Workplace Culture – Page 6

November 15, 2019June 29, 2023

Workplace Dress Codes Push Fashion Forward — and Sometimes Backward

Flip-flops, board shorts and a tattered Rip Curl T-shirt. Perfect beach attire to be sure, but it’s not uncommon to see employees at companies with progressive — some may call them nonexistent — dress codes roll into the office as if it’s a day at the beach and not a 10-hour shift behind a keyboard.

Organizations still contemplate defining business casual dress codes.

While dress codes have substantially loosened over the past three decades, the area between appropriate and inappropriate apparel becomes a bit hazy. Fashion and personal style strategist Joseph Rosenfeld said that lax dress policies can result in employees consistently dressing down and misrepresenting themselves in a professional setting.

“What’s happened with business casual as a concept culturally is we chase to the lowest common denominator,” he said.

Business casual can be a safe bet in allowing employees to dress to their comfort levels and identities. By definition, business casual is just a step down from business professional. It is more casual, but doesn’t include jeans, and certainly bars shorts and an old high school gym T-shirt. Still, business casual can be a bit blurry too, depending on how well, or how poorly, a workplace communicates its do’s and don’ts when it comes to what to wear to work.

“More than 20 years later, I’m still trying to teach people that casual means leaving things to chance, and you don’t really want to leave things to chance when it comes to how you present yourself professionally,” Rosenfeld said.

Joseph Rosenfeld, co-founder of ModeDNA.

An OfficeTeam survey found that nearly 31 percent of office workers stated that they would prefer to be at a company with a business casual dress code; 27 percent favor a casual dress code or no dress code at all.

But there are limits to what passes as acceptable office attire. The survey also found that the most common dress code violations at work include wearing overly casual clothing and showing too much skin.

Megan Moran, founder, The Style Foundry.

“I find that companies with a strict business professional policy often deal with less dress code violations and a more consistent workforce. However, their employees end up feeling bored with their wardrobes and unable to express themselves and their personalities,” said Megan Moran, founder and wardrobe stylist at The Style Foundry. Although Moran also said that companies that implement a casual dress code policy may struggle with displaying a consistent company message and their employees may lose that empowered feeling that comes with business professional attire.

Workplaces should also avoid enforcing a dress code policy that is sexist or neglects traditional clothing among different cultures and religions. Failing to accommodate these aspects can put a company in legal trouble. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals on account of their religion, birthplace, ancestry, culture or linguistic characteristics common to a specific ethnic group.

Amy Quarton, associate professor at Maryville University in St. Louis, said managers should ask employees for their input to help draft an appropriate dress code as this could illuminate potential concerns and legal risks as well as earn support. Quarton also said that the policy should include clear guidelines and examples of what is and is not acceptable as well as established consequences. The goal is to create a dress code policy that allows all employees to express themselves through their work attire while simultaneously represent their employer’s brand in a positive way, she said.

“New and existing employees may benefit from training programs aimed at improving their cultural competencies and understanding of stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination,” Quarton said. “Employers can also establish a process that allows employees to share their concerns about the dress code. They can then work with people on an individual basis to negotiate accommodations that work for both the employer and the employee.”

November 8, 2019June 29, 2023

A Page From My Working Mom Diaries

Stefanie Coleman, Workforce Game Changer 2019.

These are interesting times for a professional woman in her 30s.

For many, more than a decade has been invested in a career. Rungs on the ladder climbed, reputations established. Big responsibilities in tow … heck, some of us run departments, even companies!

And that is awesome — after all, the #futureisfemale. It is also the decade where women in big cities like New York and London most commonly start having children [1a] [1b].

Gender aside, it is my opinion that jobs get more rewarding with age. The more time you spend in the workforce, the more experiences you have.

In time (assuming these experiences are relevant), they will pave the way to enhanced responsibilities, usually coupled with better role titles, bigger teams to manage, and more generous compensation. Sure, the pressure is higher, but in the eyes of an emerging executive, the benefits of climbing the corporate ladder outweigh that burden.

But this poses an interesting challenge for professional women who want children.

Imagine this. After more than a decade of hard work, a woman in her mid-30s is breaking into leadership ranks. Established and credentialed in her field, she is scaling the corporate ladder — her eye on the prize, the next promotion in sight. But she knows she wants to birth children, and that window won’t stay open forever. So that is what she does, and while she will always cherish that decision, she wonders if it will hurt her career.

It shouldn’t. But for some women it does, particularly when the right support is not in place. And this is my reason for this blog post.

I don’t suppose to have all the answers — and as a mother of two currently on maternity leave, I’m still working this out for myself. But I do have some thoughts. And, if my thoughts help even one more mother assimilate back to work when it suits her, then I’ll take it.

I took interest in this topic in 2015 when I discovered my first child was on her way. I was 32 and living with my husband in New York City. Eyeing up promotion and facing the most challenging client engagement of my career, the discovery of my pregnancy was both thrilling and terrifying.

Among the excitement were the moments when I realised the “work hard, play hard” mentality that served me through my 20s was no longer an option. After all, a pregnant woman needs her sleep. The realisation was perplexing — I needed to reframe my attitude toward work and its role in my life, and I didn’t know where to start.

I’ve made a lot of progress since then. Two babies later, I am often asked how to juggle life as both a mother and a professional. It’s the impossible question as there is no simple, let alone right answer. Alas, I attempt:

It takes a village.This African proverb is profound. For me, that village is my husband, nanny, in-laws and sister. Put simply, I could not do my job without them. A working mother must identify her villagers — they must be strong and reliable, trusted to look after the most precious of possessions. They must be thanked and appreciated, for this group is the most important coalition for a working mother’s success.
We’re in this together. There are many allies to working mothers — both men and women. But other moms in particular truly get it. We must support one another. A colleague told me she thought of asking me for a change of clothes since her baby ruined her outfit in transit to an important meeting. I wish she’d have asked — I’d have moved mountains to help. Another colleague jumped on a plane to cover for me at a moment’s notice when I was too pregnant to travel across the U.S. for a meeting. Her words when I thanked her: “We must help each other out.” I knew exactly what she meant.
Find a supportive employer. I am lucky since my firm is consistently ranked a top company for working mothers [2]. A firm that takes diversity and inclusion seriously is more likely to support a working mother’s integration than one that does not. Look for flexible work policies and family friendly benefits, as well as a leadership culture that promotes wellness and work life balance.
Divide domestic duties. As articulated by Annabel Crabb in her quarterly essay on Men At Work [3], many working mothers continue to take on the lion’s share of domestic duties in the home. In fact, research from Manchester University and the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University in the U.K. has shown that working mothers with two kids score consistently higher on chronic stress indicators, such as blood pressure and hormones, as compared to the general population [4]. In order to transition back to work in a way that is sustainable and healthy, we need to see more balance in the way domestic duties are divided between family members in the home.
Set boundaries and get to work. Working mothers are expert multi-taskers, whether it’s fixing the kids’ breakfast while taking a conference call or squeezing in a doctor’s appointment between meetings, one thing is for certain and that is that working mothers have very little time. This means that what time we do have reserved for work must be used wisely. For me this has meant less procrastination. If something needs to be done, it needs to be tackled fast. It also means that there is only time for the critical items. As a fellow working mother once coached me, “You can drop the rubber balls but not the crystal one.” Identifying what really matters at work is important, and de-prioritizing the rest is a necessary action for a working mother (even if it doesn’t feel natural).

This article might feel stereotypical to some. Of course, there are women who do not want children, and there are fathers who are primary caretakers. And, obviously, women give birth to or adopt children at all ages, not just in their 30s. I’m not ignorant to that. Take my thoughts for what they are worth. As one working mother to another (or, the partner, child or colleague of a working mother), I hope these thoughts help our working mothers transition back to work with grace. After all, we’re all in this together.

P.S., This post is dedicated to my own working mother, Dr. Cathy Allen, and inspiring friends: Liz Kreuger, Caroline Gatenby, Courtney Nolan, Joanna Bates, Sarah McGrath, Emma Fletcher and Dr. Patricia Davidson. Also, the countless working mothers at PwC who inspire me every day — there are too many to name, but they know who they are.

November 3, 2019June 29, 2023

A Workplace Nip and Tuck

I recently received a story pitch with the subject line, “Do Baby Boomers Need to Go Under the Knife to Keep Their Edge at Work?”

Sure, roll your eyes. Scoff at a pitch with a pandering subject line that cries “Open me!” like a pricey bottle of booze at a five-dollar white elephant holiday gift exchange. Crinkle your nose and sniff a haughty sniff at the thought of someone actually undergoing plastic surgery to keep an edge at work.

I don’t think it’s a silly question at all.

But you do. Then again you look like an Olympian thanks to that Lagree ultimate strength workout in the corporate fitness center. If Adonis was your co-worker he’d stare slack-jawed at your chiseled body as you passed by in the company cafeteria with your meatless burger, bowl of elderberries and glass of oat milk.

Perfect hair, stylish glasses (not that you need them; it’s just accessorizing to make you look smarter), glowing skin (of course you use product, doesn’t everybody?), and the shoes. Yes, it’s all about the shoes.

You’re at the top of your game. You crush it daily.

Until, well … until you’re getting ready for work one early spring morning and the bubbly yet acerbic TV personality on your go-to morning news program blurts out that your company has been acquired. The deal is just a passing mention following the always informative “Mr. Fix-It” segment but the chill racing down your spine buries a big fat pit in your stomach. Your knees buckle and your cup of freshly brewed raspberry chai tea trembles like a swimming pool in an earthquake.

Your company was acquired by an out-of-state competitor. You’re stunned. And you’re angered because you didn’t hear about the multimillion-dollar acquisition from the CEO via a hastily called all-hands teleconference call, or a posting through the corporate intranet. Not even a terse, one-paragraph companywide email announcing the deal. No, it was a giggly morning news show delivering a body blow that radically alters your perfectly coiffed life.

It’s been your corporate casa for nearly three decades, which makes sense given that its inviting, folksy motto is “It’s our business to make you feel at home!” Sure you’d bounced from job to job early in your career searching for the right fit. I mean, who hasn’t? And after three decades on the job it’s OK to admit that you’ve toyed with the thought of retiring — not immediately mind you. There’s still a lot left in the tank.

Your “home,” however, has other ideas that don’t take into account your distant fantasy of spending part of your golden years mountain biking across the Peruvian Andes. The mentoring of junior executives whom you suspected were already at your pay level despite being half your age has come to mean nothing. The weekends spent hitting near-impossible deadlines, all the sweat equity dripping from that slightly wrinkled brow onto your place of employment — wow, reality sure bites sometimes.

Within a month it’s clear your job is in peril. A week after regulators were pleased and stockholders were paid out you also are out … out of a job. Because you know, as the new CEO proudly boasted on your go-to morning news show, “After any acquisition, there is a duplication of efforts, which results in some synergies, and unfortunately for a lot of people today, we’re realizing those synergies. These synergies will ultimately provide a better experience for the consumer.”

Well naturally. I mean, synergies.

So now you are just another older worker in the job market. Self-doubt creeps in as you realize after your third rejection notice that ageism is a cold, cynical, perpetual workplace cycle that many employers flaunt in their never-ending search for younger, cheaper labor.

Where once you dismissed studies that found more than half of full-time workers in their early 50s were at some point forced out of their job and then experienced long-term unemployment or a huge cut in pay for years after, you now see that you are its living embodiment.

Two months ago you were a highly respected senior VP of product development. Now you’re unemployed, trips to the gym are infrequent and toast with butter and jam has replaced elderberries.

Those kids you mentored, the ones you took under your wing, not to mention out for happy hour? They are the ones interviewing you now. They all look so young and vibrant. You’ll do most anything to get back in the game, because you still have a lot to offer!

And, well, a nip here or a shot of botox there is justified to level the playing field. Going under the knife? Given your life’s new realities it’s not so silly after all.

I mean, synergies, right?

October 30, 2019June 29, 2023

Q&A With Pamela Newkirk: Diversity’s Slow Incorporation Into the Corporate Mainstream

Pamela Newkirk, author of “Diversity, Inc.,” award-winning journalist and New York University journalism professor, talked to Workforce about the diversity industry. She questions whether billion-dollar diversity programs have worked and explores why the progress has been so slow, challenging the workplace and individuals to do better in applying incentives and sparking a different conversation.

Workforce: Why did you decide to write “Diversity, Inc.”?

Pamela Newkirk: I was on a train, heading back from Washington, D.C. I was reading the paper about another disappointing diversity report, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, here we go again.” Every year we see this flood of reports, and every number turns out to be disappointing. Why is it that so much attention is given to diversity, but so little has been achieved?

As I say in the preface of my book, diversity has been a preoccupation for 30 years of my career, yet two fields in which I have been most closely aligned — journalism and higher education — have numbers that show radical underrepresentation of particularly African Americans and Latinx. Why is that? I wanted to lift the veil and look behind the scenes to see what is actually happening at these institutions and why it is that after so many years of hand-wringing, conversations, task forces, training sessions and hiring diversity czars, we’re still at this place where people of color are still radically underrepresented in most influential fields.

Workforce: What do you hope people take away from this book?

Newkirk: Part of what I hope to achieve in this book is contextualizing some of these racial misunderstandings that we have. A lot of it is due to our different experiences as Americans based on race. For instance, we can’t assume that a black American has the same relationship with the police force, the criminal justice system [and] higher education.

We have to look at the attitudes and customs in this country that [have] set us on different paths. Until we truly understand the role that race plays in the myriad of interactions that we have in this country, we’re always going to be in this place on misunderstanding and mistrust. Hopefully we can move the needle and not continue to resort to this same conversation that we’ve had for so many years.

Workforce: What do you think we can do better — as a society, as a workforce and as individuals?

Newkirk: We have to be honest about our intentions. To achieve diversity, there [have] to be true intentions, and it requires leadership from the very top to incentivize change. As many people who I interviewed during the course of my research have said: It’s not rocket science. But so many companies somehow act as if this is something that is so difficult to achieve. It has to come from the top, and people have to know that there are true incentives to make progress in this regard. Without incentives to move in that direction, and without believing that it’s truly a company priority, it’s not going to happen.

We also need to be honest about the ways in which race, ideology and history play into the current realities of people of color in the workplace and in society at large, and about some of these lingering attitudes about African Americans. For example, African American stereotypes and all these ideas that are deeply embedded in the social fabric play a role as well in diversity, or the lack thereof, in the workplace. If we still have these deeply embedded attitudes about who people are based on their race, that will be reflected in the workplace.

We don’t talk a lot about race in progressive settings. There’s usually this assumption that progressive workspaces are free of racial bias, yet what I find in my research is that many of the least diverse fields are those that are considered progressive — like the art world, Hollywood and higher education. Many of these assumptions that we make about progressives and liberals don’t really apply when we’re talking about race and equality.

You don’t need to be a bigot to not see anything wrong with these predominantly white workspaces. We have normalized the absence of people of color in so many fields.

That is what I most wanted to interrogate. Because it would be easy to point out one network that doesn’t have a great reputation on racial issues and say, “Yeah, that’s where the bias lies.” But what I wanted to do is to look even in the places where people of color would assume they would have natural allies because they are progressive people. Even there we see this radical underrepresentation of people of color. That’s where we really need to make progress, because if we’re not making progress in these progressive fields, then we know that we’re not going to make progress in places where people are more blatant about their racial biases.

Workforce: Why do you think some people are still claiming that this isn’t an issue today?

Newkirk: Often times people will see one or two people of color and think, “Oh, there we go, that’s diverse.” I think — especially in fields where people of color are so radically underrepresented — that the one or two who are there are pointed out as proof that there is diversity when that is not what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about superficial, symbolic diversity. We’re talking about real diversity.

It’s a critical issue for this country, [and] it’s a critical issue for our world. We have so many people whose talents are being overlooked or whose potential is not being developed because we have this idea of who should be in these fields. We even have an idea of who is American. We need to interrogate our notions about fairness, equality and opportunity. All these ideas are bubbling up — especially now due to who is in the White House and the whole focus on immigration and diversity — and not in a positive way.

Workforce: Do you think that the current political divide in this country is amplifying this issue?

Newkirk: Fifty years ago, we had President Lyndon Johnson who kind of embraced this whole notion of diversity [and] inclusion of people of color in fields and in segments of America from which they had historically been excluded. Now, 50 years later, we have a president who has openly attacked immigrants of color, who has vilified urban blacks and who has openly attacked the ideals of diversity. We’re going in the opposite direction at a time when the demographics are showing that we really need to make progress in this area. It’s hurting our country.

October 25, 2019June 29, 2023

New Study Points to Diversity and Inclusion as Key Driver to Company Success

A recent study focusing on diversity in the workplace found a strong correlation between diversity and inclusion functions and corporate business strategies that if well-aligned will reap a distinct positive impact on the organization’s reputation, employee retention and financial success.

Global communications firm Weber Shandwick and management consultancy United Minds joined forces with KRC Research to conduct a new diversity study that focuses on the best practices of D&I functions that are well-aligned with the overall business strategy of the company, as well as the roles and responsibilities of chief diversity officers and the challenges facing them today.

“Diversity Officers Today: Paving the Way for Diversity & Inclusion Success,” which was released in September, surveyed 500 senior-level corporate D&I professionals employed at high-revenue companies in the United States. Elizabeth Rizzo, Weber Shandwick’s senior vice president of reputation research, said that the survey was about “their role, their attitude about the D&I function that they work for, and how it is integrated with the rest of the company.” The research categorized D&I professionals into three sections — Well-Aligned, Aligned and Misaligned — along a “D&I alignment continuum.”

Tai Wingfield, senior VP of diversity, equity and inclusion, Weber Shandwick.

After reading extensively about increased visibility on the work and investment that companies were making in D&I, researchers noticed a significant gap in the field. “We were surprised to find that there was very little research available that looked at the role of chief diversity officer as a whole,” said Tai Wingfield, Weber Shandwick’s senior vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion practice. “We thought there was a need to have some sort of research in place to arm chief diversity officers with best practices on what they could do more effectively, and to raise visibility around what this role entails and where it’s headed in the next couple of years.”

Full alignment is achieved when the actions of the D&I function and D&I staff members are integrated with the organization’s planned objectives in order to meet its overall business goals. This alignment has a substantial effect on new hires and resignations. The study shows that D&I activities impact 30 percent of new hires and 13 percent of resignations. Well-aligned companies have a 33 percent rate of position acceptances due to employee satisfaction of D&I at the company, as compared to aligned functions with 28 percent and misaligned functions with 24 percent.

D&I alignment was found to be a key driver of company reputation, as 79 percent of executives in well-aligned functions strongly agreed. This is substantially higher than in aligned D&I functions with 44 percent and misaligned D&I functions with 30 percent.

Financial performance was also positively transformed through D&I. An estimated 66 percent of executives in well-aligned D&I functions strongly agreed with this statement, which was also substantially higher than the 27 percent of executives in aligned D&I functions and the 30 percent in misaligned D&I functions.

“Having an aligned function means that you have a line of sight into the C-suite, that you’re getting the right investment in the space and that you have some sort of partnership with communications and marketing, which is critical in terms of achieving D&I goals and objectives,” Wingfield said. “All of that ladders up to increased reputation benefits, financial performance and better retention and recruitment of diverse talent.”

The biggest challenge that diversity executives face is making the business case for diversity and inclusion, followed by making diversity and inclusion values or outcomes externally visible. “I think that’s why we see the CDOs who are in well-aligned functions with the business note that partnerships between communications and marketing as a best practice, because it’s so important in terms of that external visibility piece,” Wingfield said.

Rizzo said that the most surprising finding within this study was that there are three things standing in the way of achieving full integration and alignment with the business strategy: Not all D&I functions had a dedicated leader (34 percent), many of these positions are only part-time (40 percent), and alignment was not always a top priority for some companies (18 percent).

“That seems to suggest that not every company really realizes the importance of having their D&I function being aligned, or having a seat at the table with the other business strategy goals,” Rizzo said.

As for the future of D&I, the study also found that CDOs are optimistic in their visions for D&I and the expansion of the position in corporate America. Approximately 81 percent have a positive outlook on the future of D&I, and 50 percent predict that most U.S. companies will have chief diversity officer positions in the next five years.

October 21, 2019October 18, 2024

Inclusiveness Is a Two-Way Street

Conversations on developing greater inclusiveness at workplace today are centred heavily on changing the attitudes and ways of working of the groups that have majority representation in the workforce. That makes sense because the onus of inclusion cannot be on underrepresented groups that may not have the power or influence to bring about change.

But that does not mean that underrepresented groups need to sit around helplessly until the work environment changes substantially to make them feel included. There is plenty that they can do, in their own limited spheres of influence, to make themselves heard and even help their leaders make the workplace more inclusive for them.

Also read: Workplaces Should Be Chasing Inclusion, Not Diversity

Bolster your voice – The most obvious idea is to start or participate in employee resource groups. These are groups of employees with shared backgrounds or life stages that come together to support each other by sharing experiences and aiding in personal and professional development.

If your organisation doesn’t have one that meets your requirements already, it is not a bad idea to take initiative to build one. More likely than not, management would be happy to provide resources to help your group interact as it will help them understand more about your group and its needs.

An ERG is not the same as informal corridor conversations with employees of your background. It needs to have a formal structure to provide an effective forum for employees to come together and discuss issues and ways of supporting each other. It can also be a great way to brainstorm further on what actions the group can take to make the workplace more inclusive.

Question assumptions – At the root of all biases and misunderstandings are ill-founded assumptions. It is a human fallacy to jump to conclusions quickly, and we don’t always have the time or mind-space to think through our impressions in detail.

Question these assumptions, both those of others or your own. Ask clarifying questions to others when their behaviour does not seem inclusive to you. “Why do you say that?” or “Is this the reason why you think this way?” Are they operating out of biases or do they have other doubts in their mind? Provide clarifying information to help bust their assumptions and see the other sides of the story.

This is also a good way to test your own assumptions. Are you assuming that the other person is viewing you in a certain light, without checking with them on their actual opinions? Even if your assumptions get confirmed, you will gain more information and insights as a basis for further exploration.

Speak up when you see behaviours that exclude – It is dangerous to be a silent bystander to an act of exclusion. Silence often implies condoning. If you see someone behave in a way that excludes you or a colleague, call it out.

This need not be confrontational. Use your situational judgement to gauge how best to address it tactfully. You can speak in private to the person who acted that way, use humour to diffuse the tension while bringing the person’s attention to their behaviour, or be firm about stating openly that the behaviour was not okay. If you see your colleague at the receiving end of such behaviour, then check-in with them on how they are feeling and how you can support them. At the same time, you will also have to be open to feedback from others on your behaviours that may make feel them excluded.

Interact with different people – Workplace interactions often get limited to departments or colleagues who are physically seated close to you. It is a good idea to walk around and introduce yourself as well as initiate interactions with people from different areas across the organisation.

If this seems daunting to those who are more introverted, then you can also create planned forums to help diverse employees come together. This is the opposite of an ERG, where you are encouraging interactions with people from different backgrounds. Take time to talk about things outside of work in these interactions or forums. This is a great way to understand other people as individuals and build relationships that ease the flow of communication. Being inclusive is easier if we understand each other better and feel more connected with them.

Also read: The ROI of Diversity and Inclusion Efforts

Be a part of a mentoring relationship – Being in a mentoring relationship gives you the opportunity to influence another person’s thoughts and behaviours. It is a fantastic way to share experiences and learn each other’s viewpoints. Irrespective of the topic you choose to mentor someone on, there is always room for you to help them understand what behaviours, in the domain that they are working in, can help promote inclusion. Alternatively, as a mentee, you can take the lead in some reverse mentoring by helping your mentor understand what inclusion means to you.

Inclusiveness is a two-way street. While majority groups have a long way to go in terms of behaving in more inclusive manners at the workplace, it is also important that underrepresented groups get proactively involved in the dialogue so that they feel heard and are able to contribute positively.

October 15, 2019June 29, 2023

Poor Taste Does Not Amount to Prohibited Sexual Harassment

I once made the mistake of watching an episode of Orange is the New Black on an airplane.

The guy sitting behind was very uncomfortably enjoying the show along with me, and I shut it down.

Which brings me to Sims v. Met Council, a case in which an employee claimed her co-workers’ choice of television shows in the break room created a hostile work environment.

The show at issue is “Luke Cage,” which included some brief nudity. At the plaintiff’s request (and a brief argument) her co-workers changed shows. This incident repeated again later that day, with the co-workers again changing shows at the plaintiff’s request. It was undisputed that the show in question contained two scenes with nudity, each lasting less than a minute.

Stephanie Sims reported the incident to management, which assured her that the break-room television would no longer be able to connect to steaming services. Management also counseled the offending employees on the employer’s respectful workplace policies and its prohibition against retaliation.

The district court had little difficulty dismissing Sims’ hostile work environment claim.

First, her exposure to two brief scenes of nudity on a television in the drivers’ lounge cannot reasonably be perceived as hostile or abusive. … Considering all of the circumstances in the light most favorable to Sims, … she was simply not subject to severe or pervasive harassment.

And even if the brief incidents at issue here could somehow arise to objectively serious or pervasive harassment, Sims’s claim fails because there is no indication that she was subject to something to which male drivers were not exposed. The TV was on for all drivers, male and female, to see. The brief nude scenes were not directed at Sims because she was a female. Poor taste does not amount to prohibited sexual harassment.

And finally, … a Title VII plaintiff must also establish that her employer failed to take prompt remedial action when informed of the allegedly harassing behavior. Sims cannot make this showing here. The evidence, in fact, demonstrates the opposite: to a person, Sims’s managers responded to her complaints, attempted to comfort her, and took immediate action.

One employee’s television show is another’s harassment. And while this court almost certainly correctly concluded that a minute of nudity on a screen does not rise to the level of a hostile work environment, it’s nevertheless not a bad idea to take a stand against all nudity in the workplace so that you don’t end up in court making these arguments.

September 23, 2019June 29, 2023

Maybe You’re Aware … Self-Awareness Is in Short Supply at Work

Research indicates that more self-aware individuals understand others better, enabling them to lead more effectively.

The research on self-awareness by my organization, the Myers-Briggs Co., shows that most people believe they are self-aware. In fact, 82 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I have a great deal of self-awareness.”

Despite these high levels of self-reported self-awareness, a study by The Eurich Group shows that the quality of self-awareness is actually in short supply. This wasn’t a surprise. In our research, most participants thought that they were more self-aware than most people they knew (which is, of course, impossible; everyone can’t be more self-aware than everyone else).

There are a number of reasons to believe that greater general levels of self-awareness among individuals within organizations lead to positive business outcomes. Studies such as those by Bass and Yammarino, Atwater and Yamamarino, and Church showed that people with more accurate self-conception tended to perform better.

The relationship between self-awareness and flexibility is demonstrated by a study of the Royal Navy, which found that more self-aware leaders were better able to tailor their leadership style to the needs of a given situation. Better employee performance plus more agile leadership typically leads to a better bottom line.

There’s also reason to believe that self-awareness might influence retention. My team at Myers-Briggs recently researched workplace well-being with over 10,000 global respondents and found that individuals with a higher level of well-being — which can stem from self-awareness — had significantly higher levels of job satisfaction, felt much more emotionally attached to their organization, and were significantly less likely to look for a new job. They were also much more likely to be good organizational citizens being helpful to their co-workers, conscientious and more willing to go the extra mile.

What Is Self-Awareness and How Does It Help?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary self-awareness is, “Conscious knowledge of one’s own character and feelings.”

Researcher Anna Sutton further elaborates on this to describe it as, “The extent to which people are consciously aware of their interactions or relationships with others and of their internal states.”

Think about a time you took your car in for a tune-up. Nothing major was fixed, but afterward it drove like a dream. Similarly, increasing your self-awareness can help you perform better — by discovering how you operate you begin to understand how to adjust your behaviors for better results.

By increasing self-awareness, you also begin to better understand other people’s approaches. In our own recent research on self-awareness, survey respondents reported that increased self-awareness led to improvements in confidence, decision-making, people-management and stress management.

When we asked people about the advantages of being self-aware, the top five responses were:

Understanding of reactions and motivation.
Management of self and others.
Ability to adapt behavior.
Relationship improvement.
Personal growth.
We also asked people about any disadvantages to being self-aware — but many, many more people mentioned advantages. Additionally, people said that self-awareness was particularly helpful when:

Working with others in a team (mentioned by 58 percent of survey respondents).

Coping with stress (mentioned by 54 percent of survey respondents).
Acting as a coach (mentioned by 53 percent of survey respondents).
Dealing with change (mentioned by 50 percent of survey respondents).
Managing and leading others (mentioned by 45 percent of survey respondents).
Dealing with clients (mentioned by 33 percent of survey respondents).
Receiving coaching or feedback (mentioned by 28 percent of survey respondents).
How Is Self-Awareness Measured?

As we’ve mentioned, just asking people “are you self-aware” or even “are you more or less self-aware than other people” doesn’t work too well. It’s a bit like asking people, “Are you an above average driver?” Around 90 percent of Americans say “yes” to this even though this can only be true for 50 percent of individuals. There needs to be a more structured way to assess self-awareness.

A number of models and assessments can be employed to measure self-awareness in individuals. A particularly useful one comes from a 2015 study by Sutton, Williams and Allinson that identified four facets of self-awareness: Reflection, Insight, Rumination and Mindfulness. In conducting our own research, we used questions, including the sample below, designed to measure these four facets.

Agreeing with these questions suggests that you may be more self-aware, except for those marked with a “*”; more self-aware people will tend to disagree with these. How would you score? How about others in your organization?

Reflection

I often reflect on my thoughts.
I do not often think about the way I am feeling.*
I enjoy exploring my “inner self.”
I often reflect on my feelings.
Others would benefit from reflecting more on their thoughts.

Insight

I am interested in analyzing the behavior of others.
I value opportunities to evaluate my behavior.
It is important to understand why people behave in the way they do.
When I’m feeling uncomfortable, I can easily name these feelings.
I usually know why I am feeling the way I do.

Mindfulness

I am often on auto-pilot and do not pay much attention to what I am doing.*
Sometimes I am careless because I am preoccupied, with many things on my mind.*
I often dwell on the past or the future, rather than the present.*
My mind often wanders when I am trying to concentrate.*

Rumination

I often find myself thinking about past negative events.
When things go wrong, I often ruminate on them for long periods of time.
I tend not to look back and think about how I could have done things differently.*

How Can a Workplace Professional Promote Self-Awareness?

There are many ways to develop self-awareness, but a mix of methods will probably work best. Here are some of the most popular, based on responses to our survey.

Feedback from a range of different people, including:

Peers.
Managers.
Subordinates.
Clients.
Family.

An individual’s wider network.

Completing personality questionnaires.

Training to become a coach.

Coaching and other professional help.

360-degree feedback tools.

Journaling: keeping a diary or journal that explores thoughts and feelings surrounding the events of one’s life.

However, the most popular methods aren’t necessarily the best. We looked at a number of these commonly used approaches and found that the best methods, in order of effectiveness, were:

Training to be a coach.
Being coached.
Completing personality assessments.
Having structured feedback from your peers.
Journaling.

It wasn’t too surprising that “training to be a coach” topped the list, as this involves many hours of learning to understand oneself before being allowed to coach others. Of course, such training is also time consuming and expensive and not a realistic route for most employees.

On the other hand, “receiving personal coaching” as a way to help senior managers is something that many organizations may invest in. It does, however, come with a significant cost and time commitment, so for many individuals this may not be a realistic option. Instead, companies might want to look into using personality assessments and facilitating ways in which employees can have structured feedback from their peers. These may often be the most cost-effective approaches in terms of providing the biggest payoff for a relatively low monetary investment.

Similarly, “journaling,” the practice of keeping a diary or journal that explores thoughts and feelings surrounding the events of your life, offers a low-cost way to effectively promote self-awareness. However, journaling may not work for everyone.

Companies should note that one of the interesting findings of our research was that “feedback from your manager” was seen, on average, to be one of the least effective methods. This is an important point because, as noted earlier, this kind of feedback was also listed as one of the most common methods of promoting self-awareness that organizations leverage.

Though we cannot say definitively why manager feedback was not seen as especially effective, there are a number of possible reasons. Some managers may be less close to the work of their subordinates work than their peers; indeed in some large international organizations they may be based on a different country and rarely be in contact. Others may be viewed as having a particular agenda, or as being too busy with other aspects of their job. Whatever the reason, this is a troubling finding for managers.

You’re Self-Aware, Now What?

Building your own self-awareness is really just the first step. Once individuals become more aware of their own personality preferences and have a structure to understand and describe themselves, they can start to recognize how their co-workers are similar to or different from them. They can use this knowledge to begin to devise strategies to work with their co-workers more effectively, using their differences in a constructive, rather than destructive, way.

Research shows that more diverse teams can perform better than more homogeneous teams; team members can bring different perspectives to bear on the issues they have to deal with. Diverse teams can however suffer from more conflict, often because individuals simply do not understand other team members. Building self-awareness is a key way of solving this issue.

Linked to this greater understanding, managers and workplace professionals can put in place systems to help people work together more effectively. This could include approaches such as:

Establishing a modus operandi for working together that takes account of the rights and the responsibilities of different personality types.
Ensuring that important information is communicated in a range of different ways (rather than only in a style that suits the personality of the sender).
Taking into account both the logical answer and the solution that makes sense for people and the organization’s values when making decisions.
Identifying how the different approaches of team members can complement each other.
Allowing time for reflection during or after meetings.
Considering personality preferences when reorganizing office layouts.

For managers and leaders, the story does not stop there. Using personality assessments gives you a structure to understand yourself better. This in turn gives you a structure to understand those you manage; what motivates them, and how you can best communicate with them.

Understanding how your team works leads to an understanding of other teams and ultimately of the dynamics of your entire organization. For those at the top level, it can help in aligning the whole company to the strategy that is needed for organizational success.

Regardless of whether some or all of the approaches are taken, the key to successfully implementing any of these includes both the realization that we are different from others in ways that can be identified and described, and the harnessing of this diversity of personality in a positive way. And of course, this is a lesson that can be learned by individuals at any level in the organization.

September 20, 2019June 29, 2023

Balancing the 3 Types of Work-Life Balance

I did a candidate interview for an open position recently — during vacation on the beach.

Go ahead and fire up the comments about how my priorities are out of whack. About how I need to take care of myself.

I provide this nugget as a visual to the following reality. There are three types of work-life balance in the world. Two you can choose, one you must earn. All come with a cost. As an HR/talent leader, you should have a point of view on each because odds are they all exist to some extent in your company, but one probably defines your culture.

Let’s break down the types of work-life balance you must choose from:

You have zero work-life balance and zero flexibility. Not only are you working long hours but you’re also expected to be present in the office on the organization’s terms, not your own. You have zero flexibility about when you can leave and you have your smartphone next to your pillow at night.

This situation is relatively easy to find. Just change jobs a couple of times, don’t have boundaries about what you’ll accept and you’ll find the company and boss combination that can provide this quickly. NOTE TO THE KIDS: Sometimes you have to put in time in this situation to pick up the deep experience that can get you to a better place.

You have maximum work-life balance.Congrats! You have found a company and boss that respects your need for time away and even has an unwritten policy that they won’t reach out to you in the evening or on weekends. You come in at 8 a.m. and leave at 5 p.m. It feels good not to have to worry about the chaos after hours. Your time is your time. You found someone who respects that, so if it’s important to you hold on with all your might.

There’s just one little problem: If you hear a ticking sound, it might be the clock counting down on how comfortable you are. You see, progress on earth has rarely been moved forward by respecting labor’s need for an 8-to-5 schedule with a 90-minute lunch, so the tradeoff is that your manager may be mailing it in and putting you and your team at risk long term. Also, just know that by wanting the perfect 40-hour work-life balance, you’re opting out of the corporate version of “Game of Thrones.”

Of the three types of work-life balance in the world, two can be chosen, and one must be earned.

You get more done than the others, or you don’t get promoted or become unemployed. I know it’s harsh. But the ticking clock is real for many who feel great about their work-life balance. It’s all fun and games until you’re on the market as a candidate whose biggest accomplishment was achieving balance.

You have no flexibility and maximum flexibility all at the same time. Most of us would agree that a feature of great work-life balance is being able to leave work when you need to — a late lunch with a friend or an event at your kid’s school. If you have this ability, you agree this is tremendous, and for many of us, it’s the best part of any work-life balance conversation.

For the most part, it’s earned. You can’t put up walls and say you want a 40-hour week to get this flexibility. You have to earn it. The tradeoff for being able to leave any time you want is being indispensable, which in corporate America means your boss — who is likely a complete Type A — can ping you at 9:30 p.m. and get a quick answer.

It’s that access and iteration pace that alpha leaders want out of their people. If you’re looking for work-life balance, that’s the bad news. But if you’re looking for max flexibility about when and where you work and if you can go to the Thursday afternoon soccer game, it might be the type of work-life balance you seek.

As an HR leader, you’re in a tough spot. Odds are that you have jobs at your company with work-life balance flexibility in all three of these categories. But at the end of the day, you’re a performance coach as an HR leader.

You don’t define work-life balance alone at your company as an HR pro. That’s a team sport. But only you — the gifted HR leader who understands potential and life expectations — can customize career coaching for the individual employee in a way that matches their ambition.

That’s it, gotta go. Have another candidate interview coming up. Going to do it in the sun, by the pool. Then I’ll probably hit the beach.

September 16, 2019June 29, 2023

Love, Life and Career — Chasing the Trifecta

Stefanie Coleman

As I think about the workplace issues faced by my clients, I can’t help but reflect on my personal life and how there might be some parallels. Supervising a toddler’s play date through the corner of an eye, holding my newborn in one arm while typing this opinion piece with the other and a light bulb switched on for me. To authentically reflect this chapter of my life and the workforce issues that matter most to me right now, I have to blog about flexibility. For me, there is nothing else so top of mind.

Since 2007, I’ve advised firms around the world on all kinds of workforce issues including flexibility. Over the course of my travels, I’ve had world-class mentors, both men and women alike.

Within this group, there is a set of common traits that I strive to emulate. They successfully balance the three important attributes of the trifecta: love, life and career.

If you are career-oriented, balancing the three components of the trifecta is an important condition for living a happy and fulfilled life. And, when done properly, it improves your chances of success in the workplace.

In the United States alone, despite relatively low levels of violent crime and unemployment, coupled with steadily rising income per capita over the last few decades, general happiness within the population is declining. The 2019 World Happiness Report describes this relationship as the Easterlin Paradox, where despite rising standards of living, happiness levels trend inverse. This is attributed to a variety of factors, one of which includes digital advancement — ironically, an urgent business opportunity for most executives.

Another reason for the Easterlin Paradox could be the growing workload faced by many employees in today’s workforce. In fact, HR leaders (particularly in North America) consider unmanageable workloads a key risk to their people experience. In response, several firms have prioritized wellness strategies as a means to remediate. To do so, establishing the link to flexibility is key. Wellness and flexibility cannot be decoupled. They go hand-in-hand.

Good flexibility programs help employees balance the trifecta.

Empower employees to spend meaningful and undistracted time with their loved ones and to invest in starting and/or growing loving relationships.
Give employees adequate opportunities to enjoy their lives by engaging in leisure activities, pursuing personal passions and participating in social and/or community networks.
Create a professional environment where love and life are celebrated and where making investments of time in these two components of the trifecta will enhance an employee’s career, as opposed to harming it.

The equation is pretty simple: Organizations that offer flexibility are more likely to have engaged workers. Engaged workers are more likely to be productive. Productivity leads to heightened levels of business performance. Performance strengthens the employer brand. Top talent likes top brands.

In a job seeker’s market where, at least in the United States, there are more open positions than available talent, firms cannot afford to be inflexible if they want to gain the competitive advantage in a growing war for talent.

But where to start? Consider these five tips for paving the way to a flexible future:

Establish flexible HR policies. Consider a work from home or casual dress policy. Think about an unlimited or mandated vacation policy and how this might impact well-being. Offer flex-time so employees can adapt their work hours to complement their lifestyle (to honor family, health and spiritual commitments).
Lead by example. Flexible HR policies are meaningless when not adopted. Sometimes, workers do not take advantage of these policies in fear of retribution if leaders do not walk the talk. It’s important that leaders give employees permission to partake by taking advantage of these policies themselves.
Consider diversity. Flexibility means different things to different people. For example, what might flexibility mean to a parent? How about someone transitioning to retirement? A caregiver? Someone with standing religious commitments? A single person?

With more diversity in the workplace than ever before, it’s important to take into account diverse needs when designing flexibility programs. A one-size approach to flexibility could offer an inflexible result.

Invest in technology. If the goal is to free up more time for employees for their personal use, offer state of the art technology that enables efficient work from home and mitigates unnecessary travel to the workplace or to meetings (particularly, where distance/air travel is required).
Monitor well-being and flexibility. To understand the return on investment in flexibility, establish a correlation to well-being metrics and other business outcomes and monitor this over time. Also, review the unintended consequences of “unsupervised” flexibility and put the necessary controls in place. For example, monitor patterns in remote working periodically to make sure people are still coming on-site to work and collaborate when necessary, while taking advantage of the policy when it’s not.

There are many ways to bring more flexibility to the workforce. However, as is sometimes the case with people programs, efforts to enhance flexibility will be futile when leadership support is not in place. While these are best enabled by HR, visible C-suite sponsorship is critical. Remember this before getting into tactics, as getting the leadership team on board first will be a worthy and very important next step.