (e.g., sex. race, religion, age, national origin, disability, etc.), and to the level of unlawful retaliation if the target had engaged in some protected activity.
Yet, just because an act of revenge isn’t illegal doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t handle it just the same. For starters, whether or not an act of revenge is “because of” some protected class is very much in the eye of the beholder, one person’s non-discriminatory act of revenge is another’s unlawful harassment. Do you want to take that risk?
And, regardless of whether an act of revenge is or is not actionable, it nevertheless impacts your employees the same—increased absences, high turnover, low morale, lost productivity, greater health insurance costs, and the expensive legal bills if it turns into a lawsuit.
In other words, there is no excuse for an employer to turn a blind eye toward one employee’s act of revenge against another employee.
So, what can an employer to do prevent employees from exacting revenge on each other?

For starters…

Foster a culture of kindness.
More specifically, you should be implementing these three steps:

1. Review policies. Do you have an anti-bullying policy? Do you have an open-door policy? Does your anti-retaliation policy cover all workplace complaints? If you are missing any of these components, the odds are that your employees will not feel the necessary level of comfort to come forward to complain.
2. Encourage complaints. Do you promptly and thoroughly investigate all complaints of inappropriate misconduct, or just those that could rise to the level of a lawsuit? If you’re not taking all complaints of misconduct seriously with prompt and thorough investigations, you are sending the wrong message to your employees, which could lead to them not complaining at all.
3. Take action. It’s appalling that 55 percent of those caught taking revenge against a co-worker suffered zero consequences. If you conclude that the act of the revenge happened, do something. That something need not be termination, but it should be proportional to the severity of the act and the recidivism of the actor.

Have you ever enacted workplace revenge, been the victim of workplace revenge, or had it occur in your business? And, if so, how did you handle it? Share your experiences in the comments below.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
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HR Is Getting ‘Intimate’ With Employees

Human resources is going back to the roots of an employee-centric workplace culture — and it’s about time.

According to Tom Haak’s HR Trend Institute, one of the major HR trends for 2018 is a switch from please the boss to employee intimacy. This trend is arguably the most important one HR has made since switching from personnel administration to HR management.

Many HR pros read “Human Resource Champions” by management guru Dave Ulrich. Unfortunately, many readers are left with one key message: Become a strategic partner. That meant chief human resources officers had to get close with management. This left out Ulrich’s biggest and most influential point: You need to focus on developing employee champions.

Now that CHROs are getting the message, it’s time to start developing a workplace culture revolving around employees’ needs.

The workplace should never feel stagnant to an employee. However, when HR is more focused on pleasing the boss, employees often resort to simply checking off one rote task after another.

In an “employee intimacy” setting, HR can shift the focus to each employee’s journey and experiences. This makes room for a better understanding of soft skills, offering more independence and allowing motivation to naturally skyrocket.

When employees are motivated by their own actions and passions, a ripple effect is created. This fills the entire company with employees who are improving companywide goals without extreme pressure from the top.

Create a workplace culture where leaders empower employees to feel in control of their own paths within the organization. Set aside your own and leaders’ agendas when establishing goal meetings. Start making employee-led one-on-ones the new normal in short-term and long-term goal setting.

Inform employees they’ll have 30 minutes to lead a meeting on any topic of their choice. Your role is to assist them in any way needed. If they’re struggling with a task, offer advice or resources. If they’re completely honest and say they’re getting bored in their responsibilities, find effective ways to reinvent their role together.

Empower Productivity

In recent years, HR pros have focused heavily on recruiting new talent to take on capacity problems. However, hiring quickly to fill roles leads to a decrease in the quality of talent. It also takes the focus off of your “A” players, leaving room for underdeveloped potential.

Creating a more employee-intimate workplace culture empowers your already-hired, talented employees to increase productivity, decreasing the need for constant recruiting. And when you’re able to stop filling holes with quick-fix hires, A-players are enabled to form indestructible A-teams.

Power up productivity using people analytics. Measure performance to understand what traits your top employees have. Once you have these traits pinpointed, use them to develop an efficient training solution for your entire team.

Explain to managers what traits you discovered that are propelling top employees forward and how the training will help all employees. By gaining a deeper understanding, managers have the ability to continue helping employees develop in the field. This increases their chances of creating a well-oiled machine.

Give the Power of Communication

Technology is constantly focused on improving our ability to communicate. Unfortunately, effectively communicating company news to employees remains a serious challenge that 73 percent of communication professionals reported facing in communications technology company Dynamic Signal’s “The State of Workplace Communications” report.

Many HR pros continue using easily accessible email to get information to employees. In fact, the majority of the study respondents cited email as the most effective way their organizations communicate with their teams. But cutting through the noise of hundreds of other daily emails is extremely challenging.

Surprisingly, company intranets came ahead of social media, break room posters and even mobile apps.

Stop letting your companywide messages become hidden among hundreds of other “high-priority” emails. Set up a company intranet system that puts your messages front and center. Send out messages celebrating employees’ accomplishments, short checklists for a healthy work-life balance and reminders for important forms that need filled out and signed.

Challenge managers to keep the discussion going on messages throughout the week. The more that managers focus on the message, the more enticed employees will be to open them up every day.

Val Matta is the vice president of business development at CareerShift. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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Sending All Employees to Racial Bias Training Unlikely to Solve Starbucks’ Problem

Once again, someone in an organization made a poor behavior choice whose harmful consequences were recorded and made public.

This time it was coffee giant Starbucks, and once again, people are freaking out. Starbucks is freaking out so much, the company is investing millions of dollars to close 8,000 stores and send 175,000 employees to racial bias training the afternoon of May 29.

This is what happens when the ancient “downstairs brain” is running the show. While this part of the brain is very effective at “fight or flight” in situations of imminent physical danger, it should not be in charge of leadership decisions. While the danger to Starbucks’ brand is clear, and their leadership is right to take responsibility and respond quickly, spending millions and losing millions in revenue to send employees to a half-day training is a knee-jerk reaction likely to produce few results.

Effective leadership is usually more about responding well than reacting quickly. Responding well in crisis requires two things: (1) pausing and (2) using that pause to bring the more sophisticated “upstairs brain” back online to critically examine the data.

Here are the data: On April 12 two African American men were waiting in a Philadelphia Starbucks for a third person to arrive for a business meeting. They asked to use the restroom and were denied because they hadn’t purchased anything. The manager asked them to leave and when they refused, she called 911. Police arrived and arrested the men for alleged trespassing, even after the third party showed up for their meeting.

Based on these data, here are five reasons why racial bias training won’t help.

We don’t really know the problem. Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” As a culture we have this backwards, especially when the “downstairs brain” is in control. Some questions that need to be answered are, what are Starbucks’ policies for public restroom use? Why? Are those policies working? How are they to be implemented? What is their protocol for when to call police? To call 911? Why? How are managers and staff trained on those policies and protocols? Is that training effective? How are they held accountable to those expectations? Did the Philadelphia manager know the policies and protocols? If not, why not? If so, did she follow them? If not, why not? What is the protocol for police to follow when called to a situation like this? Why? Why were police compelled to make an arrest in this situation, instead of de-escalate? Are these police procotols working? Having answers to these questions gets us to the root cause of the problem, and professionals in process improvement and root-cause analysis are the experts to engage.

Training is a solution only when lack of knowledge and skills is the problem. I’ve written often about the costs when leaders just throw training at “diversity” problems (see “When Diversity Training Is a Waste of Time and Employers’ Money”). If the Starbucks manager and police lacked necessary knowledge and skills, was this a glitch, or does it point to a systemic flaw or gap? If so, then training may be an effective solution. But if they were correctly following policies and procedures, the policies and procedures need to be changed. Then those must be hard-wired in the organization’s processes, modeled by leadership and integrated into systems of accountability.

Systems drive behaviors much more than individuals will. U.S. culture is highly individualistic, so we fixate on eliminating or “fixing” individuals instead of addressing how the larger environment sets us up for success or failure. Mahzarin Banaji, the co-creator of the 20-year-old, scientifically robust Implicit Association Test, says the test picks up on “the thumbprint of the culture on each of our minds” and cautions against focusing on individuals as the problem or the solution to bias. Banaji herself has said she doesn’t think implicit bias training makes a difference. What the research shows that does make a difference are individual practices like pausing for 20 to 30 seconds before acting and getting enough sleep to exercise “cognitive control” in the moment. (I cover six other research-based practices in this 2014 article). But systemic approaches tend to be easier, cheaper and more reliable. Examples include automated reminders at key decision points (like a computer notifying a doctor of racial disparities in how a drug is prescribed, before they prescribe that drug), eliminating bias triggers (removing names from resumes to eliminate racial bias in hiring practices) and prompting supervisors to ponder their biases before conducting a performance evaluation.

Racial bias training is only effective if created and delivered by people qualified to do so. Starbucks bringing in famous people like Bryan Stevenson, Sherrilyn Ifill, Eric Holder Jr., Heather McGhee and Jonathan Greenblatt is impressive. They are brilliant pundits, lawyers, business people and thought leaders on policy. All but Greenblatt are African American. But these qualities and qualifications don’t make them experts in implicit bias, adult learning, organizational development or change management. No one would ask a surgeon to do their taxes, or an accountant to do their knee surgery. And yet it’s common for organizations to invite respected but unqualified people to conduct mission-critical employee trainings instead of those who are less famous, but actually possess the required expertise. Highly ethical subject matter experts are best qualified to conduct a rigorous needs assessment, identify organizational gaps, make recommendations, define goals, conduct necessary training and leadership coaching, and assess results.

Racial bias training is only effective if focused on clear, concrete actions that are supported back in the office. I’ve seen firsthand how even some well-known firms providing unconscious bias training do not define clear, measurable training goals; do not provide concrete tools or clear action plans during training; do not assess training results and don’t work with clients to ensure their systems and office culture support the knowledge and skills employees gain in training. Awareness and knowledge alone don’t move change or shift cultures. (For more, read Six Ways to Set Up Training for Success.)

I applaud Starbucks for taking the community’s concerns seriously. I hope the millions of dollars and thousands of employee hours invested in their racial bias training produce results beyond good PR.

Perhaps participants will gain some skill in cognitive control so they can disrupt their downstairs brain next time it hijacks their decision making ability under perceived threat. But training won’t change the culture imprinted on all of our minds — a culture where people of color are perceived as threats when they’re just going about their lives, where it’s acceptable to call 911 whenever their presence is deemed inconvenient, and where it’s common for police intervention to exact life-altering tolls on those people of color.

Until we all commit to doing the long-term, un-sexy tasks of clearly defining the problem, doing what actually works to increase equity and inclusion and being dogged about accountability and broader systems change over time, we will see incidents like this again and again.

What will you do today to ensure your organization won’t be next?

Susana Rinderle is president of Susana Rinderle Consulting and a trainer, coach, speaker, author and diversity & inclusion expert. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

 

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The Other Side of Diversity

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

Workplace diversity has two sides.

One side says that employers cannot discriminate against minorities. The other says that employers cannot discriminate against non-minorities in favor of minorities.

Some people call this reverse discrimination. I just call it discrimination.

For example, Title VII does not define “African American” or “men” as protected classes; it merely says “race” and “sex.” Thus, if you discriminate against a white person in favor of an African American, or against a man in favor of a woman, you’ve violated Title VII no differently than the converse.

Those who’ve be following me for any length of time know my well documented history of supporting LGBT rights. And, courts have begun to agree, (nearly) universally recognizing that Title VII’s definition of “sex” inherently includes LGBT individuals.

If, however, you are going to include “LGBT” in Title VII’s definition of “sex,” then, just as employers cannot discriminate against LGBT employees in favor of non-LGBT employees, employers also cannot reverse the equation.

In light of all of this, consider Philadelphia’s Mazzoni Center, an LGBT-focused health care and wellness nonprofit.

It recently took some heat in Philly’s LGBT community for hiring a straight woman, Lydia Gonzales Sciarrino, as its new CEO. Some have criticized her lack of LGBT-specific health care experience (which, if true, would be a valid criticism), while others are more pointed, claiming that her hiring is a shameful “act of violence and deliberate silencing of the very communities Mazzoni is funded to serve.”

The Mazzoni Center defends its decision not only on Ms. Sciarrino’s qualifications, but also its non-discrimination policy:

When it comes to matters of employment, Mazzoni Center does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, age, sex, gender identification or gender expression, sexual orientation, disability, marital status or any other protected status covered by federal, state or local law. Thus, all employment-related decisions are made solely on the basis of a candidate’s skills, ability, experience, education, training, and other legitimate factors related to the requirements of the job.The Mazzoni Center’s Board considered Ms. Sciarrino the most qualified person who applied. If Title VII covers LGBT-status as sex (which I, and most courts, argue it does), then neither the Mazzoni Center, nor any other employer, can favor an LGBT applicant over a more qualified straight applicant. That would be illegal sex discrimination.

Diversity is a laudable goal. Let’s strive to make sure we are not taking positions that undermine it.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

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3 Ways to Create a More Human Workplace

It’s official. We’re in a talent war, and employees are no longer conscripted soldiers — they’re volunteers. They’re with their company because they want to be.

Although it’s counterintuitive, companies need to stop focusing on recruitment. Instead, they should focus their efforts on creating the type of environment employees want to work for — a more human workplace that embraces the employee’s whole self, which leads to high levels of engagement, productivity and retention.

Here are three ways companies can create a more human workplace that attracts and retains top talent.

1. Put Employees First. Organizations that succeed put their own people first because they recognize that their employees are the key to creating long-term value. It’s not just giving employees free food. It’s feeding their souls and creating an environment where they can have an impact.

Listen to your employees to inform your culture. As Pinterest’s Head of Culture Cat Lee told me, “We created Pinterest by collaborating with our Pinners, and similarly we create our culture by collaborating with the people who are at Pinterest.”

Define your company values and connect daily work back to the mission. For example, freedom is one of the five values at Grokker. Every week we have Work-From-Home-Wednesday, and the whole company participates. We give employees the freedom to take care of themselves and their families, and in response they commit to the company.

Lorna Borenstein, CEO of Grokker

2. Prioritize Employee Well-being. The more effectively leadership supports employee well-being, the more likely employees are to experience engagement, loyalty, job satisfaction and positive energy at work. This in turn lowers stress and increases overall positive sentiment toward the company.

The cost of presenteeism — where employees show up for work but don’t perform at full capacity — is 10 times the cost of absenteeism, according to a Global Corporate Challenge report. Rather than focusing on how to keep employees from taking sick time, target productivity while employees are already at work by prioritizing well-being.

Employees expect a wellness experience that is built into every work day, like nutrition awareness and exercise-friendly workplaces. You don’t even need to spend money to see impact. Employees who are able to take a break every 90 minutes report a 30 percent higher level of focus than those who get no breaks or only one. They also report a nearly 50 percent greater capacity to think creatively and a 46 percent higher level of health and wellbeing. Identify low-budget, high-impact ways to prioritize the wellness of your workforce. Companies can, for example, schedule 10-minute group stretch breaks at 10am and 2pm daily or stream a video to do together

3. Rethink the Employee Experience. IBM’s Employee Experience Index study found that employees with a sense of purpose and enthusiasm in their work are more likely to perform at higher levels and contribute “above and beyond” expectations for their performance — and are less likely to quit.

Move beyond perks and one-off engagement programs to create a seamless, holistic employee experience that inspires people to do their best work. Instead of thinking about how to solve specific problems, brainstorm ideas that focus on the greater goal: creating a powerful employee experience.

Here’s a very simple metric you can employ to measure your employee experience: Employee Net Promoter Score. Inspired by the gold-standard metric for consumer satisfaction, eNPS is used to understand employees’ overall engagement with the company. Have employees rate their feelings on the simple statement, “I would recommend my workplace to others” on a 10-point scale. Employees with 9+ ratings are generally considered promoters, while those with ratings ranging from 0-6 and 7-8 are labeled as detractors and passive, respectively. Use this formula: Employee net promoter score (eNPS) = % promoters – % detractors.

Research demonstrates that when we give our employees what they want — purpose, belonging and balance — the business sees success. Since 1998, the companies on the Fortune ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ list have consistently outperformed the S&P 500 stock index by a ratio of almost two to one. There’s a reason the same companies consistently make these lists. They recognize that listening to their employees, putting their needs first and promoting their strengths and capabilities promotes happiness and produces results.

Lorna Borenstein is the CEO of employee wellness technology company Grokker. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.