Rebuilding the Economy Around Good Jobs

Rebuilding the Economy Around Good Jobs

by Zeynep Ton - May 22, 2020

In countries hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, customer-facing service businesses don’t just face a tough two to three months; they face a tough two to three years. Because people will still be nervous about catching the disease until a vaccine is widely available, demand is likely to be depressed, while costs - due to measures needed to keep employees and customers safe - will be higher.

Making the challenge even tougher, many of these businesses rely on a “bad jobs” model for frontline workers whose hallmarks are low wages, low productivity, high turnover, and difficulty adapting to changing customer needs and technologies. Now more than ever, they need a new labor approach. They need a “good jobs” system that combines investment in people with operational choices in order to maximize employee motivation, contributions, and productivity.

Bad Jobs = Bad Performance  

As the tussle over federal pandemic assistance in the United States has made clear, many service companies, even those whose financials looked fine, were already in trouble. A big part of that trouble was a focus on labor-cost minimization, which led to low wages and benefits, inadequate staffing, and as few full-time positions as possible. In this “bad jobs” system, frontline employees are inadequately trained, often underequipped, and disrespected. They can’t focus on the job when they constantly worry about paying medical bills or putting food on the table. They leave when there’s another job that pays $1 more an hour. Unit managers are busy fighting fires due to high turnover and operational problems, with too little time to develop staff and really manage the business. This bad jobs system keeps customers underserved (and, in some contexts puts them at risk), deprives the company of a compelling value proposition and prevents it from adapting to changing customer needs. Combined with a weak balance sheet these reasons drove many bankruptcies, including Borders, Toys “R” Us, Sears, and most recently Neiman Marcus, J. Crew, and J.C. Penney.

For retailers, there is an extra layer of post-pandemic danger. Lockdowns have forced a massive shift to online shopping. Some customers will go back to store shopping once they can, but many will have established new shopping habits. When stores reopen, retailers will need to adapt quickly to a new intensity of e-commerce, which comes with many operational challenges.

Further, the in-store experience will need to provide clear value that the customer cannot get online. That value requires capable and motivated workers whose work design enables them to serve customers well. The more their company invests in them through a good jobs system - with higher wages and benefits, more training, more hours and a regular schedule, a work design that maximizes employee productivity and contributions, and sufficient staffing - the more they will repay that investment through higher in-store sales and customer loyalty and improvements in products, services, and work processes. A bad jobs system that was muddling through before the pandemic may well fail under these new stresses.

A Moment for Change

The widespread use of the bad jobs system has long been a costly (and sometimes fatal) problem, but the pandemic offers a unique chance to do something about it. Why?

For a little while, there is a spotlight on frontline workers because so many have kept working - even at risk of their own infection - and kept so many useful parts of the economy running. At the same time, news coverage of strikes at meatpacking plants, Whole Foods, and Amazon has made customers aware of widespread bad working conditions. Customers may now find it unacceptable to buy from companies that treat their workers poorly - especially if there are competitors that offer just as low prices but also good jobs.

The bad jobs system is now going to prove fatal to many hard-hit companies if they don’t change. They’ll need their front lines fighting for them, working hard to serve every customer as well as possible, to improve every product, service, and process as much as possible, and to identify new ways to attract customers. They’ll need to be adaptable because so many things are going to be different in ways we can’t begin to predict.

One thing we can predict: Customers who are struggling economically will be looking more than ever for good value. This will give the companies that start building a good jobs system a competitive advantage over those that don’t. After the financial crisis of 2008, Mercadona - Spain’s largest grocery chain and a model good jobs company - reduced prices for its hard-pressed customers by 10% while remaining profitable and gaining significant market share. Hard work and input from empowered front lines had a lot to do with it.

The pandemic is likely to accelerate the ongoing shakeup of U.S. retailing. The United States has 24.5 square feet of retail space per person versus 16.4 square feet in Canada and 4.5 square feet in Europe. This is almost certainly too much and the mediocre - the ones that don’t make their customers want to keep coming back - will not survive.

The pandemic is likely to speed up the adoption of new technologies. Although typically seen as a way to reduce headcount, adopting, scaling, and leveraging new technologies require a capable and motivated (even if smaller) workforce.

There is an alternative: A good jobs system that has already proven successful. Long before the pandemic, there were successful companies - including Costco and QuikTrip - that knew their frontline workers were essential personnel and treated and paid them as such. Even in very competitive, low-cost retail sectors, these companies adopted a good jobs system and used it to win.

There’s a strong financial case for good jobs. Offering good jobs lowers costs by reducing employee turnover, operational mistakes, and wasted time. It improves service, which increases sales both in the short term and - through customer loyalty - in the long term. All these improvements can more than make up for the large investments in better wages, benefits, training, and scheduling. Indeed, in a recent paper, Hazhir Rahmanidad and I show that above-average wages can be a profit-maximizing approach even in low-cost service businesses. In addition, a good jobs system makes a company more resilient and more adaptive, as companies like Costco, Mercadona, QuikTrip, and H-E-B demonstrate. These qualities will be much called upon during and after the pandemic.

It Can Be Done

But is it possible to offer good jobs - to seriously increase labor spending and improve work - when companies are already in a financially precarious situation and when demand won’t snap back to normal for a while? Yes, it is.

An extended period of low demand will actually make it easier to make and then tinker with operational changes with less risk. A period of low demand will also be a period of low performance pressure; Amazon, for example, just announced that it will likely make no money next quarter. These may be just the circumstances in which CEOs and boards can undertake a transition that will not boost earnings in the next quarter or two and explain why.

Granted, like most change efforts, it takes time to implement a good jobs system and to reap the benefits. But as the recent good jobs journey at Sam’s Club shows, smart sequencing of the changes can allow a company to make significant wage investments without raising prices or lowering profits. Sam’s Club raised the wages of thousands of employees from around $15 an hour to as high as $22 an hour. At the same time, they simplified operations by reducing their product variety by as much as 25% and redesigning work processes to make employees more productive and customers more satisfied. This is what made the higher wage investments possible for a retailer that already has tight profit margins. Mud Bay, a regional pet retailer, raised employee wages by 30% and significantly improved employee benefits while operating with less than 2% profit margins.

At a moment when trust in businesses and institutions is particularly low and when many criticize the gap between executive pay and workers’ pay, this is the time for more leaders to have the courage and commitment to rebuild their businesses with good jobs. We know now that they already have great people working for them.

Zeynep Ton is a professor of the practice at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and co-founder and president of the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute. She is the author of The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits. Follow her on Twitter at @zeynepton.

Employee Hardship Funds Help Companies Help Their People

Employee Hardship Funds Help Companies Help Their People

by Jenny Calvert Rodriguez - May 21, 2020

The types of hardships affecting employees in the Covid-19 crisis happen at a smaller scale all the time. The Federal Reserve has reported that 40 percent of American families do not have sufficient savings to deal with a $400 emergency expense - and that was before the historic wave of unemployment and economic fallout related to the pandemic.

An employee hardship fund is a tool to ensure that employees and their families can weather an unexpected crisis. When done correctly, this model is a critical tool to help combat financial instability. At the Red Tab Foundation (RTF), Levi Strauss & Co.’s employee hardship fund, we have nearly 40 years of experience to draw on when responding to these kinds of moments. We were founded in 1981 by stock boy-turned-Levi Strauss & Co. executive Jerry O’Shea, who wanted to ensure that no employee or retiree would go without a financial safety net. We’re funded by a combination of large gifts from company leaders, descendants of Levi Strauss, and employees at all levels of the organization around the world. Since its inception, RTF has disbursed more than $35 million and has been recognized as a standard bearer for employee hardship funds.

RTF offers assistance to employees in times of personal hardship - to help someone make a rent payment, for example, or get their car repaired so they can get to work. Applicants work with a case manager to verify their eligibility, and a no-strings-attached grant is issued to help meet the client’s needs. Since the Covid-19 crisis began, we’ve fielded three times the customary number of requests from employees who - like all of us - are grappling with these uniquely uncertain times. And as we’ve seen an influx of requests for grants, we’ve also seen an influx of messages from other companies looking for advice on starting an employee hardship fund of their own.

It’s a tradition at LS&Co. to open source company knowledge that can benefit people and the planet. In this spirit, we created the Red Tab Foundation’s Employee Hardship Fund Playbook, which provides a detailed framework for companies aiming to stand up an employee hardship fund. In addition to granular guidance drawn from our experience, the playbook highlights four key principles that companies should keep in mind when looking to launch a successful relief initiative for their people:

Design a process that works for your employees.

The way you set up the application process and disbursement of grants will largely depend on the demographic you’re serving. For example, if your core is Gen-Z hourly retail employees, you’ll need to design your intake process to be mobile first. For an older employee or retiree base, a call center may be the first point of contact. If your employees largely use pay cards instead of direct deposit, build your grant distribution processes around that.

Use existing company resources and infrastructure where possible.

Given the urgency of the current moment, look at your existing infrastructure to see where you can leverage staff, technology, or processes that are already in place. We know many employees are looking for ways to give back during this critical time. Skilled volunteers can help lower costs when it comes to things like web design or database management.

Be responsive and needs driven.

Given the rapid deployment required at this moment, your processes and guidelines may not be perfect from the beginning. Give yourself wide guardrails. Listen to what your people are telling you they need, and adapt as best you can. It’s most important to take care of the employee first and optimize the process later. For example, unexpected expenses or loss of income due to childcare needs were not initially covered by RTF until schools across the world started to shut down in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ve since changed our guidelines to fit the new reality.

Put empathy first.

It’s critical to recognize that employees who are reaching out for assistance are usually doing so from a place of stress, uncertainty, and anxiety. For many, asking for help is difficult and can be accompanied by feelings of shame. No one wants to think of themselves as needing charity; for that reason it’s important to position assistance as a critical resource available to anybody in your company community should they hit a rough patch. Anyone who is interacting with applicants must keep this distinction top of mind and put respect and dignity at the core of their approach.

We’re hoping that our experience can benefit other companies - and by extension, their employees - especially as we all continue to navigate this current situation. I can think of no better way to honor the original inspiration behind the Red Tab Foundation and to show our commitment to employees everywhere, particularly when it’s needed most.

Jenny Calvert Rodriguez is the Executive Director of The Red Tab Foundation at Levi Strauss & Co.

How to Cope with That “Always-On” Feeling

How to Cope with That “Always-On” Feeling

by Charn McAllister , DJ Steffensen , Pamela L. Perrewé , C. Darren Brooks and Gang Wang - May 21, 2020

Tools allowing for instant communication have given us the ability to work from anywhere. With employees being only an email or Slack message away, organizations are now omnipresent in the lives of employees. And now, with many working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic, managers and coworkers who were once in the office down the hall, are now in your living room, kitchen, or bedroom (wherever you can find a quiet place to plug in your laptop).

This has opened a door into our personal lives that can be quite difficult to close. The negative effects of this “always-on” lifestyle were becoming apparent even before the pandemic, with research demonstrating that spousal resentment and work-family conflict increased the more often employees checked smart devices during family time.

Now that constant connectivity is our new normal, it is even more important that we learn to set clear boundaries for ourselves, in order to sustain our productivity and our families’ well-being.

So, what are we to do? While we’re all experiencing greater job and family stress in this new normal, our recent research has found there are steps that employees can take to protect their well-being.

1. Build Your Willpower

Employees with a strong ability to self-regulate can mitigate the stress of constant connectivity. Also known as “willpower,” self-regulation represents our ability to resist temptation. Anyone who has been expecting an update on Slack while eating dinner with the family knows that the “need” to check for that update is a very real temptation.

The good news is that self-regulation is a muscle that gets stronger the more you use it. In other words, no one is cursed to live a life without willpower - it can be improved. Even better, self-regulation is universal; the willpower used to resist that second piece of cheesecake is the same willpower that can keep you from checking your phone for the 14th time this hour.

To improve your willpower, we recommend starting with the basics. With your new work environment being the home, it is easy to grow lax when it comes to daily chores and following basic routines. Not making the bed anymore? Make your bed. Instead of slouching at your desk chair - sit up straight. Diet gone out the window after your third week in quarantine? Get back on the healthy eating wagon. All of these little, minor disciplines are small workouts that strengthen your overall willpower and will ultimately help you in separating your work life from your home life.

2. Set Boundaries - and Stick to Them

Of course, there will come a time when your willpower runs out. Current research suggests willpower is slowly depleted throughout the day as we resist temptations and only recharges once we go to sleep. In other words, our ability to self-regulate continually decreases throughout the day and leaves us at our weakest point in the evening. Temptations like that one extra slice of cheesecake or answering just “a few” more emails are nearly irresistible at night simply because we no longer possess the willpower necessary to resist. In our new normal, especially for parents who attempt to work after their children go to bed, this is a perfect storm of weakness that makes evening work sessions so unproductive.

Our recommendations for combatting this lack of willpower are twofold. First, don’t give your willpower a chance to falter. Set a hard cut-off for checking your messages from work and then physically enforce it - close Slack, log out of Teams, turn off your phone. At a minimum, turn off all notifications so that you don’t hear or see the “incoming” message alert. Remember, if you don’t have cheesecake in your refrigerator, you can’t eat it - similarly, if you can’t see the messages, you can’t check them. Note that this may mean you need to “manage your boss” to set realistic expectations as to how quickly you will be able to respond after certain hours.

Second, as the pandemic continues to wear on, some people may begin to feel like they are struggling with a lack of willpower and an absence of motivation. This is a vicious cycle because willpower requires motivation. This makes intuitive sense; there is no reason to self-regulate your behavior if you have no motivation to do so. Thus, if you are feeling unmotivated right now, it is going to be incredibly difficult to self-regulate. No one is going to fault you for failing to stay motivated during this pandemic, especially when the vast majority of us have been labeled “unessential.” However, this is the time to take a moment and reflect on why your job is “essential” to you, to your clients, and to the greater community. Try not to forget that all of us are contributing to something bigger than ourselves. 

3. Communicate Directly and Deliberately

In a time of social distancing, when we live in our own echo chambers, it is not surprising that many of us crave being able to bounce our ideas off of others. We no longer have the opportunity to run into someone in the hall or break room. In lieu of walking over to a colleague’s desk, we send a Slack message and hope they are available (e.g., not chasing a toddler around their house).

The result of this asynchronous communication is that every time we return to our computers or phones, we have numerous unread messages - many time-sensitive - waiting for us. What would have been a quick stop by a friend’s office now becomes a series of 10 or more messages exchanged over the course of a day or two - all of which both you and your colleague feel require immediate responses. Worse, what if the colleague you are asking for a second opinion is already swamped with work? In the past, you may have sought out that colleague at work and found them at their desk, head in hand, and decided to walk away so as not to burden them with another problem.

Now more than ever, as we work in an office-less environment, it is imperative that we try to communicate deliberately and not in a haphazard fashion. Send the messages that need to be sent and try to limit those that are unnecessary.

Leaders have a special responsibility to set an example and act deliberately. Sending emails and messages at all hours of the day and night will set an expectation that employees need to do the same. Instead of spending time with their family in the evening, employees will have one eye on their phone awaiting that inevitable next message. A more effective approach is to actively choose what to request of your employees and work with them to determine a realistic timeline for that task’s completion. This aids in establishing standards of “how” work will be done, not just “what” work will be done. Setting such expectations acknowledges the stresses employees are experiencing and likely will result in reduced stress and higher quality job performance.

As we reflect on the Covid-19 pandemic response to date, an unprecedented level of digital connectedness for both employees and leaders has emerged. As social distancing continues and we adjust to these new work demands, it is critical that employees retain (or regain) some level of control over their work. If employees work to improve their willpower and set appropriate work-to-life boundaries, and if leaders communicate standards and expectations effectively, working from home during this pandemic can be a universal positive for everyone lucky enough to be able to do it.

Charn McAllister is an assistant professor of management and organizational development in the D’Amore-McKim College of Business at Northeastern University. His research focuses on interpersonal mistreatment, organizational politics, and stress in the workplace. Dr. McAllister is an author of Political Skill at Work: How to Influence, Motivate, and Win Support.

DJ Steffensen is an assistant professor of management in the Jones College of Business at Middle Tennessee State University. His research focuses on the overlap between leadership and human resource management. Specifically, he is interested in the role that leaders play in designing, implementing, and evaluating human resource practices and strategy.

Pamela L. Perrewé is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor and Haywood and Betty Taylor Eminent Scholar of business administration at Florida State University. She has focused her research in the areas of occupational stress and well-being, politics, and social influence. Dr. Perrewé has published over 40 books and book chapters and over 140 journal articles in the organizational behavior and human resource management fields.

C. Darren Brooks is the assistant chair in the department of management and the executive director for the Center for Human Resource Management at Florida State University. His research interests are in human resource management, complex learning, social influence, conflict management, and innovation. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Brooks spent more than 20 years in public and private executive and leadership roles.

Gang Wang is an associate professor at Florida State University. He is interested in the role of leadership in follower, team, and organizational success. His research has been published in top tier journals and won prestigious awards in organizational sciences.

Will Covid-19 Have a Lasting Impact on Globalization?

Will Covid-19 Have a Lasting Impact on Globalization?

by Steven A. Altman - May 20, 2020

As leaders wrestle to guide their organizations through the Covid-19 pandemic, decisions running the gamut from where to sell to how to manage supply chains hinge on expectations about the future of globalization. The pandemic has prompted a new wave of globalization obituaries, but the latest data and forecasts imply that leaders should plan for - and shape - a world where both globalization and anti-globalization pressures remain enduring features of the business environment.

The crisis and the necessary public health response are causing the largest and fastest decline in international flows in modern history. Current forecasts, while inevitably rough at this stage, call for a 13-32% decline in merchandise trade, a 30-40% reduction in foreign direct investment, and a 44-80% drop in international airline passengers in 2020[i]. These numbers imply a major rollback of globalization’s recent gains, but they do not signal a fundamental collapse of international market integration.

The volume of global goods exports in 2020 could fall to a level last seen in the mid-to-late 2000s, according to the latest WTO forecast. That would be a tremendously painful drop, especially in the context of today’s larger and more complex world economy. But even the most pessimistic trade forecasts do not imply a retreat to a world of disconnected national markets. Most of the run-up in trade integration since the end of World War II should remain intact.

If plummeting trade flows are unlikely to undo globalization, what about the even steeper decline predicted in foreign direct investment (FDI)? Like other capital flows, FDI tends to be volatile, so a double-digit decline is not as shocking as one might presume. FDI flows, for example, fell 38% during the global financial crisis. Nor do shrinking FDI flows necessarily augur a real retreat from corporate globalization. The foreign business activity of multinational firms does not always closely track FDI trends.

The collapse of international travel, in contrast, stands out against a much steadier growth trend, and its damage is indisputable. Tourism contributes more to global output than automotive manufacturing, and business travel facilitates international trade and investment. As of late April 2020, every country had imposed restrictions on international travel, and 45% of countries had partially or completely closed their borders to foreign visitors. Airlines were flying 90% fewer seats on international flights, as compared to 62% on domestic flights. This unprecedented collapse does, however, follow an international travel boom. Even if international airline passengers fall by two-thirds, there would still be more people flying abroad than there were in 2003.

What Are Globalization’s Post-Coronavirus Prospects?

Current forecasts call for international flows to start growing again as the pandemic comes under control. Thus, 2020 is likely to be a low point for many globalization metrics. But how deep will the plunge really be? How fast can we expect global flows to rebound? And how might future flow patterns look different from the past? None of these questions can be answered definitively yet, but leaders can find clues about the future and actionable implications for their companies by focusing on five key drivers of globalization’s trajectory:

1. Start with global growth patterns, where the key lesson is that international flows tend to swing dramatically with macroeconomic cycles. In good times, they usually grow faster than GDP, and in bad times they shrink faster, too, as people and firms hunker down behind borders.

This time around, robust growth can only be restored once the pandemic is clearly brought under control. But remember that globalization can also be a powerful contributor to growth and health. Countries with higher scores on the DHL Global Connectedness Index tend to enjoy faster economic growth. And there is some evidence that more connected countries, even after controlling statistically for levels of economic development, are less vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks, in part because of their stronger health care systems.

This means global business leaders can go beyond just watching disease trends and economic data - they can help tilt the balance from negative to positive feedback loops by contributing to health, growth, and international cooperation. Companies across industries have already swung into action to manufacture urgently needed medical supplies. Large corporations can also soften the pandemic’s economic impact, for example, by following Unilever’s lead in paying suppliers faster and extending support to employees, contractors, and customers. And they can support open markets, as 3M did when it resisted a proposed block on its mask exports from the U.S. to Canada and Latin America.

2. Supply chain policies have come back to the top of the agenda, and shifting approaches have the potential to reshape trade and FDI flows. The key globalization-related debate here is redundancy versus reshoring. Will companies and countries seek greater safety in international diversification, or will they try fostering domestic self-sufficiency? Economic logic almost always favors the former approach, coupled with national stockpiles for true essentials, but politics will sometimes force the latter.

Research by NYU Stern Professor Pankaj Ghemawat highlights several characteristics of politically sensitive industries, such as production of necessities for health or national security, sales to government rather than private buyers, and the size of an industry’s domestic workforce.

If redundancy becomes the norm and reshoring the exception, expect just a modest long-run drag on global trade growth, coupled with greater diversification of countries’ trade partners.

3. Superpower frictions and fragility had already destabilized the international business environment before Covid-19, and the pandemic adds new layers of complexity. It has led to a vast expansion of state power, while introducing pandemic control as yet another arena for ideological competition. In this environment, where companies come from and how well their home country governments get along will matter even more than before to decisions about where to raise capital, which markets to prioritize, and which supply bases to cultivate.

Many have predicted that Covid-19 will hasten a fracturing of the global economy along regional lines, with competing blocs centered on China, the United States, and perhaps Europe. But the fact that Europe, the world’s most connected region, has struggled to mount a unified response to the pandemic is just one reason that a resurgence of regions should not be a foregone conclusion. Most international flows already take place within regions, and short-distance trade has not grown faster than long-distance trade over the past few years. Be ready for the possibility of a more regionalized world, but don’t count on it.

4. Ongoing technological shifts such as the adoption of e-commerce, videoconferencing, and robots have all been supercharged by Covid-19. Before the pandemic, many focused on how new technologies could reduce global flows, e.g. via manufacturers substituting robots at home for low-cost labor abroad. But many pandemic-induced shifts could also strengthen globalization if they are not curbed by protectionist policies. Cross-border e-commerce expands export opportunities, especially for smaller companies. Forced experimentation with remote work, where successful, could spur more services offshoring. And even 3D-printing sometimes leads to more rather than less trade.

Business leaders can think productively about Covid-19, technology, and globalization, by taking a structured approach to considering both internal and external implications. Internally, think how individual functions can harness opportunities afforded by new technologies, while managing organizational change with sensitivity to the heightened stress employees and teams are facing. Externally, think about how technological trends could potentially change a company’s standing vis-à-vis its competitors, customers, suppliers, and so on. For most companies, technological trends should lead to more globalization in some areas and less in others, rather than a uniform shift in one direction or the other.

5. Public opinion about globalization may take another negative turn due to Covid-19, scaling back the surprisingly strong support for trade and immigration reported in recent polling. More international travel does accelerate the spread of infectious diseases, and economic stress could boost calls for trade protectionism. While robust public health strategies do not require ongoing barriers to globalization, nationalist politicians will point to the pandemic and failures of international coordination in the response to fortify opposition to globalization.

Customers and employees increasingly expect corporate leaders to take a stand on social issues, making public opinion about globalization a potential management issue. The blending of anti-globalization and anti-capitalist movements further complicates the role of business in the public debate about globalization. And leaders of multinational corporations face the special challenge of public and government engagement across national divides. Focusing on facts, becoming more sensitive to inequality, and emphasizing real economic contributions can help to support a healthier globalization debate.

In conclusion, Covid-19 looks like a “bend but won’t break crisis” for globalization. International flows are plummeting, but globalization - and opposition to globalization - will continue to present business opportunities and challenges. Careful attention to the drivers of globalization’s future can help companies navigate through and even profit from globalization’s turbulence. A volatile world of partially connected national economies expands possibilities for global strategy even as it complicates the management of multinational firms. Now is the time for global corporations to show their value by harnessing the best of the world’s capabilities to end the pandemic and bolster the recovery.

Steven A. Altman is a senior research scholar at the NYU Stern School of Business, executive director of NYU Stern’s Center for the Globalization of Education & Management, and an adjunct assistant professor in NYU Stern’s Department of Management and Organizations.

5 Tips for Safely Reopening Your Office

5 Tips for Safely Reopening Your Office

by Joseph Grenny - May 20, 2020

Open now? Open later? As debate rages about restarting economies, one critical element is absent from discussion. The predictor of our success or failure will have less to do with when businesses open their doors and more to do with how often people open their mouths. Decades of research suggest that the heart of a high reliability culture is immediate peer accountability.

A few years ago, John Noseworthy, CEO of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, proudly told me about a nurse who confronted him when he forgot to use hand sanitizer as he exited an elevator. He said, in effect, “If everyone in our system will speak up to forgetful colleagues, no matter their level or position, we can avoid most incidents of preventable harm.” And he was right.

And yet, in late April, at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Vice President Mike Pence entered the Mayo Clinic to learn about their research efforts. During his tour, provided by Mayo leaders who all wore masks, Pence proceeded barefaced. While the vice president has since said that he should’ve worn a face covering, the incident is an obvious - and public - reminder of how hard it can be to speak up to people in power.

I’ve heard about similar incidents in recent weeks. A nurse who refused to wear appropriate PPE for four days before finally being reprimanded by her supervisor. Shoppers entering big box stores without masks, while the clerk they pass upon entry says nothing. And a boss of a team of essential workers who gave high fives in a meeting to people who’ve worked hard in recent weeks and none of his eight direct reports said anything until after the meeting.

As businesses begin to reopen, great attention is being given to the measures required to keep employees and customers safe. And many of those measures are simple behaviors: washing hands, wearing masks, etc. But those measures won’t succeed unless they become norms. And at the end of the day, the speed with which norms change is the speed with which it becomes normal to give correction. If noncompliance is rarely addressed, healthy behavior becomes a joke.

Keeping employees and customers safe and healthy while doing business in an ongoing pandemic will not only hinge on behaviors like wearing masks, performing temperature checks, washing hands, and staying six feet apart. It will rely on getting all of us to do these things, every time, for however long it takes. And that doesn’t happen unless those who see someone drop the ball speak up and remind them.

Inherently, we’re very bad at speaking up. In a recent VitalSmarts study of 1062 respondents, 3 out of 4 admitted to being nervous about infection risk when interacting with others. And yet, 7 out of 10 people admit to saying less than they think they should to keep themselves and others safe.

My colleagues and I have spent 30 years studying what it takes to create rapid, profound, and sustainable behavior change. Our central finding is that a robust influence plan must engage all of the six sources of influence that shape human behavior. These include:

1. A compelling moral frame
2. Deliberate practice
3. Peer and leadership pressure
4. Social support
5. Scorekeeping
6. Environmental cues, tools, and resources

When all six sources of influence are present in robust form, we’ve seen in our research that the likelihood you will see positive change goes up tenfold. Below are five best practices that collectively engage all of these sources of influence. Unless all five are practiced in combination, the odds of meaningful change drop substantially.

Five Practices for Creating Safe Workplaces

Require please and thank you. The only way to create and sustain change is to have 200% accountability: Employees must understand that they are not simply responsible to follow safe practices themselves (the first 100%), they are also responsible to ensure everyone around them does as well (the second 100%). Instruct employees that when anyone sees anyone violate safe practices, they are to remind them of proper protocol with a polite, “Please.” For example, “Please wear a mask when you’re in the office.”

But this isn’t enough. My firm has worked with dozens of hospitals to improve patient safety by developing norms of reminding as well. It’s a challenge to get front-line nurses to remind testy physicians to wash their hands, unless you create an enabling norm. Leaders must be instructed that when they’re reminded of a safety guideline, there is only one permissible response: an immediate “Thank you” followed by compliance. Period.

Spectrum Health in West Michigan worked for months to encourage caregivers to issue reminders. When they asked reminder recipients to say thank you and comply, hand hygiene practice improved by more than 60% within a matter of weeks. When doctors were trained to “show gratitude, not attitude,” reminding became a low-risk norm rather than a terrifying ordeal.

Hold a Covid boot camp when you return to the office. The idea of a “boot camp” is to break down old patterns and introduce new ones. The easiest time to reset norms is when no one knows what is normal. As employees reenter the workplace, take advantage of their unformed expectations by holding a boot camp. This can be as short as 30 minutes or as long as a few hours, depending upon how many new norms you need people to practice. The meeting should include the following:

• Leaders as facilitators. This can’t be turned over to HR, or fobbed off to a consultant. Leaders must stand in front of employees and demonstrate their sincerity and commitment to the new policies.
• Moral messaging. Make the moral case for changing behavior by telling stories of affected friends, family, or clients to bring the risks of noncompliance to life.
• Deliberate practice. Leaders must not simply instruct people on new safety behaviors, people must go through the actual motions so they begin to develop muscle memory and the practices feel comfortable, normal, and compulsory. For example, at Spectrum Health, we developed a boot camp where everyone in a unit would go through the motions of walking into and out of a patient room. In one condition, they would wash in and wash out as required. In another, they would fail to wash in, and another caregiver would practice reminding them. After which the one reminded would practice saying, “Thank you” and then complying. The entire experience took no more than 20 minutes. This seems simple but compliance with the new norms was substantially higher in units that did the boot camp over those that didn’t.

Practice with fire drills. Hold daily fire drills in the first week, where you ask people to stop what they are doing and practice the new behaviors. In the weeks following, twice a week is sufficient. Effective fire drills also require leadership. Leaders must walk all employees through the motions of each new safety behavior, including saying please and thank you. Fire drills require much less time, but are critical to sustaining change because they remind employees of how important the behaviors are.

Perform daily rounds. As the saying goes, “you don’t get what you expect, you get what you inspect.” Just like in a hospital, leaders must use a checklist to do “rounding” and measure compliance results. They can walk the work area and observe the degree to which proper behavior is being practiced. They should score it every day for the first 30 days and do their observations at unpredictable times of day. After that, rounding can happen every other day.

Keep score publicly. Leaders should then post the rounding scores publicly, every day. Above the score they can place a large circle with colors denoting the organization’s level of compliance: Green = 95%+. Yellow = 80-90%. Red = <80%. They must commit to post the results no matter what they are and make sure they are visible to clients and customers. Embarrassment is a powerful motivator for improvement and the more public the embarrassment, the greater the motivation.

These practices may feel awkward for many employees and leaders, especially those who haven’t been part of concerted workplace safety efforts before. But these are unusual times and if we want to keep everyone safe and healthy, people have to do things outside of their comfort zones.

If leaders take these practices seriously, they will be able to inculcate new norms much more quickly. Doing so is not only important for employee safety but for the health of your business. Adherence to these critical behaviors will make it possible for business to reopen - and to stay open.

Joseph Grenny is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, keynote speaker, and leading social scientist for business performance. His work has been translated into 28 languages, is available in 36 countries, and has generated results for 300 of the Fortune 500. He is the cofounder of VitalSmarts, an innovator in corporate training and leadership development.

How Health Care Workers Can Take Care of Themselves

How Health Care Workers Can Take Care of Themselves

by David P. Fessell and Daniel Goleman - May 20, 2020

The anesthesiologist’s beeper goes off - it’s an emergency call to place a breathing tube in a patient critically ill with coronavirus, a dangerous procedure due to the risk of viral transmission. Because of Covid-19, these calls are increasingly frequent; the intensity level in the hospital is like nothing she’s ever imagined. She barely has time to register her ever-present concern for critically ill patients, her anxiety at so many unknowns, her fears around her own personal safety and that of her family, or her grief at so much loss. As her beeper goes off, her training kicks in. She dons her personal protective equipment, feeling fortunate that she has it.

Even when the procedure is over, the emotional challenge it presents is not. Not for her, or the many doctors, nurses, technologists, cleaning staff, and others on the front lines of healthcare, or their leaders. The effects linger on beyond their time on the job, and can manifest in real ways, including insomnia, difficulty concentrating, and decreased energy. The risk of burnout in healthcare was already high before coronavirus, and the crisis has only exacerbated it.

From our experience working with healthcare professionals before and during this crisis and our combined 29 years of research in the world of emotional intelligence, we’ve learned that it’s critical for healthcare professionals pay attention to their emotional lives in order to remain effective and healthy themselves - especially in times of crisis. The payoff from this higher emotional intelligence among physicians and other health care workers has been suggested by several research studies: outcomes include more trust among patients, higher levels of patient satisfaction and less physician burnout. This tracks with research with executives in other areas, such as finance and manufacturing, which finds that greater emotional intelligence creates better results ranging from productivity to job satisfaction.

Emotional intelligence can be categorized into four areas of particular importance for healthcare workers and leaders today: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

Self-Awareness

If you’re a healthcare worker, emotionally intense moments are guaranteed in these days. And knowing what you’re feeling and how you’re reacting to those feelings - and how that’s affecting your performance - is the first step to managing them.

But given the focus on the patient, it’s often hard for healthcare workers to diagnose themselves. Medical school, residency, fellowship, and all of medical training are focused on patient care rather than self-care. And when the need is so great and your skills can help, it’s too easy to dismiss your own needs; doctors and nurses can neglect eating, sleeping, and yes, even using the bathroom. For our anesthesiologist this can mean that during the day she gets wound tight, though she doesn’t give herself a moment to think about it. She might snap at someone when she gets home. And even when she’s safe in bed at night, she still can’t relax and has trouble sleeping. She struggles the next day at work.

Far from being self-indulgent, self-attention and self-care are essential so that healthcare workers can continue so help and serve.

Journaling and other reflective activities can help you become more aware of what you’re going through. Use common activities such as hand washing as an opportunity for a moment of mindfulness, and a self-care check in: “Am I hungry, thirsty, or exhausted?” In whatever form you choose to do it, naming your emotions shifts the activity in your brain from the emotional center to the higher order prefrontal cortex; it’s there that you have access to insight, creativity, and reframing of issues. “Name it to tame it” as UCLA School of Medicine professor of psychiatry Dan Siegel coined. Even the words you choose to describe your experiences to yourself - your self-talk - can begin to change your emotional state. Looking around and saying “This is crazy!” will leave you in a more distressed mental space than asserting, “We can meet this challenge.”

Self-awareness is especially important for leaders, since they set the emotional tone for their people; a stressed and reactive service chief in a hospital will likely lead to more frazzled physicians, nurses, and technologists. Ask yourself: Am I bringing calm, steady energy to the situations I’m a part of? Is my personal anxiety, fear or stress being transmitted to those around me?

Ask yourself:

• Am I aware of my emotions?
• Am I aware of how I am expressing them and impacting others?
• What is the tone of my self-talk?
• Are my basic human needs being met?

Self-Management

Becoming more aware of your emotions and how you’re expressing them gives you the information you need to better manage your responses. This usually doesn’t come naturally. When you stumble across an emotional trigger, it can result in an “amygdala hijack” — your emotions take control. You may unexpectedly lash out at someone, start crying in response to a seemingly minor event, or start yelling at your computer out of all proportion with its slowness.

It can help to remember the maxim that “our power to make a better choice lies in the space between a stimulus and our response.” Awareness of that space is the first step; then we can expand the space, and make a healthier choice. When you notice you’re being triggered, take a break to allow your physiology and nervous system to settle. Deep breathing, movement, and music can also shift your emotional state toward more calm.

Focusing on what’s in your zone of control can also help - the patient in front of you, the decisions you need to make today. By narrowing of the scope of your attention and focus, you can replace seemingly unsolvable issues with doable items. You’ll feel relief and satisfaction as you accomplish them.

More generally, being compassionate with yourself is important here too. Sleep, good nutrition, and exercise will help you stay resilient. Call on your support network and share with them what brings meaning and purpose to your life and work. Research has shown that writing down three people, events, or things one feels grateful toward several times a week can also enhance your wellbeing. Finally, having a trusted colleague, friend, coach, or mental health professional to talk with can be invaluable in navigating everyday life; even more so in conditions like today’s.

Ask yourself:

• Do I have effective way to navigate emotional triggers?
• What is within my zone of control?
• Am I making time for sleep, nutrition, and exercise?
• Do I have a support network and do I give myself permission to lean on it?
• What brings meaning and purpose to my life?

Social Awareness

Taking care of yourself is what allows you to take good care of others. Having empathy for your patients, your family, or the colleagues you need to work so closely with in these days can provide much-needed glue for those relationships.

The most fundamental way to do this is through listening to others - not just hearing what they’re saying but giving them what’s called “caring presence,” in which you’re fully attentive to understanding their needs in the moment. This kind of presence is a gift you can give and the resulting empathy strengthens the working alliance between physician and patient. The same applies to managers or leaders communicating virtually with direct reports working from home.

Other awareness can also include recognition of all those serving on the front lines — the cleaning staff, technologists, therapists, nurses, and everyone else. Some of these individuals are working in areas that they haven’t staffed in years and it’s important to see and celebrate their courage, poise, and dedication.

Ask yourself:

• Do I listen to others first to understand rather than rush to respond?
• Can I identify and name others’ emotions accurately?
• Whose work haven’t I recognized?

Relationship Management

While social awareness is tuning into others, relationship management is using this awareness to have successful interactions with them. Given the added workload, anxiety, and grief due to coronavirus, relationship management can be especially challenging in healthcare settings. You may also be working with unfamiliar colleagues - individuals redeployed to new duties, or rotated in to give relief - and you need to cement new relationships quickly in order to maintain high performance. Meanwhile, good relationships with patients boost the likelihood that they will comply with medical directives; this is especially important now since so many virus patients are caring for themselves at home.

This is where empathy comes in: Once you tune in to the emotions others feel you can reach out to them in ways that fit them best. In interactions with patients, pay extra attention to your own vocal tone and facial expressions as you respond, as these can be very reassuring and comforting.

Patience should be a watchword in all of your interactions. Allow for more displays of emotion than you’d normally see, even in healthcare settings. This is particularly true for your colleagues: While healthcare professionals often have to break bad news like cancer diagnoses and the passing of loved ones, coronavirus has increased the intensity in many ways. Understandably, this can manifest as tears, decreased focus, and loss of patience. Now is a time for everyone - and especially leaders - to assume good intent and that all are doing the very best they can. Such an outlook can help to nurture the relationships that will move us all through this challenge and beyond.

Many healthcare leaders are also grappling with coronavirus’s impact on their institutions’ stability and tough decisions including possible layoffs or salary cuts. In this environment, transparent communication about the state of the business is of vital importance. If the nurses, technologists, and doctors who are putting their lives on the line think or feel their leaders are not being honest with them it could profoundly diminish their motivation. This information-sharing can be simple in form: For example, the University of Michigan health system (where David works) has been sending out daily coronavirus emails from UM’s leadership with updated tallies of hospitalized patients, unused bed capacity and employee safety data, as well as, the number of patients who have recovered. These messages all end with the line “If you have more questions, go here” with a link to a wealth of available resources.

Lastly, leaders at all levels should consider that research has shown that sometimes we need to slow down to increase our effectiveness, especially at key moments. You can defuse a tense conversation or ease the tension around a crucial decision simply by saying, “This is important, let’s go slow.” Such a strategy can aid a tense conversation, a key decision, and even those important moments of saying “Thank you.”

Ask yourself:

• Am I bringing extra patience, and assuming the best about others?
• As a leader, am I being transparent with information?
• Are my communications frequent, clear, and open to feedback?
• Am I going slow at key moments, including moments of thanks?

The anesthesiologist’s beeper goes off again. She takes a deep breath to calm herself before she moves quickly to the patient’s room, reminding herself of her deeper purpose. Once there, she reads the team’s vocal tone and body language for signs of stress, paying special attention because once again this is a team she’s never worked with before. After the tube is place and the patient stabilized, she slows down and personally thanks each of them. Beneath her mask and shield there’s a brief smile. The faces of the team are covered, but she imagines they are feeling it too - the warmth and connection of caring for patients, and each other.

David P. Fessell is an executive coach, Professor of Radiology, and prior Director of the Leadership Curriculum at the University of Michigan Medical School.

Daniel Goleman, best known for his writing on emotional intelligence, is Co-Director of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University. His latest book is Building Blocks of Emotional Intelligence, a 12-primer set on each of the emotional intelligence competencies, and he offers training on the competencies through an online learning platform, Emotional Intelligence Training Programs. His other books include Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence and Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body.  

How to Form a Mental Health Employee Resource Group

How to Form a Mental Health Employee Resource Group

by Jen Porter , Bernie Wong and Kelly Greenwood - May 19, 2020

Every month at Best Buy’s campus headquarters, members of its employee resource group (ERG) used to meet to share their stories. In February, the group discussed the black community and mental health. In November, they focused their talk on veterans. In other meetings, the group has examined the relationship between mental health and sexual assault, how members manage OCD, and how mental health impacts women. Recently, the group has been meeting virtually to discuss their mental health during the pandemic. Coming out of a meeting, one employee said, “This is the most impactful thing I have done here.”

ERGs are created to build community among people with shared identities or experiences at work. When done thoughtfully, those that focus on mental health promote diversity and inclusion and provide support for employees managing symptoms of mental health conditions. In fact, the most effective are well-poised to address the three top methods of reducing the stigma around mental health: social connection, education, and peer support.

Despite the significant need for more programs like these, they are not yet widespread in the United States. Consider that nearly 60% of U.S. employees experienced mental health symptoms last year, and yet eight in 10 workers did not seek treatment due to shame.

Business leaders should regard this as a serious problem. Unaddressed mental health conditions cost U.S. companies nearly $17 billion per year in productivity loss. In terms of hiring and retention, younger employees in particular are demanding change: 50% of millennials and 75% of Gen Z employees have left a prior role for mental health reasons - compared to 34% overall. These are numbers we expect rise in light of Covid-19. In a recent survey of 1,200 U.S. employees, almost 70% of workers said that the pandemic has been the most stressful time of their careers, and in study of 2,700 global employees, more than 40% said their mental health has declined since the outbreak.

At Mind Share Partners, we believe that mental health ERGs are an important part of the solution. We’ve spent the last two years working with leading companies as they launch and grow their programs. Today, as employees prepare to re-enter the workforce, more companies are realizing they need to do the same. Below, we want to share the critical steps we’ve seen businesses with impactful mental health ERGs take, and how you can do the same.

Understand what mental health really means.

Many companies view mental health as a sub-set of other communities, such as those involving employees who manage disabilities, participate in general wellness, or are neurodiverse. As a result, employers who have programs targeting such communities may think they are also supporting people managing mental health conditions when, in fact, they are not doing enough.

Unlike many disabilities, most mental health challenges are treatable and prevalence is near ubiquitous over the course of a lifetime. Framing mental health as a disability can actually deter those whose experience of mental health is invisible or temporary, or those who see mental health as having positive attributes. In a similar vein, framing mental health as a part of wellness, and only focusing on upstream experiences like stress management, mindfulness, or resilience, can increase the stigma for those facing diagnosable conditions - especially if those are never named.

This is why we recommend creating an ERG with mental health as the primary focus, or, at a minimum, defining mental health as a focus area of a more broadly defined ERG. Doing so helps narrow the focus and reduces barriers to entry for people who may not identify with the larger group. Further, ERGs that try to address all aspects of wellness or disability, without distinction, run the risk of “charter overload,” according to Rachel Parrott, diversity & inclusion manager at New Relic.

Build a coalition to get started.

If your company has an established process for launching an ERG, be ready to make the case for why mental health is important. Find other employees to advocate with you in order to demonstrate that the need exists. When possible, finding an executive to sponsor the group is a good way to garner strong support.

If your company doesn’t have established ERGs, start small with whatever avenues you have available. For example, begin a mental health Slack channel or hold an informal lunch-and-learn. Anything you can do to demonstrate interest and initiate conversation will go a long way in making a valid case.

As your group becomes formalized, make sure to get your legal and HR teams onboard early in the process. If your legal or HR team is hesitant to engage with mental health, be prepared with examples of other companies with mental health ERGs. Because mental health conditions are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), legal can help make sure your name, mission, audience, and activities are in compliance with privacy laws.

Specifically, employers must take care not to create a situation where an employee might inadvertently or unwillingly disclose a mental health condition simply by joining an ERG or participating in a group activity. To avoid this, groups should be framed as serving people impacted by mental health, whether personally, as a caregiver, through a family member or friend, or as an ally. Zillow, for example, addresses this by including allyship in its group’s name: “Able and Disabled Advocates Partnering Together.”

Make it safe for people to share their stories.

Among the most powerful tools that an ERG has is the ability to create a forum for storytelling. In our work with companies, we’ve found that storytelling reduces isolation, creates community, and reduces the stigma of mental health. For employees who aren’t seeking help because they feel ashamed, it tells them “you’re not alone.” For those who don’t know where to get help, it gives them a path forward. For those who feel overwhelmed with the demands of being a caretaker, it builds connection.

There are several ways you can create a safe space for people to share their stories in your group.

At some companies, such as Best Buy, the forum is private with “Vegas rules,” meaning information discussed during meetings is confidential. Alternatively, peer listening programs, such as the Peer Network at Reuters, facilitate private, peer-to-peer conversations about mental health.

Both types of forums set “communication ground rules” to give employees guidance on safe ways to engage with one another. Often, group members are asked to be mindful of giving advice and share mental health tips in general terms rather than acting like a therapist. Most importantly, they must follow company guidance for seeking help if someone is in danger of harm.

In other companies, employees choose to be more public. An employee at Lucidchart, for instance, led a lunch-and-learn during which she shared her experience with generalized anxiety disorder. As part of Pinterest’s annual KnitCon event, held as a series of virtual workshops this year, two employees discussed mental health in the time of Covid-19 and shared a framework about how to reach out for help. And Verizon Media organizes meetings around a movie viewing or board game. The set up is meant to encourage group discussions around how the brain works or one aspect of mental health.

When considering how to facilitate storytelling in your own group, remember there is no “right way” to do it. Whatever you decide, get input from your members and test out ideas that work for everyone.

Educate everyone.

Although mental health experiences are common, they are also associated with high levels of shame due to widespread misconceptions, such as “mental health conditions are rare” or “only experienced by low performers.” ERGs provide a way for you to educate your organization otherwise. By hosting lunch-and-learns, and sponsoring trainings and events, ERGs can reach people impacted by mental health who might not be willing to join a group as a result of the stigma.

Organizations looking to ramp up their virtual resources during this time can follow in the steps of companies like RetailMeNot. Their mental health ERG, RMN caRe, educates employees via a dedicated Slack channel, ongoing remote events with outside speakers, and written guidance on mental health benefits and policies.

We’ve also seen mental health ERGs partner with other identity-based groups to offer employees support. This strategy is particularly effective because mental health prevalence and causes often differ among communities. Employees who identify as LGBTQ+ are three times more likely than others to experience a mental health condition. Women are more likely than men to have received a mental health diagnosis, but are also more open to getting treatment. Mental health ERGs are especially well-positioned to work with such groups and facilitate nuanced conversations about community-specific experiences.

Get companywide support.

ERGs are just one component of a broader movement of culture change for mental health at work. While they are a powerful tool for education and community building, ERGs must receive both top-down and bottom-up support to be successful. It’s imperative for executives, specifically, to verbalize the importance of mental health at their company and, where possible, share their own experiences to ensure that their message isn’t viewed as simply “checking a box.”

Those looking for inspiration can follow in the footsteps of CEO Guru Gowrappan at Verizon Media. He recently shared a video featuring employees discussing the need to reduce the stigma and invested in training his executive team. Gowrappan wrote about the session in his weekly all-staff email and several leaders followed suit by reaching out to their teams to communicate their support for mental health, expressing a desire to continue the conversation. “I could see how committed leaders were,” one employee told us.

Still, speaking out alone is not enough. Companies need to back up their claims with sufficient and easily accessible mental health benefits, so that employees who do need help can get it. While this may seem expensive, it won’t go without reward. Companies that pursue organization-wide culture efforts can expect a 6:1 ROI.

Like any initiative, ERGs that are under-resourced and lack real influence will do little to change the overall culture at a company. However, if integrated with company priorities, they can be a powerful grassroots way of creating healthy workplaces. As companies continue to weather the Covid-19 outbreak and plan for a return to the office, those who have effective mental health ERGs, as part of a broader mental health strategy, will see higher engagement, increased productivity, and fewer instances of burnout.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct Guru Gowrappan’s title.

Jen Porter is the COO of Mind Share Partners, a nonprofit changing the culture of workplace mental health so that both employees and organizations can thrive. It provides training and strategic advising to leading companies, hosts communities to support ERGs and professionals, and builds public awareness.

Bernie Wong is a Senior Associate at Mind Share Partners, a nonprofit changing the culture of workplace mental health so that both employees and organizations can thrive. It provides training and strategic advising to leading companies, hosts communities to support ERGs and professionals, and builds public awareness.

Kelly Greenwood is the Founder and CEO of Mind Share Partners, a nonprofit that is changing the culture of workplace mental health so that both employees and organizations can thrive. It provides training and strategic advising to leading companies, hosts communities to support ERGs and professionals, and builds public awareness. .

Are You Stuck in the Anxiety-Distraction Feedback Loop?

Are You Stuck in the Anxiety-Distraction Feedback Loop?

by Jud Brewer - May 19, 2020

As a psychiatrist specializing in anxiety and habit management, I’ve seen a lot of change over the past two months, and very little for the better. One of my patients works at his family-owned liquor store (considered an “essential” business by the state of Rhode Island). During our newly minted telehealth visits, he told me that he has been working 70+ hours a week. His business has never been busier. Several other patients have been joining the growing ranks of Netflix binge-watchers as a way to distract themselves. Others still are concerned about the “quarantine 15,” or gaining weight because they turn to food for comfort.

Whether your vice is food, alcohol, social media, work, or television, when faced with increasing anxiety, why does your brain urge you toward distractions?

Let’s start with a bit of biology.

Anxiety is defined as “a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.” Understandably, that feeling has increased on a societal level right now. Biologically, your survival brain was set up to scan territory for both food and danger. When your ancestors found a new food source, their stomachs sent a cascade of signals to their brains that resulted in dopamine firing. They then formed a memory about where the food was located to help them understand how to find it in the future. The same is true for danger. When your ancestors explored new places, they had to be on high alert, scanning for movement so that they didn’t become a food source themselves. Uncertainty helped them, and therefore people, as a species, survive.

There is a caveat, however - and this is important to understanding the relationship between anxiety and distraction. Once a place becomes familiar to people, whether it is dangerous or not, that uncertainty decreases. This means that only after your ancestors revisited a territory again and again were they able to relax.

Shifting back to what this means for the present day, and for you: when you become more certain, your brain uses dopamine differently. Instead of firing when you eat food or spot danger, for example, dopamine fires in anticipation of those events. Dopamine is far from a “pleasure molecule” as it has been characterized by popular literature. Once a behavior is learned, it has been most consistently associated with cravings and urges to act.

From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense. Once your ancestors knew where their food source was, they had to be prodded to go and get it.

In response to the pandemic, my patients are demonstrating exactly this same process. Whether addicted to a substance or a behavior, they have learned to associate a particular action with an outcome. Anyone who gets an urge to eat a snack, check their news feed, or go on social media when they’re bored or anxious can relate to this this feeling. That restless contraction in your stomach or chest. It lets you know that something is off. Your brain says “do something!” and the action, or the distraction, makes you feel better. To you, looking at cute puppies on YouTube (again) may seem like a strange choice when you still have a big project to do. But to your brain, it’s a no-brainer. Its survival 101.

Think of it like this: Distraction is the modern day equivalent of avoiding the dangerous or unknown in ancient times. Uncertainty makes you feel anxious. Anxiety urges you to do something. In theory, that urge is there to drive you to gather information. Yet, when no new information about the pandemic is available, checking the news doesn’t make you feel better. Your brain quickly learns that distraction is a pretty solid alternative.

The problem is that, often, distractions are not healthy or helpful. No one can binge on food, booze, or Netflix forever. In fact, it’s dangerous to do so. You brain will become habituated to these behaviors. You eventually will begin to need more and more of them to get the outcome you’re accustomed to.

Sadly, your survival brain is just trying to lend you a helping hand, yet can’t see that it is driving you toward habits, and even addictions, that could become hard to break. What to do?

Reading this article is a good first step. Only when you begin to understand how your mind works can you begin to work with it. If you’re stuck in an anxiety-distraction habit loop, you need to map out the trigger-behavior-reward process that creates and perpetuates your unwanted habits. This involves noticing the trigger (anxiety), the distraction behavior (eating, drinking, watching TV), and the reward (feeling better because you are distracted from the trigger). Once you identify your typical anxiety-distraction habit loops, map out when they show up. Is it in a certain context or at a particular time of day?

Next, begin to explore how rewarding these habit loops actually are. Your brain chooses between different behaviors based on their reward levels. Instead of trying to force yourself not to stress eat or check social media, focus on the mental and physical results of your actions. I have my patients ask a simple question: “What do I get from this?” It’s not an intellectual question, but something I have them use experientially. What does the brief relief feel like? How long does it last? Are there other effects that have boomerang consequences, like getting more anxious because you have not completed a task?

It is important to note that not all distraction is bad. It becomes a problem when the reward you seek stops being rewarding. You can explore what it’s like to eat a little versus a lot of chocolate when you’re nervous. You can explore what binging on five versus two episodes of your show du jour feels like. When you pay attention, you will likely discover a classic inverted U-shaped curve, where the pleasure of distraction plateaus and sends you sliding down, back into restlessness and worry, leading your mind to search for the next best thing.

This brings me to the last step of this process, which is to find the “Bigger Better Offer” (BBO). Because your brain chooses more rewarding behaviors, you need to identify behaviors that are more rewarding than your bad habits.

This doesn’t always mean picking an entirely new behavior. Sometimes it means stopping your current one when the balance shifts from it being helpful to harmful. Keep the phrase “how little is enough” in mind when indulging a distraction. Apply this to everything from food to TV by simply checking in with your body and mind after you’ve indulged to see if you’re satisfied. My lab has studied this by embedding a “craving tool” into a mindfulness training app (Eat Right Now) that helps people break the habit of stress or overeating. We have people pay attention as they eat, and then ask how content they feel after they’ve eaten. This way, they can link up how much (or what type of food) they’ve eaten with sensations in their bodies and minds. It helps them clearly see how unrewarding it is to overindulge, and how rewarding it is to stop when they’re full.

If your goal is to step out of your habit loop entirely, then you do need to explore BBOs that are different behaviors. For example, if you are anxious, you can use mindfulness practices to work with the anxiety itself, rather than needing to distract yourself from it. (Our lab found that mindfulness resulted in a 57% drop in anxiety scores in anxious physicians, and 63% reduction in people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder). Treating the anxiety at the source of your distraction is analogous to having some pain in your body and getting at the root cause instead of taking pain killers to temporarily numb yourself - which masks the symptoms of the problem, and can cause you to become dependent.

In the end, this process really boils down to knowing your own mind. Self-knowledge is always power, but it is particularly effective when it comes to working with our brains. When uncertainty abounds, step out of anxiety-distraction habit loops by bringing forward what you have evolved to do best: learn.

Jud Brewer MD PhD is an addiction psychiatrist and neuroscientist specializing in anxiety and habit change. He is an associate professor at Brown University’s School of Public Health and Medical School and the author of The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love - Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits. Dr. Brewer has posted 20+ short videos on how to develop resilience and work with Coronavirus-related mental health issues on his YouTube Channel.  

How to Manage an Employee Who’s Struggling to Perform Remotely

How to Manage an Employee Who’s Struggling to Perform Remotely

by Ron Carucci - May 19, 2020

“You need to make Anil do his job!”

My client, let’s call her Robin, received this text from her sales manager during their virtual leadership meeting. As a food manufacturer, her company is deemed essential during the pandemic. But like many managers today, Robin is feeling the pressure of running a $1.5B division remotely with a team whose nerves are starting to fray.

Anil, her customer operations manager, was a strong performer back in the office. Remote work, however, has not been kind to him. Though he claimed to have his tasks under control, with three children under 10 and a wife who also works, things were falling through the cracks. Salespeople had begun to receive complaints from desperate restaurant customers. Orders were arriving incorrectly and late. Since their businesses depend on every order to survive, these mistakes posed a serious threat.

Despite being an empathetic and skilled leader, Robin was struggling to hold Anil accountable. Difficult conversations are her Achilles heel, and she’s not alone. One study shows that 18% of top executives say holding others accountable is their greatest weakness. The guilt many managers like Robin feel has been made worse by the current crisis and the pressure to remain compassionate of what others may be going through - not to mention the challenge of giving feedback virtually.

At the same time, an employee who isn’t keeping up while working remotely is a problem that cannot be ignored. In fact, poor performance consumes up to 17% of a leader’s job  (equivalent to roughly one day a week), and today, given the state of the economy, its financial costs are intensified.

So how can leaders like Robin confront team members who are struggling to successfully work remotely while also remaining sensitive to the times? It requires a broader approach and different skills than many leaders are used to. But there are several ways to learn them:

Expand your diagnostic lens.

With many unfamiliar variables introduced by Covid-19, getting to the bottom of a new performance problem is more complicated. Prior to the pandemic, most leaders might have reflexively zeroed in on the underperformer as the primary unit of analysis and presumed the problem was the result of insufficient skills, lack of initiative, commitment, and/or a poor attitude.

While these often play some role in underperformance, they rarely account for all of it. That’s why focusing on the underperformance vs. the underperformer leads to better problem solving. This is especially true today when a myriad of new factors could be contributing to the issue.

Before confronting your underperformer, use these questions to help you figure out what those factors may be:

What’s different? When you’re dealing with someone who has just recently started to underperform, begin by identifying new variables that could be interfering with their work. Have there been recent organizational shifts? Difficulties in their personal life? For many, working from home has presented several technical and self-management challenges. Isolating which factors may be presenting legitimate obstacles to your employee’s job will require you to have sensitive and persistent conversations with them. In the case of Robin, she assumed that Anil’s demanding home life was a large factor. Feeling bad for him, she restrained from addressing the issue. As it turns out, her hesitance kept the real causes concealed.

What’s worse? Working virtually, as many of us are, will undoubtedly amplify weak areas of your organization: clunky processes may feel more cumbersome; getting information in a culture of secrecy may now feel impossible; work-arounds people have adopted to cope with outmoded technologies will likely break down. But leaders must be able to identify which broader organizational performance issues may be contributing to an employee’s performance issue. Sometimes you may not know until you have the conversation, but it’s important to consider all the factors before a confrontation. You want your employee to trust that you’ve thought through the situation and considered it from their view. They will be less likely to use those broader issues as an excuse.

What’s fact, what’s emotion? In a crisis, anxiety, anger, and fear can lead to blame, defensiveness, and irrationality, which worsen when we’re isolated. As such, it’s even more critical to separate emotion from fact in these situations. Leaders experiencing frustration around an underperformer will need to acknowledge the presence of these emotions, and honor them, before they are able to set them aside. Once you do, you will be more equipped to discuss what is factually true. In Robin’s case, the team’s and customer’s anger amplified her and Anil’s guilt, clouding everyone’s judgment about how to identify and solve the real problem.

What’s mine, what’s theirs? Healthy accountability starts with a leader acknowledging they may play a role in someone’s underperformance. Have you been clear about what you expect from your newly remote team? Have you provided needed resources, coaching, and feedback? Is there a gap in your leadership contributing to the problem? Robin’s misassumption about Anil’s stressful home life became the perfect excuse to justify not addressing him. But this contributed to the problem. Anil’s failure to ask for help, offer creative solutions, and set expectations about how his new normal were his contributions to the problem.

Show empathy without lowering the bar.

“Who do I throw under the bus?” Robin asked me. “My customers, who need my products to survive, or one of my top leaders who is up against tough constraints with a family to care for?” Her unmanaged anxiety and confrontation-avoidance backed her into a false-binary corner, leading her to ask the wrong question. What she needed to ask was, “How do I help my key leader succeed?” Ultimately, she was confusing empathy with lowered expectations. Her fear of making Anil “feel bad” wasn’t compassionate, it was cowardice.

You can demonstrate your care for an employee’s struggles by both acknowledging their hardship and redoubling efforts to help them succeed. The best way to have these conversations right now is through a video call so that you are able to read one another’s tone and expressions. When you start the discussion, remember that this behavior is new for your employee too, and they are likely already feeling badly for struggling. “Check in” before you “check on” as a rule. Ask how they are doing to gauge their well-being. Then, clarify that your goal for the conversation is to help resolve the problem at hand.

To begin, use probing questions like, “Why do you feel this is happening?” Listen carefully to how they describe the situation. If they deny there is a problem, you may have mismatched expectations. If they point fingers, make repeated excuses, or refuse to take responsibility, you may have someone in the wrong role.

When Robin finally confronted Anil, she discovered that the fulfillment process at her company was the real problem. Their data systems were still tied together by laborious manual processes, including spreadsheets, heroics, and hallway handoffs. To avoid catastrophes in the office, Anil and his team routinely ran between buildings with key information. “Running between buildings” had now become endless texts, slacks, and emails. Anil couldn’t keep up.

Through their conversation, Robin learned that a crisis doesn’t let people off the hook from the delivering the same level of results they did before. It means the path to those results might need to shift, and it was her job, as the leader, to help Anil discover that path.

Engage the underperformer in problem solving.

In my experience, performance shortfalls, especially sudden ones, are best resolved by asking the person in question to be responsible for solving the problem. Once you’ve identified what the issue is, ask, “What would you change if you could?” or “What can we all learn from this?” to open their imagination and signal that you trust their ability to improve.

Resist telling them what to do, or being overly proscriptive about how to do it. You don’t want to dilute their ownership and commitment. Remember that working in isolation can make people more anxious about their mistakes, and this is a person who is used to seeing success. Reassuring your employee that you are OK with missteps as long they are corrected and learned from will help empower them to solve the problem on their own. At the same time, you should remain available to provide guidance when needed. This may require instituting more frequent check-ins to compensate for the changing conditions.

To redirect her conversation with Anil, Robin asked, “What can we do right now to help you? How can our whole team help make sure every order is on time and accurate?” This gave Anil permission to ask for help without deepening his shame. It also opened the door to creative, interim solutions. “I know these are tough days, and I know we can do better,” she said. “I need you to come back to me with a plan you are confident will get all orders out the door on time and accurately.”

Anil took less than a day to build a plan and get his peers on board.

Strengthen team accountability.

There a few things you can do to avoid this issue from reoccurring in the future. One of them is making sure that your team members realize their collective success belongs to one another - not just to you, the boss. Otherwise, you’ll end up playing air-traffic control for every result the team delivers, and spend more time managing what falls through the cracks than helping them achieve greater performance.

The toughest question I asked Robin was, “Why do you suppose your sales manager felt it was appropriate to send that text to you, instead of something more generative to Anil like, ‘Anil, we can see you are struggling. How can we help?’” Robin was stumped. I told her this interaction could be exposing another problem: excessive reliance on her for the team’s performance. I suggested that Robin go back to her sales manager and ask what it would have taken for him to reach out directly to Anil.

To avoid the situation Robin found herself in, there is one exercise you can use to strengthen your team’s sense of shared accountability during this crisis. In your next meeting, ask every person to identify how they rely on each of their team members. Then compare answers. There should be explicit commitments they each make to one another, in which you remain uninvolved.

Remember, your biggest contribution to those you lead is helping them be, and contribute, their best. When they fall short, your greatest show of compassion, especially right now, is to help them figure out whatever it takes to get back on track. In some cases, it may be more compassionate to loosen expectations, so long as you make that decision with people and not for them.

Ron Carucci is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent, working with CEOs and executives pursuing transformational change for their organizations, leaders, and industries. He is the best-selling author of eight books, including the recent Amazon #1 Rising to Power. Connect with him on Twitter at @RonCarucci; download his free e-book on Leading Transformation.