Are you developing your people or do you just have intentions to? It really matters now.

Uncertainty has many leaders feeling paralyzed.

Return-to-office plans have been written, rewritten, delayed, shelved, and in some cases shredded. Work-from-home requirements from employers have turned into work-from-home expectations from employees. Businesses can’t find workers to meet pent-up demand. And the unprecedented willingness of workers to simply quit is keeping leaders awake at night. Then there are the explosive complexities, uncertainties and frictions of new federal vaccine mandates. And let’s not forget the reverberations through the global supply chain.

Things are tough out there. And the future is very hard to see right now.

There is a clear way forward.

Unsure of what’s next, some leaders pause, squint and deliberate. But the top-performing companies of the future are taking action — not to mention a competitive lead.

They’re doubling down on the “knowable” aspects of human nature and behavior — things that are true now and will remain true. Things that are disruption-proof.

And one of the most disruption-proof, time-tested human needs is for development. People demand growth and development. They will leave companies that don’t provide it and flock to companies that do. In a June 2021 survey with Amazon, Gallup found that 57% of U.S. workers want to update their skills and 48% would consider switching jobs to do it.

In fact, workers aged 18 to 24 consider upskilling a more important benefit than retirement, sick leave, parental leave, life insurance and vacation. Even among workers aged 55 and older, more than half (53%) say upskilling is “very” or “extremely” important.

Recognizing and acting on this simple fact right now creates a timely advantage.

One of the most disruption-proof, time-tested human needs is for development. People demand growth and development.

When you think about it, it’s almost magnetic. The forces behind the “Great Resignation” repel — pushing employees out of their orbits and dispersing a massive amount of human talent.

In this moment of opportunity, exceptional companies are reverse engineering those forces to attract top talent. They’re acting decisively on what Gallup has discovered: The No. 1 reason people change jobs is for career growth opportunities.

Examples are everywhere. Amazon recently announced it will invest about a billion dollars in upskilling workers.

Forward-looking organizations like these are integrating the promise and process of growth into every facet of their employee experience, and they’re not stopping there.

They’re openly advertising development and upskilling as a competitive benefit. They’re making it a centerpiece of their EVPs, writing it into their job ads, and talking about it early in the recruiting and interviewing process.

It’s a winning strategy. And if your organization is looking to adopt it, Gallup has a strongly differentiated, research-based recommendation about where you might want to begin.

Start with your managers.

Well-developed managers create durable competitive advantages.

Take turnover for example. Many companies are learning the hard way that staying afloat while understaffed or unpredictably staffed is a serious business problem. Great managers reduce turnover more effectively than any other role in your organization. In fact, prior to the pandemic, Gallup Panel data found that it takes a pay increase of around 20% to lure most employees away from managers who engage them.

Great managers reduce turnover more effectively than any other role in your organization.

Investing heavily in managers increases your company’s magnetism. With great managers, current employees become harder to poach and new hires are onboarded to more engaged teams, making them more likely to stay.

Even while helping to balance the turnover equation, well-developed managers respond to challenges by helping companies do more with less. They fuel productivity, profitability and sales because they never stop cultivating employees’ potential. They set clear expectations and coach continually. This creates healthy accountability to top priorities and pays off in measurable business outcomes.

And because great managers prioritize team engagement, they inspire even higher levels of performance during times of severe disruption like we’re facing now. You read that right. Engaged employees actually outperform themselves when times are tough.

Here’s the bottom line: When you develop your managers, you harness one of the most reliable, time-tested performance drivers Gallup has ever discovered.

But manager development is more than an opportunity. It’s a literal prerequisite to future success.

When you develop your managers, you harness one of the most reliable, time-tested performance drivers Gallup has ever discovered.

Why? Managers are looking at job openings just like everyone else — and they’re more at risk than ever for everything from burnout to departure. Even under normal circumstances, managers tend to be less engaged than the people on their teams.

But things are especially difficult for managers right now. They’re dealing with talent mobilization, turnover, remote work, hybridization, burnout (their team’s and their own) … it’s just a lot.

What can you do about it?

Lock down your best managers today and set them up for success tomorrow. Make them unrecruitable. Then give them the tools and development they need to do their nearly impossible jobs.

Do that, and they’re much more likely to stay and help forge a culture that shields your organization from the perils of current and future disruption.

Here’s exactly what that looks like.

To become exceptional, managers don’t just require upskilling: They often require reskilling.

Managers need a different set of skills than they used as individual contributors. To succeed (not to mention meet the basic needs and expectations of their team), managers need to become less like bosses and more like coaches.

“Table stakes” for the modern coaching manager include things like asking great questions, listening to individualize, and using employee strengths to drive engagement and produce measurable business outcomes.

Helping managers master these capabilities requires a sophisticated approach that’s likely to include some combination of:

  • live instruction and discussion to inspire them and shift their mindsets
  • practical tools to enable deployment of their new skills
  • interactive practice, debrief, and repetition to build their automaticity and confidence
  • self-paced learning to deepen and individualize their mastery
  • experiential learning to promote application
  • social learning to build community and reinforce adoption
  • pervasive, individualized focus on the individual strengths of each manager
  • coaching and feedback to promote their engagement

This type of manager development works because it’s more than instructive — it’s transformative. It evolves mindsets and skillsets, teaching managers explicitly how to look, think and act like a coach.

Start right now.

Effective manager development isn’t necessarily quick or easy. But the return on investment is so disproportionate, so massive, that it’s almost like cheating.

This type of manager development works because it’s more than instructive — it’s transformative. It evolves mindsets and skillsets, teaching managers explicitly how to look, think and act like a coach.

Managers control around 70% of the variation in team engagement, but only one in three of them strongly agree they’ve had opportunities to learn and grow in the last year. Worse yet, only 30% of managers strongly agree that someone at work encourages their development.

It’s time to close that yawning gap of development. Well-developed managers are an unstoppable force. They attract, engage and keep workers in an extremely competitive talent marketplace. They coach and rally employees to push your organization forward — even as disruption shakes the ground.

It’s easy for leaders to feel paralyzed right now. But inaction could lead to your organization’s competitive extinction. Invest in your best managers now to retain and develop them for the future. Don’t wait. Your most formidable competitors probably aren’t.

Teach managers how to push your organization forward:

Experiencing the Great Resignation from either side? This Forbes article sheds light on the reality of meaningful work.

For many, meaningful work feels like a pipe dream. Over 80% of college-educated Americans aspire to have such work, according to a recent study by Bates College and Gallup, yet less than 50% actually attain it.

There are many reasons for this so-called “purpose gap,” but I’d argue that one of the biggest is that we misunderstand what meaningful work actually is and therefore believe we can’t have it – when it may actually be close at hand.

Myth 1: Meaningful work is simply “nice to have”

“It would be nice to have meaning in my work,” many a college student has said to me. “But I don’t need it.”

Gallup’s research on well-being, conducted in more than 150 countries around the world, begs to differ.

Most of us would agree that we need financial stability and physical health, and many of us desire strong relationships and a sense of community. Gallup found that those four aspects of well-being hinge on feeling purpose and meaning at work. In particular, individuals who used their strengths everyday and liked what they did everyday were twice as likely to fare well in all other areas of their lives.

We found a similar but amplified finding in the Bates-Gallup study of purposeful work: individuals who had high purpose in work were ten times more likely to experience overall well-being.

In other words, we do need meaningful work.

Myth 2: Only helping professions are meaningful

Meaningful work occurs when we perceive our work as being “worthwhile, important, or valuable,” according to psychologist Blake Allan and colleagues. Depending on our personal judgment of what’s important and worthwhile – a judgment largely driven by our values and worldview – our determination of what’s “meaningful work” varies widely.

That’s exactly what researchers Jing Hu and Jacob Hirsh found when they asked 245 participants to name a job or career they would be capable of doing that would give them a sense of meaning, and, conversely, a role that would fail to provide them with meaning. “44% of the jobs that were listed as being meaningful by one participant were listed by at least one other participant as lacking meaning,” Hu and Hirsh write. “Similarly, 55% of the jobs that were listed as meaningless by one participant were listed as meaningful by someone else. This substantial overlap between the two categories indicates that the extent to which a job is considered meaningful is largely a subjective judgment.” [emphasis added]

Furthermore, meaning can be constructed in any endeavor. In interviews with 135 workers in a variety of fields, Catherine Bailey and Adrian Madden noted, “the vast majority of interviewees found their work meaningful, whether they were musicians, sales assistants, lawyers, or garbage collectors.”

While it may indeed be easier for individuals in helping professions to see the “why” behind their work, an individual in any industry can step back and realize their positive impact, even if it’s solely on co-workers, or, as in the case of garbage collectors in Bailey and Madden’s study, a future good: a cleaner earth for generations to come.

55% of the jobs that were listed as meaningless by one participant were listed as meaningful by someone else. This substantial overlap between the two categories indicates that the extent to which a job is considered meaningful is largely a subjective judgment.

– researchers Jing Hu and Jacob Hirsh

Myth 3: Meaningful work is low paying

More than 9 out of 10 people would take a pay cut to get more meaning at work. In particular, they’d give up 23% of their lifetime future earnings in exchange for a sense of significance, according to research conducted by BetterUp.

This finding, and many like it, underscore our society’s assumption that there’s an inverse correlation between salary and meaningful work. In other words, when one rises, the other inevitably falls.

PayScale’s study of over 2 million workers calls that assumption sharply into question. There appears to be no relationship between salary and meaning in work when viewed by individual job title, and a slightly positive relationship when viewed by job function. That’s largely because three of the highest paid jobs in the survey – surgeons, anesthesiologists and psychiatrists – were also in the top ten professions for meaningful work, with over 91% of those individuals believing their work is valuable. Beyond the top ten, there is no clear association between pay and meaning.

Myth 4: Only high-status jobs are meaningful

Without a doubt, the professions that experience the highest meaning in work in Payscale’s study are those that require a sizable amount of education. It’s likely true, then, that it’s easier to find the value of our work when we’re in higher-status work backed by multiple levels of privilege. That said, it’s a myth to state that only people in high-status, privileged roles can experience meaningful work.

In fact, studies on job crafting conducted by many scholars, most notably Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton, have provided evidence for deep levels of meaning in some workers in a variety of low-status professions, ranging from custodial staff to hairdressers to kitchen workers to road workers. The individuals who found meaning in these types of work had reframed their work as being in service of something important, such as the health of patients and care of families in the case of hospital custodial staff, or safety in the case of construction workers.

“I care about these people behind me and I keep them safe,” said one worker holding a sign at a construction site, according to psychologists Bryan Dik and Ryan Duffy. He continued, “I also keep you safe, and everyone else in all those cars behind you.”

Similarly, the retail assistants, stonemasons, and garbage collectors in Bailey and Madden’s research found a variety of ways to see the meaning of their work, including by taking on slight variations of their tasks in order to feel more impactful. For instance, some retail assistants reported talking to elderly customers for a long while in order to provide those customers with a social outlet.

Myth 5: You have to completely overhaul your career to find meaningful work

The job crafting research just mentioned also dispels this final myth. Any of us can make our existing work more meaningful if we make the effort. Researchers have focused on three methods of enhancing our sense of purpose and engagement in our work:

  • Changing our thoughts (cognitive crafting)
  • Changing our tasks (task crafting)
  • Changing our relationships with co-workers, supervisors and/or clients/customers (relational crafting)

 

Cognitive change comes about by reflecting on the “why” behind our work. What is the greater significance, even if we play only a small role in the process of making that impact? For instance, when fundraisers were exposed to letters from beneficiaries of their efforts, they persisted longer at making tedious phone calls, organizational psychologist Adam Grant and colleagues found.

We can also alter our tasks or the manner in which we do them. For instance, some kitchen workers have been found to elevate their food preparation to an art far beyond the call of duty for their type of eating establishment.

Finally, since meaning seems to rest deeply on our connection to others, it makes sense that changing how we relate to others during our workday can make our job feel more meaningful. As Emily Esfahani Smith elucidates throughout her book The Power of Meaning, whether it’s simply asking a co-worker about her weekend or bringing a smile to customers in a coffee house, any act that makes us feel more connected to others also makes our work – and our lives – more meaningful.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.
Rebecca Fraser-Thill

No matter their generation, your employees want Career, Community and Cause.

Strike up a conversation about work values, and it won’t be long before someone brings up a pyramid — a famous psychologist’s best-known theory. Abraham Maslow’s big idea was that we all have a hierarchy of needs: once our basic physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, we seek love and belongingness, then self-esteem and prestige, and finally self-actualization. But that pyramid was built more than half a century ago, and psychologists have recently concluded that it’s in need of renovation.

When you review the evidence from the past few decades of social science, it’s hard to argue with Maslow’s starting point. If your basic needs aren’t met, it’s hard to focus on anything else. If you have a job that doesn’t pay enough, and you’re up all night worrying about survival, chances are you won’t spend much time dwelling on self-actualization.

But Maslow built his pyramid at the dawn of the human relations movement, when so many workplaces in the manufacturing economy didn’t have basic physiological and safety needs covered. Today more companies are operating in knowledge and service economies. They’re not just fulfilling basic needs; they’re aiming to fulfill every need, providing conveniences like meals and gyms, and competing to be the best places to work (from 1984 through 2011, those that won outperformed their peers on stock returns by 2.3% to 3.8% per year). In those environments, survival isn’t in question.

And once you get past that layer of the pyramid, the rest of it falls apart. People don’t need to be loved before they strive for prestige and achievement. And they don’t wait for those needs to be fulfilled before pursuing personal growth and self-expression.

If Maslow were designing his pyramid from scratch today to explain what motivates people at work, beyond the basics, what would it look like? That’s a question we set out to answer at Facebook, in collaboration with our people analytics team.

We survey our workforce twice a year, asking what employees value most. After examining hundreds of thousands of answers over and over again, we identified three big buckets of motivators: career, community, and cause.

Career is about work: having a job that provides autonomy, allows you to use your strengths, and promotes your learning and development. It’s at the heart of intrinsic motivation.

Community is about people: feeling respected, cared about, and recognized by others. It drives our sense of connection and belongingness.

Cause is about purpose: feeling that you make a meaningful impact, identifying with the organization’s mission, and believing that it does some good in the world. It’s a source of pride.

These three buckets make up what’s called the psychological contract — the unwritten expectations and obligations between employees and employers. When that contract is fulfilled, people bring their whole selves to work. But when it’s breached, people become less satisfied and committed. They contribute less. They perform worse.

In the past, organizations built entire cultures around just one aspect of the psychological contract. You could recruit, motivate, and retain people by promising a great career or a close-knit community or a meaningful cause. But we’ve found that many people want more. In our most recent survey, more than a quarter of Facebook employees rated all three buckets as important. They wanted a career and a community and a cause. And 90% of our people had a tie in importance between at least two of the three buckets.

Wondering whether certain motivators would jump out for particular people or places, we broke the data down by categories. We started with age.

There’s a lot of talk about how different Millennials are from everyone else, but we found that priorities were strikingly similar across age groups.

Contrary to the belief that Millennials are more concerned with meaning and purpose, we found that younger people cared slightly less about cause — and slightly more about career — than older people. In fact, people ages 55 and above are the only group at Facebook who care significantly more about cause than about career and community. This tracks with evidence that around mid-life, people become more concerned about contributing to society and less focused on individual career enhancement.

But overall, the differences between age groups were tiny. And that’s not just true at Facebook. In a nationally representative study of Americans across generations, Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Gen Xers had the same core work values — and tended to rank them in the same order of importance. As we’ve said before, Millennials want essentially the same things as the rest of us.

We also didn’t see any major differences by level, or by performance reviews: people valued these three motivators whether they were exceeding, meeting, or falling short of expectations. And when we compared office locations, it was clear that career, community, and cause were all prized around the globe.

Finally, we turned to function. “If it weren’t for the people,” Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “the world would be an engineer’s paradise.” Survey says: false. Our engineers care a lot about community, giving it an average rating of 4.18 on a 1-5 scale. And just as we saw with age and location, across functions people rated career, community, and cause as similarly important.

“To know what one really wants,” Maslow argued, “is a considerable psychological achievement.” Our data suggest that people are very clear on what they want at work — and they fundamentally want the same things. When it comes to an ideal job, most of us are looking for a career, a community, and a cause. These are important motivators whether you’re 20 or 60, working in engineering or sales, in Luleå or São Paulo or Singapore or Detroit. We’re all hoping to find a what, a who, and a why.

Free workshop on Culture from Vistage this Friday. You have to register.

Diversity and inclusion is not only important due to the current racial unrest in America, but also due to the evidence showing exponential return on the investment. From a millennial workforce to diverse backgrounds, corporations are feeling the pressure to compete for business as well as top talent.

A former professional basketball player turned community leader and advocate, Shan Foster will explore 7 steps to reset corporate culture with an emphasis on commitment, evaluation and execution.

How to attend

Date: Friday, January 21, 2022

Time: 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT

*Please use the blue form on this page to register.*

About the presenter

Shan Foster of Fostering Healthy Solutions

Shan Foster is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fostering Healthy Solutions, LLC, where he cultivates healthy solutions to diversity issues through education, training and execution. He also serves as Executive Director of AMEND Together & VP of External Affairs at YWCA of Nashville & Middle Tennessee. Prior to his work at YWCA, Shan served as a founding member for the Intrepid College Preparatory Charter School in Nashville, where he now is a contributing board member. Foster also serves on the board for the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, Nashville Sports Council, and Martha O’Bryan Center’s Explore Community School. Foster is on the advisory committees for Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee, 100 Black Men of Middle Tennessee and serves on the Vanderbilt University Athletics Committee. He most recently was selected Nashville’s 2019 40 Under 40 and 2019 Nashville Emerging Leader Award Winner.

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Thanks to Dr Gustavo for his great insight into empathy and how it can engage and retain employees.

Many studies have documented the harm the pandemic is doing to individuals, families and organizations and economies. If you are a leader responsible for the health and well-being of your organization or its people, what should you be doing NOW as we enter the third year of this pandemic? What is the ONE SKILL you can learn and practice to secure your own health, the health of your people and the health of your organization?

Empathy.

A research organization called Catalyst recently published a study of 889 employees and their responses to leaders who displayed empathy during times of crisis and beyond. The results:

  • Engagement: 76% of employees who experience empathy from their leaders reported they were fully engaged. This number was only 32% for employees who experienced less empathy.
  • Retention: 57% of white women and 62% of women of color said they were unlikely to think of leaving their companies when they felt that the companies respected and valued their life circumstances. At the same time, when they didn’t feel that level of value or respect for their life circumstances, only 14% of white women and 30% of women of color said they were unlikely to consider leaving.
  • Inclusivity: 50% of people with empathetic leaders reported their workplace was inclusive, compared with only 17% of those with less empathetic leadership.
  • Work-life integration: 86% reported they are able to successfully juggle their personal, family and work obligations when leaders were more empathetic. This is compared with 60% of those who perceived less empathy.
  • Innovation: When employees reported their leaders were empathetic, they were more likely to report they were able to be innovative – 61% of employees, compared with only 13% of employees with less empathetic leaders.

Common Questions About Empathy

What is empathy? For a good definition of empathy, see the article “I feel your pain”: A critical review of organizational research on empathy, by Melissa Clark, Melissa Robertson and Stephen Young, in Journal of Organizational Behavior. They define empathy as the skill demonstrated by:

1. Connecting with others to identify and understand their thoughts, perspectives and emotions.

2. Demonstrating behaviors that display understanding with intention, care and concern.

Can empathy be learned? Yes. Empathy and empathetic expression are highly coachable skills. They are also complex, and as with any other complex human behavior, they are highly perishable if not practiced in your culture.

Is there more than one kind of empathy? Yes. There are three generally agreed upon aspects of empathy:

1. Cognitive. Understanding how others are thinking.

2. Affective. Understanding what others are feeling.

3. Behavioral. Understanding the cause of behaviors that might not make sense in a different context.

Applying Empathy to Culture

You don’t have to be a psychologist or a mental health expert to introduce empathy into your culture. If you are a leader (formal or informal) in your organization, here are some concrete questions you can begin to ask yourself to practice the three kinds of empathy:

1. Cognitive. If I were in this specific situation, what would I be thinking?

2. Affective. What would I be feeling in this situation?

3. Behavioral. In this situation, what reasonable action would I want my leader to take?

Great leaders in great cultures don’t just consider these questions in a vacuum or for themselves alone. They use these questions to start themselves down an empathetic leadership path. They express their concerns by asking their employees directly. And they listen to their employees’ responses with deeply focused attention.

There is no magic formula to solve complex human challenges. But there is a reliable pattern of human behavior. In the strongest, most engaged cultures, empathy leads to compassion, and compassion leads to action. Action does not imply that a complex challenge is magically resolved. Acting empathetically simply means understanding an employees’ struggle or challenge, finding appreciation for that person’s perspective and talking collaboratively about solutions.

Empathy is far from a new skill. In fact, we are born with it. Over the decades, the perceived value of empathy, as a skill, has waxed and waned. But, given the current war for talent, the ongoing pandemic and the unknown future, empathy is essential for leaders to stay effective and for businesses to stay competitive.

I’d love to hear your questions and comments. If you would like to discuss this topic further, just drop me a note.

Until then, let’s keep cultivating our culture, together!

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How are people experiencing your leadership? Pick one of these traits to improve upon this month.

There is ample discussion about the best styles of authority and how to emulate them, but far less about the more nuanced attributes of excellent leadership… until now.

By 
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Depending on what books or articles you read, there are more than twenty different leadership styles. An autocratic leader, for example, is generally a unilateral decision-maker, while a democratic one encourages input before making decisions. A delegative style, meanwhile, assigns responsibility and decision-making to other managers. But, as with most things in life, style is not nearly as important as substance. So, whether you aspire to be a person of authority or already are, here are 20 attributes that great ones encompass.

1. Compassion and empathy: When a leader demonstrates these qualities, they earn the respect and loyalty of those around them: it’s that simple.

2. Emphasis on open communication: Leaders should ensure that employees have a voice and a platform for expressing thoughts.

3. Articulates clear expectations: A person in authority has a responsibility to express expectations in a manner which employees can follow, as well as regularly assess process and progress.

4. Always teaches: Most great staff members are made. A great manager recognizes that a critical aspect of their job is to teach and grow employees’ knowledge base. Think of it as akin to banking: You can either stick money in a savings account and watch it grow slowly or invest and see it grow exponentially faster.

5. Inspires others: Inspiration is about engendering creativity, loyalty, dedication and every other positive attribute we want employees to possess.

6. Leads by example: Anyone in a position of authority should hold themselves to the same expectations to which they hold others.

7. Embraces opportunities: Change and challenges can be seen as problematic, but a capable leader embraces them as opportunities to adapt, learn and grow.

8. Fosters creativity: Employees inevitably possess capability resources beyond their assigned tasks. Each one of them has the ability to bring new perspectives and ideas, so encourage that.

9. Encourages feedback: All leaders generally have the final say, but great ones solicit and listen to feedback and take it into consideration before taking action.

10. Empowers others: The best way to grow successfully is to encourage others to constructively contribute — to freely entrust staff members with important tasks, and to solicit innovations from them.

11. Offers transparency: Whether what needs saying is good or bad, a leader offers communication clarity, which engenders trust and loyalty and reduces stress.

12. Takes accountability: No one is perfect and no one should expect perfection from others. Part of being a winning authority figure is owning mistakes.

13. Is authentic: Most people do not want to feel patronized or pandered to. Be yourself and be genuine, and you will inspire others to do the same.

14. Acknowledges effort and results: Recognition is a powerful tool: It sends the message that you see and appreciate the actions of those around you. Every employee is valuable, yes, but each one of them need to told exactly why.

15. Is loyal: From turnover to productivity (or their lack), loyalty manifests itself in many ways, and the best way to foster it is to demonstrate it.

16. Rewards excellence: Superlative work should be a high bar not easy to reach, and for those who do achieve it, there should be a suitable reward.

17. Shares in success: Whether through profit sharing, career advancement or other bonuses or opportunities, when a company experiences success, it should share it with the people responsible for making it possible.

18. Avoids distractions: A great leader has the vision, mission and values that help define a company. If something does not align with or deters from these principles, it should be removed or avoided.

19. Actively listens and observes: We learn by watching and listening, not by talking and directing. Take time every day to fine-tune those managerial antennae.

20. Asks for help: There is likely no better way to make someone feel valued and appreciated than asking them for help. Your humility as a leader in doing so will pay off tenfold. After all, great leadership is not inherent to everyone, and should not be limited to those with power; it is a process that can and needs to be cultivated.

In this tight labor market everything you can do to engage your team is relevant.

Over the past year and a half, we’ve lived through a pandemic, a social justice awakening, and the devastating impacts of the climate crisis. The Great Resignation is on the rise and many workplaces are now adapting to a hybrid model. At home, families continue to juggle job and caregiving responsibilities.

In short: Life’s been hard and it’s taking a toll on our mental health.

Globally, more than 20% of people are struggling with anxiety and depression. In the U.S., at least 8 in 10 people who took an anxiety or depression screening in 2020 reported moderate to severe symptoms. We all know that stressors at work can often cause or exacerbate these problems.

To better understand how employees are dealing, we conducted a survey of 1,000 full-time U.S. workers across different industries. We found that only 30% of employees felt comfortable talking about their mental health at work. Nearly half of those who opened up about their mental health experienced negative consequences, like being labeled “overly emotional,” passed over for promotions, micromanaged by superiors, or given fewer opportunities for development.

We also discovered that managers know that they play a role in employee stress. When we asked about burnout — a significant factor — we learned that 84% of managers reported feeling “somewhat” responsible for their employees’ struggles.

We believe that managers, especially new and young team leaders, may have a unique opportunity to center employee care and push for a necessary cultural shift. When managers lead conversations about performance and productivity with empathy and care, everyone feels more valued and supported. Similarly, when managers prioritize learning about their direct reports’ interests and strengths, understanding what success means to them, and creating goals that help them meet both their professional and personal needs, everyone thrives.

If you’re just starting out as a manager, you have to do more than set business goals. Here are some specific strategies you can adopt to empower yourself and advocate for your team’s mental health at work.

1) Understand your company’s policies.

To start, take some time to research your organization’s policy on mental health. Most companies have a resource page or handbook with this information, including whether you offer “wellness” days or any kind of internal counseling for your workers. You can also look at your health insurance provider’s site to learn more about the specific services they will cover.

It’s important for you to be familiar with the resources available should your team members need them, or approach you for guidance. This includes employee assistance programs, mindfulness resources, resilience trainings (for employees and managers), suicide prevention hotlines, or Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). If your company has a corporate wellness app, learn how it works and regularly encourage your team to use it.

Keep your team informed about any new programs, workshops, or professional development funds you learn about. If possible, seek feedback on whether the resources are helpful to them.

You can also share your feedback about these resources with senior management or your own supervisor. Let them know what’s working and not working for both you and your team.

When managers like you take the time and initiative to suggest improvements, it can benefit everyone in the organization.

2) Don’t pressure anyone to discuss their mental health.

As a manager, you should never ask an employee for their health status or any other medical information. Avoid saying things like, “You look depressed. Is everything okay?” or “You seem to be taking a lot of sick days.”

Not only can that be embarrassing, awkward, or uncomfortable for an employee, you may be violating employment laws that forbid such inquiries.

Familiarize yourself with your company guidelines around these sensitive communications as well.

3) Check in with your team.

While you should never press an employee about their personal mental health situation, you should create a psychologically safe work environment that welcomes openness, acceptance, and transparency. This may help your team feel comfortable initiating discussions around their mental health on their own accord or confiding in you when they wish to. Ideally, no team member should feel unsafe approaching you with a mental health issue.

Set up regular one-on-one meetings with your teammates. Ask them questions to understand how they are doing, whether they’re able to have a good work-life balance, and what they need to feel energized and refreshed. Asking your colleagues thoughtful questions — instead of grilling them — will foster a culture of care and help establish what actions you can take as a manager to support your team.

In large meetings, ensure that all concerns and questions are welcome. Give space for everyone to participate, especially if someone has an alternative viewpoint. Make it okay to share perspectives safely and without judgment.

This is a hard one to achieve — and it starts by being as intentional as possible. One way to do this is by acknowledging and addressing the difficult times we’re going through. For instance, if there’s disturbing news about a crisis or natural calamity, write an email to your team or use the first few minutes of a team meeting to address what’s going on in the world. Let them know that you’re available if someone wants to talk.

4) Listen with empathy.

Remember that every employee is facing a unique set of challenges — whether it’s lack of childcare, taking care of an ailing parent, the loss of a loved one, or something else. Your job as a manager is to listen and determine how to best help them.

Is someone feeling overwhelmed with meetings? Do they need more support from you to voice their opinions in group settings? Is there something in the company culture that your team (or a team member) is unhappy with?

When people share their stories, be prepared to listen without judgment. Play back what you’ve heard and clarify what they need. You can say, “Thank you for sharing that with me. I know this is a difficult time for you and I want to help you the best I can. How can I or the company best support you right now?” Then, point them to company resources.

Encouraging your team to share their views as honestly as possible — for example, offering anonymous surveys to ensure all voices are heard — will help you better see systemic issues in the organization and address them.

Finally, follow through with your promises. If you tell a direct report that they can work flexible hours, make sure you are able to deliver on that promise. Even if you’re not able to fulfill someone’s request, be honest and brainstorm other ways to accommodate their needs.

5) Lead by example.

When you’re having a difficult time, acknowledge it. When people in positions of relative power talk about their own discomfort, it normalizes these conversations for everybody around them. When you show vulnerability, it shows your team that you’re human, reduces the stigma around mental health conversations, and nudges them to speak up.

It’s also important to prioritize your own wellbeing because it shows your employees that self-care is both encouraged and expected. This can look like taking personal time off, not responding to emails when you’re out of the office — the list goes on. Know that your actions give your team permission to give themselves the care they need.

When you look out for your employees, you not only build your reputation as a caring manager but also as a leader who is emotionally intelligent. Being intentional about building a safe, trusting, and secure culture can go a long way. We are all human — and when leaders see their team as individuals beyond a role or title, it helps everyone become better at their job.

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