The internet was just being made publicly available as I was going into college. Needless to say, we weren’t using the internet for anything while I was in college. My freshman papers were done on a typewriter – typewriter – in my one-bedroom apartment. And even when I did get a laptop later, it didn’t have internet access. All of our projects were assigned in the classroom, and all of our team assignments or study groups were done in person.
Even my job through college as a receptionist was done with a phone. We didn’t have an online reservation system, I had to talk to people. I had to greet them in-person when they came in for their appointment. So I was very well equipped to go into the workforce and continue this type of interaction and communication. Unfortunately, Gen Z, which is our most recent generation coming into the workforce, is feeling ill-equipped. In fact, over half of them have said that they don’t have the skills needed in the workforce. They’ve had an opportunity to be virtual, or they were forced to be 100% virtual during much of their college education.
So we are starting to see this gap, and it’s not even just because of Gen Z. But even older generations, because they were used to in-person only or virtual only and just as they learned the skills for that, we created this hybrid environment. And so we are seeing the gap in communication. Now, a lot of organizations are doing a wonderful job of investing in different technology platforms to bridge this communication gap, and we’ve seen some good success with it. However, there is still a missing ingredient and it is this erosion of social skills.
You may be thinking, what do social skills have to do with business? But think about all of the money that is being wasted when the skills aren’t there to pick up the phone and call somebody, versus how much time is spent back and forth trying to uncover and understand via text only, how much more effective and efficient things can be when people know how to have social skills to pick up the phone and have a conversation. Or when people are in person together, how to collaborate in a way that gets things done, not just efficiently, but with amazing, incredible results.
So that is a lot of what we’re seeing today, is that it’s not just about the technology that’s going to help streamline communication. It’s also that we have to address the challenge of this erosion of social skills. So when we go in and train employees and leaders alike on how to interact with one another, how to collaborate, how to communicate, both verbally written on text, how we see the results that impact carry through across the team and across the organization.
Comment below, what are you seeing in your team and in your workplace when it comes to this erosion of social skills? How is it impacting the results that you want to get? And what are you doing today to overcome this, outside of potentially just a technological solution?
I was picking up my son, Ethan, from a birthday party when he was in about fourth or fifth grade. It was at a laser tag place, where you play laser tag and then you go into a separate room for pizza, cake, and the birthday boy opens gifts. So I am picking him up, I go into that room and I see Ethan sitting at a table by himself, which was pretty odd behavior for him.
We got in the car, I asked him how the party was, and he goes on and on, telling me how much fun he had, as he’s telling me all about the laser tag. And when he’s done, I say, “Well hey, I noticed you were sitting at a table by yourself. Tell me about that.” And he says, “Well, mom, I was sitting with the rest of the kids, but they started texting each other. So I got up and moved.”
During this time in fourth or fifth grade, Ethan didn’t have a cell phone, but a lot of his friends did. And it turns out at that party, possibly the novelty at this age of having a phone, they were sending text messages to each other. Ethan got frustrated, and sat by himself. Of course, as a mom, I use this as a teaching point to both Ethan and Reese, who was probably in about second or third grade, and also in the car with us. I said, “Hey kids, listen, we need to have the basic skills of technology. But if we take two people in the future who have the same skill in technology, who is the one who’s going to get ahead? Who’s the one who’s most likely to earn a scholarship, get into that college they want to, earn the job, earn the promotion, or get what they want in life – it’s going to be the person who has the greater communication skills.”
And guess what? All these years later, the data is in.
In fact, it’s one of the top emerging trends that we’re seeing in the workplace today. It is about not only developing, but elevating, communication skills. And interestingly enough, I was just sharing that one of the top three rules for women in leadership this year is to elevate your communication skills. So you as a leader, I want to shift and broaden this a little bit more for you, because you know you’ve got to elevate your communication skills.
It is what is going to make you an effective leader. However, we need to expand and broaden to offering the same kind of training for your employees. Your employees are in desperate need, and what we’re finding is that organizations who actually invest in training communication skills with their employees, they are a more attractive company to hire top talent; it is a great tool for retention, because employees want to be working at a company that say, “Hey, we care about you. Here’s some training that we’re going to offer you.”
It also raises the bar of communication internally, making an organization that much more successful. And when we bring elevated communication training to our frontline employees, and we really enhance their skills, you are filling the leadership pipeline. You are finding your successors before they’re even necessarily leadership ready. So this is a win across the board for the employee, for you as a leader, and for the organization overall.
So where can you really dig in and offer communication training? I had a client of mine who shared that they recently hired a bunch of interns, so those that are pretty fresh out of college, and there is a huge gap in communication because most of theirs has been across email, across text, across message boards. So they need this foundational training. We also have the older generation that is used to communicating in one fashion, very myopic in their thinking.
So we need training for all generations. We need cross-training. How do we get people to communicate effectively with each other? This is the challenge to you as a leader – where, how, and not just bringing in online, quick, easy communication training. Are you taking this seriously? It is one of the top trends, and I’m going to tell you, it is not a trend in the true sense where it’s going to go away; this is here to stay. So bring that elevated communication training in for you and for your team, and you’re going to see everyone raise the bar!
I grew up in a pretty traditional Southern California home where most Friday nights we ordered pizza. Pretty standard pie, with pepperoni and sausage. In fact, that is still my husband, Matt and my son, Ethan’s go-to, although Matt loves to take half of it and add black olives (which, ugh, I’m a no olive kind of gal). It’s fine though, because my daughter, Reese and I, we love margherita pizza, that’s our favorite!
In fact, when our family goes on trips, if we’re gone for a few days, we often try to find a pizza place and Reese and I have to order margherita pizza. It’s like we’re on this quest to find out who has the best margherita pizza. And so far we have found it’s actually the place in our own neighborhood; we love their margherita pizza!
A big reason why is a lot of these other places we’ve gone to, they try to add all these other ingredients, trying to be really fancy and creative. And even though Reese and I love those ingredients, they just don’t mix with a margherita pizza. We will leave saying, “Why would they mess with this? Just stick to the basic ingredients – the ingredients that make a margherita pizza amazing.”
And why do we keep going back to our same pizza place? Because they keep it simple.
They stick to those ingredients that make it so great. I see organizations making the same mistake. They want to keep their employees coming back, they want to retain them. So what do they do? They try to throw in all of these fancy “ingredients” to try to get them to stay. And guess what? That’s not what works. A fancy game room, the ping pong tables.
I mean, the organization I worked at, we had food trucks across the street on Fridays. And yes, that was really cool, but it’s not what made me stay at the company I worked for. So stop trying to find all these fancy “ingredients” to keep your employees coming back and staying engaged in your company, and just stick to the basics. I’m going to give you four, the four ingredients that are going to help you retain your employees.
Number one, humanity. You’ve probably heard me talk about this over and over again. Your employees are human beings, stop treating them like numbers. They have their own experiences, thoughts, feelings, and emotions; get in touch with them and know what makes them tick. Treat them as individuals, as human beings.
Number two, is flexibility. Flexibility. I know that we are going into a lot of hybrid situations – that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re offering flexibility as the employee or the individual would like to see it. Are you allowing them to choose which days they can come into the office? Maybe it’s not every week that they get to choose, but once a month, can we have some flexibility in those decision-making processes?
The number three ingredient is opportunity. Do your employees see opportunity for development, for advancement, for growth? When employees think that they’re going to be stuck in their same skill set, their same position, or possibly the same team, they will leave. So you’ve got to be able to show that there’s opportunity for growth and development.
And finally, the fourth ingredient is intentionality. Kind of a fancy word here for our basic ingredient, but intentionality. Are you as a leader being intentional with your interaction with your employees, with your team members? Are you intentional in how you treat them with humanity? Are you intentional about how you work with them on flexibility and individuality? Are you intentional with how you talk about their development, their opportunity for growth?
It’s not enough just to randomly have these conversations. Are they intentional, are they scheduled? Are you having them on some sort of a regular, consistent basis? Those are your four “simple ingredients” that are going to retain your employees, versus all of this fancy stuff that can be fun at times, but it’s not the stuff that’s going to make them keep coming back and be happy every time.
I grew up in a pretty traditional Southern California home where most Friday nights we ordered pizza. Pretty standard pie, with pepperoni and sausage. In fact, that is still my husband, Matt and my son, Ethan’s go-to, although Matt loves to take half of it and add black olives (which, ugh, I’m a no olive kind of gal). It’s fine though, because my daughter, Reese and I, we love margherita pizza, that’s our favorite!
In fact, when our family goes on trips, if we’re gone for a few days, we often try to find a pizza place and Reese and I have to order margherita pizza. It’s like we’re on this quest to find out who has the best margherita pizza. And so far we have found it’s actually the place in our own neighborhood; we love their margherita pizza!
A big reason why is a lot of these other places we’ve gone to, they try to add all these other ingredients, trying to be really fancy and creative. And even though Reese and I love those ingredients, they just don’t mix with a margherita pizza. We will leave saying, “Why would they mess with this? Just stick to the basic ingredients – the ingredients that make a margherita pizza amazing.”
And why do we keep going back to our same pizza place? Because they keep it simple.
They stick to those ingredients that make it so great. I see organizations making the same mistake. They want to keep their employees coming back, they want to retain them. So what do they do? They try to throw in all of these fancy “ingredients” to try to get them to stay. And guess what? That’s not what works. A fancy game room, the ping pong tables.
I mean, the organization I worked at, we had food trucks across the street on Fridays. And yes, that was really cool, but it’s not what made me stay at the company I worked for. So stop trying to find all these fancy “ingredients” to keep your employees coming back and staying engaged in your company, and just stick to the basics. I’m going to give you four, the four ingredients that are going to help you retain your employees.
Number one, humanity. You’ve probably heard me talk about this over and over again. Your employees are human beings, stop treating them like numbers. They have their own experiences, thoughts, feelings, and emotions; get in touch with them and know what makes them tick. Treat them as individuals, as human beings.
Number two, is flexibility. Flexibility. I know that we are going into a lot of hybrid situations – that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re offering flexibility as the employee or the individual would like to see it. Are you allowing them to choose which days they can come into the office? Maybe it’s not every week that they get to choose, but once a month, can we have some flexibility in those decision-making processes?
The number three ingredient is opportunity. Do your employees see opportunity for development, for advancement, for growth? When employees think that they’re going to be stuck in their same skill set, their same position, or possibly the same team, they will leave. So you’ve got to be able to show that there’s opportunity for growth and development.
And finally, the fourth ingredient is intentionality. Kind of a fancy word here for our basic ingredient, but intentionality. Are you as a leader being intentional with your interaction with your employees, with your team members? Are you intentional in how you treat them with humanity? Are you intentional about how you work with them on flexibility and individuality? Are you intentional with how you talk about their development, their opportunity for growth?
It’s not enough just to randomly have these conversations. Are they intentional, are they scheduled? Are you having them on some sort of a regular, consistent basis? Those are your four “simple ingredients” that are going to retain your employees, versus all of this fancy stuff that can be fun at times, but it’s not the stuff that’s going to make them keep coming back and be happy every time.
Hallelujah, Amen, whatever joyous thing you would like to shout out – I just want to give kudos and a round of applause to all the organizations who have finally woken up and said, “Our employee well-being is important.” Thank you! I am seeing so many more programs and departments, even at the C level.
In fact, I recently saw a major organization hire a Chief Well-Being Officer. I mean, talk about apparent commitment to people’s well-being. So, I just want to acknowledge you. However, it’s not going to solve it. In fact, these programs and these positions could potentially do more harm than good.
Because no matter how amazing the support and these programs are, they will not kill the root cause of your employee’s low well-being.
Whether that’s stress, burnout, mental health, whatever it is – these programs will not kill the root cause. The root cause is bad managers. Bad managers, they infiltrate and they get across the entire subculture. These well-being programs do not stand a chance against these bad managers.
Unfortunately, I know this first-hand; I spent a significant period of time reporting in to a really bad manager. Who, in the final months of me working with him, exhibited full bullying behavior. Unfortunately, we found out it had been going on for 15 years. The behavior became so bad that I don’t even know if my company offered any sort of well-being programs or mental health support, I just had to go out and find it on my own. I was investing my own time and money, going to therapy every single week.
And I will tell you, the therapy was amazing, but it did not help me once I set foot in the office. Once I was there, the bullying behavior by my manager was like a dagger straight into my heart. And though I had a shield to deflect some of it, it would not rid it completely. I was unable to really show up to be the best version of myself that I could, in order to give the best contribution to the company.
And so until we all wake up and look at the root cause of the problem, which is bad managers who are living within your organization, these well-being programs are going to offer some support, and they will be great when there are good managers and these employees need this additional assistance, but do not allow this to have you go blindly.
Don’t use this as a mask, but really continue to dig deep and find the root cause; to find those managers who need training or course correcting, whatever it needs to be for those individuals. I implore you to please make sure that while you are making this amazing effort towards well-being, that you are still seeking where you can find those managers that you can course correct in whatever manner works best for that individual and your organization.
McKinsey, in partnership with the Lean In organization, recently released their “Women in the Workplace” report for 2020. Now women have always had a unique journey, to say the least – but 2020 hands down disproportionately affected working women. In fact, McKinsey reports that one in four women are considering downshifting their career, or leaving the workforce altogether; something many would have never even considered the year prior.
You may be that one in four women who are considering leaving the workforce. I faced that same dilemma at the end of 2013; I believed my only option was to quit my job and completely leave my career in order to save myself and my family. But before you seriously consider that, before you initiate any type of action toward leaving your career, I want to offer the three questions you should be asking yourself before you quit your job.
So, number one: have you asked for changes in your workload or additional support? You may be completely overwhelmed and feeling the burnout at your job because you have too much on your plate. You have more priorities and more tasks than you can possibly manage, which is causing you to work extended hours, bleeding over into your personal life. But have you had a conversation and asked your manager for either some changes in the support, additional people, maybe something is pushed off to someone else?
Have you delegated some of your work to somebody else who’s on your team, or possibly a peer? Just because the current workload was assigned to you, it does not necessarily mean that that’s how it has to stay. So have you had a conversation with your manager about reducing or changing your workload, or having additional support with it?
Number two: have you asked for any type of flexibility? Whether that means reducing your hours, potentially working part-time, or working from home. We know that this is an opportune time to have some sort of hybrid situation, or potentially permanently work from home. Or is it possible to maybe take a leave of absence? I know there are some organizations that offer leaves or sabbaticals, have you researched that?
Is that a possibility? And that may be scary; it may be absolutely scary to think about asking for that or researching that. But look, if you’re a highly valued employee in the middle of what is “The Great Resignation,” where people are leaving in droves, you may have some leverage. So if you’re going in and kicking ass every day, you may be able to ask for some of these modifications.
And then finally, number three: before you quit your job, ask yourself, how will this impact your future? Oftentimes we believe that leaving the workforce for a year means you’re just losing one year’s worth of salary – but that is not the case. Research has proven that over and over again, it could be three times your annual salary that you’re losing.
Because now you are reversing your experience, so now you’re losing years in the field, you’re losing contributions that were potentially made by your employer toward your retirement, you yourself aren’t contributing toward your retirement so you’re reducing that compound growth, and you’re possibly missing out on other medical benefits. Have you realistically sat down, crunched some of those numbers, and not just from a financial standpoint, but in regards to your career aspirations, where do you potentially want to go in the future, and how could quitting your job, taking time out right now, impact those aspirations?
Before you quit your job, ask yourself those three questions!
