4 Employee Engagement Best Practices L&D Leaders Must Follow

Stephanie Santos

November 13, 2023

Despite how often we in the talent management world talk about employee engagement, very few members of the global workforce report a high level of involvement and enthusiasm in both their work and workplace. In fact, not even one in four employees (23%) feel engaged in their jobs.¹

As employers and employees alike contend with massive layoffs amid economic uncertainty, organizations engaging with the talent they have now is critical. Long term, the resources spent on improving employees’ commitment and enthusiasm are worth the investment. According to our research, when engagement levels are high, organizations are more likely to see greater revenue growth and improved customer experiences.

Employee engagement: L&D’s unique advantage

Professional development programs offer a tangible way to increase employee engagement by investing in their growth. Providing opportunities for skill enhancement and career advancement demonstrates a commitment to their professional journey. This, in turn, fosters a sense of belonging and loyalty, driving up engagement levels.²

What’s more, organizations that embrace a culture of learning empower their employees to adapt to change, innovate, and contribute meaningfully. This culture serves as a powerful magnet for top talent, as individuals are drawn to environments that offer opportunities for growth and development.³

To capture the full potential of L&D for employee engagement, consider some of the best practices and success stories outlined below.

1. Create actionable learning experiences aligned to organizational goals

L&D initiatives must align with the strategic goals and objectives of the organization, as well as the overall mission and direction of the company. As L&D leaders, we need to reach out to others in the company to get their input on skill gaps, as well as analyze the data available internally and externally to understand needs. Not only is this a general L&D best practice, but it can also encourage employee engagement, too—by involving the workforce in development plans, organizations send a strong signal to employees that their needs are being represented.

Once plans are developed, L&D leaders should consider approaches that ensure learning is actionable and applicable to current needs, such as scenario-based learning, case studies, and business impact projects. Real-world situations and contextualized learning bring abstract concepts to life, allowing employees to apply their knowledge and problem-solving skills in practical contexts, thereby increasing their engagement in their role.

SUCCESS STORY

“We’ve seen the most impact on our learners by leveraging Harvard content in our blended leadership programs and workshops. These programs have improved people and business leadership skills for thousands of employees around the world. The Harvard ManageMentor content is the foundation for making these initiatives successful. We blend this content with the employee’s context, their experiences, their leaders, their teams, and their challenges. That is our secret sauce.”

—Rhonda Reeves, Head of Global Learning & Development at NOV

• Watch the video  Developing Leaders at NOV

2. Curate personalized learning paths

Tailoring development plans to needs and skills gaps ensures that employees feel seen, valued, and supported in their journey. Organizations can personalize at scale by curating learning paths for distinct levels (e.g., individual contributor, senior manager, etc.) and domains (e.g., engineering, finance, etc.). For example, if a marketeer wants to grow into a people leadership position, they may need a similar set of skills as other leaders at the organization (e.g., influence, business acumen) but also domain-specific ones (e.g., marketing strategy, brand management, etc.). To meet their needs, L&D leaders can start by defining the core capabilities within each level and domain, and then create specific learning journeys.

As they develop personalized paths, L&D teams should pay close attention to leaders. Empowering leaders to lead better and build high-performing teams is critical to increasing employee engagement. To help leaders get there, L&D teams can prioritize those capabilities most likely to strengthen employees’ commitment and enthusiasm about their work. According to our research, the leaders with the most positive impact on employee engagement and morale demonstrate the following skills: champions inclusion, leads authentically, develops others, and leads through uncertainty and change.

SUCCESS STORY

“We rolled out our leadership competencies, and Harvard ManageMentor (HMM) Spark was a great way for our competencies to be launched to our leaders. We worked really closely with the HMM Spark team to curate content that was relevant to each of our leader levels. We wanted to make sure that the content was personalized, so anyone from a supervisor and team lead to a manager, senior manager, and to a director level could access content relevant to them.”

—Colette Williamson, Senior Manager of Talent and Leadership Development at Southwest Airlines

• Watch the video  Cascading Learning at Southwest Airlines

 3. Leverage technology and social learning to deliver engaging experiences

While many are grappling with the impact of AI on L&D, talent and development leaders can still leverage the technology they have now and incorporate what they know works for engaging learning experiences, such as various types of multimedia (podcasts, videos), gamification, progress tracking, and interactive learning. These approaches enhance knowledge retention⁴ and boost engagement in distinct ways. For instance, by incorporating game elements into learning, organizations tap into intrinsic motivators like competition, achievement, and mastery.

Furthermore, L&D teams should encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration through formal and informal opportunities. Peer-to-peer learning and cross-functional knowledge transfer create a vibrant learning ecosystem. Talent leaders can facilitate collaboration even in hybrid or dispersed working environments. Cohort-based learning, discussion forums, and interactive workshops led by internal subject matter experts can all be effective social learning experiences in virtual settings. This collaborative environment not only improves learning outcomes⁵ but can also strengthen team bonds—especially critical given employees today crave deeper social connections at work.⁶

SUCCESS STORY

“Leader-as-teacher was an extremely effective method for reaching everyone in the organization. Senior leaders co-taught the corporate manager program, and then corporate managers taught their own teams. Through gamification, participants earned points toward prizes for completing program elements. These approaches established an innovative energy that led to a higher level of communication and idea generation.”

• Continue reading  Innovation is the Ticket to Global Growth at Cinépolis

4. Measure and demonstrate the impact on employee engagement

Clear, measurable key performance indicators are essential to gauge the effectiveness of professional development initiatives. Metrics such as completion rates, skill proficiency, and post-training performance improvements offer valuable insights. To understand if L&D efforts are impacting employee engagement and retention, compare rates between program alumni and all other employees.

Also, be sure to gather participant feedback and continuously evaluate learning effectiveness. Creating channels for employees to provide their input on development programs fosters a culture of continuous improvement. Regular evaluations not only ensure that the learning content remains relevant and impactful, but also signal to employees that the organization values their input, a critical factor for engagement.

SUCCESS STORY

“We survey every cohort and consistently see results that reflect how much the participants have connected to our company’s purpose, their ability to connect their work to goals for self-growth, increased confidence in leading their teams and having difficult conversations, and how they are actively coaching and developing their own team members.”

—Schartryce Mason, Senior Specialist, Talent at American Airlines

• Watch the video  Build a Culture of Learning at American Airlines

Learn more

In a recent Harvard Business Publishing survey of 2,361 full-time employees across job levels at companies with 5,000 or more employees, four capabilities ranked highest for increasing team engagement and morale.

Download the infographic “Top 4 Leadership Skills that Transform Employee Engagement” for more insights now.

1. https://www.gallup.com/394373/indicator-employee-engagement.aspx ︎
2. https://hbr.org/2023/01/rethink-your-employee-value-proposition ︎
3. https://hbr.org/2021/05/what-your-future-employees-want-most ︎
4. The influence of gamified workshops on students’ knowledge retention ︎
5. https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/handle/10453/121880 ︎
6. https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcperna/2022/07/19/employees-want-more-friends-at-work-why-arent-they-finding-them/?sh=6126f4b719ab ︎

The post 4 Employee Engagement Best Practices L&D Leaders Must Follow appeared first on Harvard Business Impact.

To Improve Critical Thinking, Don’t Fall into the Urgency Trap

Stephanie Santos

Too often at work, people rely on expertise and past experiences to jump to a conclusion. Yet research consistently shows that when we rush decisions, we often regret them—even if they end up being correct.¹

Why we hasten decision making is quite clear. We’re inundated with incessant distractions that compete for our attention, and, at the same time, we’re facing profound pressure to go faster and drive our businesses forward, even when the path ahead is unclear.

In the aftermath of information overwhelm, evolving technology, and rapidly changing business environments, people often unconsciously fall into a pernicious paradox called the “urgency trap.”

The Urgency Trap

The urgency trap, which can be defined as the habitual, unbridled, and counterproductive tendencies to rush through decision making when under the pressure of too many demands, is a paradox because it limits the very thing that could help us be more innovative, efficient, and effective: Our critical thinking.

The ability to analyze and effectively break down an issue to make a decision or solve a problem in novel ways is sorely lacking in today’s workforce, with most employers reporting that their employees’ critical thinking skills are average at best.²

The good news? Critical thinking is a teachable skill, and one that any person can learn to make time for when making decisions. To improve and devote time for critical thinking at work, consider the following best practices.

1. Question assumptions and biases

Consider this common scenario: A team is discussing a decision that they must make quickly. The team’s options—and the arguments for and against them—have been assembled, but no clear evidence supports a particular course of action. Under pressure to move fast, the team relies on their expertise and past experiences to rapidly provide a solution. Yet, in the months following their decision, the issues that prompted the original discussion persist, and the team wonders why.

The issue here may be that the team failed to question their own assumptions and biases. Indeed, when we view situations solely based on our own personal experiences and beliefs, we limit our options and provide solutions that are often short-sighted or superficial.³ To improve critical thinking skills, we must step back and ask ourselves,

• “Am I seeking out information that confirms my pre-conceived idea?”
• “Am I perceiving a past experience as more predictable than it actually was?”
• “Am I overemphasizing information that comes to mind quickly, instead of calculating other probabilities?”

2. Reason through logic

When presented with an argument, it is important to analyze it logically in order to determine whether or not it is valid. This means looking at the evidence that is being used to support the argument and determining whether or not it actually does support the conclusion that is being drawn.

Additionally, consider the source of the information. Is it credible? Trustworthy? Finally, be aware of common logical fallacies people tend to use when trying to speed up decision making, such as false dilemma (erroneously limiting available options) and hasty generalizations (making a claim based on a few examples rather than substantial proof).

 3. Listen actively and openly

When we’re in a rush to make a decision, we often focus more on how we want to respond rather than what the speaker is saying. Active listening, on the other hand, is a critical thinking skill that involves paying close attention to what someone else is saying with the intent to learn, and then asking questions to clarify and deepen understanding.

When engaging in active listening, it’s important to avoid interrupting and instead allow the other person to fully express their thoughts. Additionally, resist the urge to judge or criticize what the other person is saying. Rather, focus on truly understanding their perspective. This may mean practicing open-mindedness by considering new ideas, even if they challenge existing beliefs. By keeping an open mind, this ensures that all sides of an issue are considered before coming to a conclusion.

4. Ask better questions

In an article for Harvard Business Review, John Coleman, author of the HBR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose, writes, “At the heart of critical thinking is the ability to formulate deep, different, and effective questions.”⁴

To ask better questions, first consider the audience for the question (who is hearing the question and who might respond?) and the purpose (what is the goal of asking this question?). Then, approach queries with rigor and curiosity by asking questions that:

• Are open-ended yet short and direct (e.g., “How might you help me think about this differently?”)
• Challenge a group’s conventional thinking (e.g., “What if we tried a new approach?”)
• Help others reconsider their first principles or hypotheses (e.g., “As we look at the data, how might we reconsider our initial proposed solution?”)
• Encourage further discussion and analysis (e.g., “How can we deepen our understanding of this issue?”)
• Thoughtfully follow up on the solution (e.g., “How do we feel about the progress so far?”)

5. Create space for deliberation

The recommendations outlined thus far are behaviors and capabilities people can use in the moment, but sometimes, the best solutions are formulated after consideration. In fact, research shows that a deliberate process often leads to better conclusions.⁵ And sleep has even been proven to help the brain assimilate a problem and see it more clearly.⁶

When issues are complex, it’s important to find ways to resist unnecessary urgency. Start by mapping out a process that allows several days or longer to sit with a problem. Then, create space in the day to formulate in quiet reflection, whether that’s replacing your first thirty minutes in the morning with thinking instead of checking email, or going on a walk midday, or simply journaling for a few moments before bed.

Critical Thinking Cannot Be Overlooked

In the face of rapidly-evolving business environments, the ability to make smart decisions quickly is one of a company’s greatest assets—but to move fast, people must first slow down to reason through pressing issues, ask thoughtful questions, and evaluate a topic from multiple angles.

To learn more about how organizations can enhance their critical thinking and decision-making skills, download the full paper: Who Is Really Making the Decisions in Your Organization — and How?

Perspectives

Who Is Really Making the Decisions in Your Organization — and How?

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1. Grant Halvorson, Heidi, “Quick Decisions Create Regret, Even When They Are Good Decisions,” Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/1758386/quick-decisions-create-regret-even-when-they-are-good-decisions. ︎
2. Plummer, Matt, “A Short Guide to Building Your Team’s Critical Thinking Skills,” Harvard Business Review, October 2019. https://hbr.org/2019/10/a-short-guide-to-building-your-teams-critical-thinking-skills. ︎
3. Benjamin Enke, Uri Gneezy, Brian Hall, David Martin, Vadim Nelidov, Theo Offerman, and Jeroen van de Ve, “Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?” Harvard Business School, 2021. https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/21-102_1ed838f2-8ef3-4eec-b543-d00eb1efbe10.pdf ︎
4. Coleman, John, “Critical Thinking Is About Asking Better Questions,” Harvard Business Review, April 2022. https://hbr.org/2022/04/critical-thinking-is-about-asking-better-questions. ︎
5. Markovitz, Daniel, “How to Avoid Rushing to Solutions When Problem-Solving,” Harvard Business Review, November 2020. https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-to-avoid-rushing-to-solutions-when-problem-solving. ︎
6. Miller, Jared, “Does ‘Sleeping On It’ Really Work?” WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/does-sleeping-on-it-really-work. ︎

The post To Improve Critical Thinking, Don’t Fall into the Urgency Trap appeared first on Harvard Business Impact.

Make Purpose Real for Employees

Stephanie Santos

According to the results of a global survey, just over half (52%) of jobseekers would not accept a job offer if they did not know or agree with a company’s values or purpose.¹ What’s more, 90% of respondents from another poll said that work should bring a sense of meaning to their life.²

Despite the increasing importance of purpose in corporate life—and its role in attracting and engaging talent— many organizations have no stated purpose, and those that do often struggle to cascade their purpose across the organization. In fact, only 15% of frontline managers and employees state that they are living their purpose at work, while 85% of executives and upper management report the opposite.³

If access to meaning at work depends on where employees sit in the org chart, that leaves most people in a state of disengagement, unable to connect their organization’s stated purpose to their day-to-day actions. What could be causing this purpose gap between executives and employees?

One reason may be that organizations misunderstand the purpose of purpose. In doing so, they may struggle to articulate their purpose and cascade it farther down the organization. Indeed, the term is a confusing subject. In the business world, purpose often functions as an amorphous catch-all for various topics (social impact, sustainability, diversity) with no clear structure or vision for what it looks like at organizations.

But it doesn’t have to be so hard. In this article, we’ll explore how organizations can develop, communicate, and embed a compelling purpose into day-to-day life, in order to attract, cultivate, and retain top talent.

What is purpose really?

Purpose describes why a company exists, beyond making profit, and the impact it makes on the world. Purpose is often misunderstood as a marketing slogan, a donation to a cause, or support for a diversity initiative. While these are noble activities, purpose-led organizations do much more than lip service.

Purpose-led organizations:

• Put purpose at the core of their business and people strategy
• Use purpose to define what a company does and why it does it
• Consider the entire ecosystem of relationships in which the company operates—employees, customers, vendors, partners, and society

Companies that center their business and people strategies around an authentic, clearly articulated purpose don’t just close the purpose gap between their executives and employees, they reap major business benefits—from higher levels of innovation and transformation⁴ to greater revenue growth⁵ to increased employee engagement and retention.⁶

How do organizations craft purpose?

Any exploration of purpose begins with identifying the internal constituencies that have a stake in the purpose. This may be a combination of business development (marketing, sales, channel management), employee engagement (HR, employee resource groups), governance and sustainability (operations, corporate communications, legal), and business valuation and strategy (CEO, finance).

The next step? Clarify the type of purpose that can be applied throughout the organization. According to researchers in Harvard Business Review, purpose can be applied in three specific, distinct ways: competence, culture, and cause.⁷

Competence

A competence-based purpose expresses a value proposition to customers and the employees responsible for delivering on it, such as Mercedes’s “First Move the World” by advancing and shaping the future of the auto industry with world-class engineering and innovations.

Culture

A culture-based purpose creates internal alignment and collaboration with key partners, such as Progressives’s “True to our name. Progressive” by encouraging employees’ innovation, focus on customer service, and expanding into new insurance markets.

Cause

A cause-based purpose promotes the idea that it is possible to do well by doing good, such as Pfizer’s “To deliver breakthroughs that change patients’ lives” by translating advanced science and technologies into therapies that matter.

After identifying their type of purpose, the organization’s role is to identify, define, and communicate the organization’s purpose in ways that are authentic to how the firm delivers on its promise, relevant to the firm’s constituencies, and practical to the firm’s business objectives. To pressure test if their purpose is authentic, relevant, and practical, organizations can ask themselves questions, such as:

• “Is my organization being honest with how we operate and how our leaders conduct business?”
• “Is this purpose relevant to people within the organization and what they do every day in their jobs?”
• “Is the purpose achievable and livable every day, or is it solely aspirational?”

Once these are solved, the final step is to bring purpose to life in the organization.

How do leaders make purpose real for teams?

The leader’s role in purpose work is crucial, especially at a time when people expect their work to have meaning but increasingly struggle to find it.⁸ To make purpose real for teams, leaders must activate and align the employee’s purpose with the organization’s purpose—but to do this well, organizations must first develop leaders around a certain set of capabilities.

A leader can effectively lead their team with purpose when they embody the following skills:

Leads Authentically

• Definition: Aligns leadership approach with core values and purpose. Demonstrates emotional intelligence and humility.
• Impact: Shapes team and organizational culture through purposeful behavior.

Leads Teams That Deliver

• Definition: Manages priorities, projects, and productivity, and maximize the team’s impact. Cares while not losing sight of performance and the need to deliver.
• Impact: Maximizes results beyond narrow corporate financials.

Develops Others

• Definition: Helps teams thrive by offering growth opportunities and believes that every member of the team can grow.
• Impact: Deepens expertise and builds purpose-focused leadership pipelines.

Communicates for Influence and Impact

• Definition: Communicates effectively in a wide variety of circumstances using a mix of tools and techniques that work for each individual.
• Impact: Articulates, engages, and connects employee’s individual purpose with organization’s purpose.

Champions Inclusion

• Definition: Understands the importance and dimensions of diversity and commits to being an inclusive leader. Proactively accommodates differences, including cultural ones.
• Impact: Recruits and hires talented, diverse, value-aligned candidates. Builds a sense of community and fosters deeper team bonds.

In order to translate purpose into performance for their teams, leaders use these skills to connect, inspire, and align each individual to purpose as they carry out their core daily leadership responsibilities. Those responsibilities include identifying and selecting talent, developing people, and navigating change, among others. To learn more about how leaders can integrate purpose through their daily responsibilities, download the Perspective paper: The Purpose Factor: Why Your Talent Strategy (and So Much More) Depends On It.

1. LinkedIn, Purpose at Work Report, 2016. ︎
2. Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning, “Do you believe work should bring a sense of purpose to your life?” LinkedIn, July 2022. ︎
3. McKinsey & Company, “Help your employees find purpose—or watch them leave,” 2021. ︎
4. Deloitte, “Becoming irresistible: A new model for employee engagement,” Deloitte Review, January 27, 2015. ︎
5. Interbrand, “Best Global Brands,” 2017. ︎
6. Anne Gast, Nina Probst, and Bruce Simpson, “Purpose, not platitudes: A personal challenge for top executives,” McKinsey & Company, December 3, 2020. ︎
7. Jonathan Knowles, B. Tom Hunsaker, Hannah Grove, and Alison James, “What Is the Purpose of Your Purpose?” Harvard Business Review, 2022. https://hbr.org/2022/03/what-is-the-purpose-of-your-purpose. ︎
8. Naina Dhingra, Andrew Samo, BillSchaninger, and Matt Schrimper, “Help your employees find purpose—or watch them leave,” McKinsey & Company, April 5, 2021. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/help-your-employees-find-purpose-or-watch-them-leave. ︎

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Employee Engagement: Our Favorite Reads

Stephanie Santos

Employees are feeling less engaged at work for the first time in the last 10 years. An annual survey by Gallup suggests that around 32% of employees feel engaged, a figure that has fallen from 36% in 2020.¹

As workers worry over layoffs and rescinded job offers, organizations engaging with the talent they have now has never been more important. When engagement levels are high not only do profits grow, but turnover is lower, customers are satisfied, and employees feel committed to their organization. With so many external factors affecting performance, leaders must focus on fostering a strong relationship with employees and creating a positive work environment.

Increasing engagement can look different for each industry and organization, but a highly engaged employee is easy to spot. They enjoy what they do, understand their role, and can identify how the outcome of their work affects the success of their organization.

So how can leaders accomplish the increasingly difficult task of employee engagement?

Start by prioritizing one-on-one time

Proactively and consistently scheduling time to connect with employees one-on-one is different than infrequent conversations. When leaders take a moment out of their day to check in with their team, people feel seen. When leaders allocate time to implement feedback that was uncovered in a recent engagement survey, people feel heard.

Organically grow relationships with vulnerability

Employees want a leader they can talk to and be authentic around. It’s up to the leader to foster this psychological safety. Leaders can start by practicing confident vulnerability and sharing their personal development journeys. Get to know employees as people by extending check-ins beyond project updates. Normalize learning, encourage feedback, and celebrate team-wide and individual accomplishments.

Connect output to impact

Outlining the impact of day-to-day work and the connection between employees and their organization incentivizes teams to be productive. When people can sense the connection between their output and the mission of the organization, work feels more purposeful.

Recognize that engagement is dynamic

Engagement shifts, often sporadically, and can fluctuate due to forces outside of a leader’s control. As helpful as engagement surveys are, they don’t tell the full story. It’s up to the team leader to practice curiosity about what direct reports need. Recognize successful engagement strategies that work for each individual employee—and remain open to adjusting approaches as circumstances change.

Below are some related resources for leaders on how to engage teams and retain talent:

• Creating the Best Workplace on Earth by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones

This article covers six methods for creating an authentic work environment that encourages communication, collaboration, and trust. The best workplace isn’t perfect—it’s built to solve problems when they happen.

• How Companies Can Improve Employee Engagement Right Now by Daniel Stein, Nick Hobson, Jon M. Jachimowicz, and Ashley Whillans

After collecting original data about what makes employees engaged in the post-Covid era, the authors of this comprehensive checklist advise boosting engagement through increased autonomy, flexibility, and incentives.

• Rethinking Your Approach to the Employee Experience by Harvard Business Review Editorial Staff

Employees want to be recognized beyond just their work, and perks that are seen as gimmicks aren’t going to cut it anymore. When basic needs are met, people are driven by feelings more than material features.

• Good Leadership? It All Starts with Trust. by Abbey Lewis

Trust isn’t built overnight. To create a sense of trust, leaders must be authentic with their team and exhibit ethical and consistent behavior over time.

• 5 Key Human Skills to Thrive in the Future Digital Workplace by Abbey Lewis

Empathy and adaptability are just two people skills that separate good leaders from great ones. In the age of the digital workplace, these capabilities have never been more important.

1. Jim Harter, “U.S. Employee Engagement Slump Continues,” Gallup, April 25, 2022, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/391922/employee-engagement-slump-continues.aspx. ︎

The post Employee Engagement: Our Favorite Reads appeared first on Harvard Business Impact.

How to Help Any Employee Grow

Stephanie Santos

July 27, 2022

According to results from a recent Harvard Business Publishing survey, the greatest influence on employee retention is opportunities to learn and grow. To better understand how managers can help any employee grow, I sat down with Angela Cheng-Cimini, Chief Human Resources Officer at Harvard Business Publishing.

Angela has successfully navigated the Harvard Business Publishing workforce throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. With over 30 years of Human Resources experience, Angela has shepherded businesses through start-up, growth, and maturity with key responsibility for helping organizations identify and build the necessary organizational capabilities.

STEPHANIE: I often hear you reference the “employee journey.” In your own words, what does this mean? 

ANGELA: The employee journey is pretty straightforward. It starts at the first contact point; so the first time a recruiter speaks with, or reaches out to a prospective new hire, and goes all the way to the last day when the employee discontinues their affiliation with a company. The employee journey is that entire experience from sunrise to sunset.

The manager is the singular most important force that influences the employee journey. And I think the critical thing that managers can do is demonstrate care.

Increasingly, employees expect that managers show compassion, that they show vulnerability — that they’re also a person. That there is something a little bit more human about the relationship between employee and manager, between employee and employer, between employee and organization.

The old model of where we only talk about work is not as resonant as it used to be. There’s been a lot of blurring, and employees expect their managers to understand that.

STEPHANIE: This sounds a lot like the idea of “bringing your whole self to work.” 

ANGELA: Exactly, which we know only works in safe, supportive environments. When we say “bring your whole self to work” it actually means that we’re seeing and respecting the whole person.

It means understanding that when an employee is having a bad day at home, they’re probably going to have a bad day at work. If they’re having a great day at home, they’re probably going to have a great day at work. So, the important question for managers is, how do we reverse that and make sure that they have a great day at work, so that when they go home, they can feed on that energy?

For managers to do that effectively they should be paying attention to an employee’s aspirations: Not just what they want to do professionally, but also what they want emotionally because they’re interested in developing a skill. Perhaps there’s something they’d like to spearhead because they see an unmet opportunity. Managers need to be tuned in to what employees need, and what each employee needs is specific.

STEPHANIE: You’ve mentioned specificity before. Can you talk more about that and what it means for managers?

ANGELA: One of the trends I’m seeing and reading more about is hyper-personalization. Hyper-personalization is about addressing employee needs at an individual level.

Throughout our career, we all have moments when we ask ourselves, “What’s my career path?” And increasingly, it’s not just, “I start as a Junior Accountant and then become an Accountant and then Accounting Manager eventually to CFO.” Now, people are realizing, “Hey, maybe accounting isn’t what I want to do forever. Maybe I started as a Junior Accountant, but actually what I want to do is get into data analytics because I love working with numbers and turning them into useful information.”

Managers should help their employees chart their own course along with some detours along the way. Take our Administrative Operations Associate as an example. He does event coordination in his own time for nonprofits, so now we’re pulling him in for events, and he brings all sorts of new ideas with so much enthusiasm and insight. And that’s because we’re getting to know him beyond his persona at work.

When a manager really listens in and develops a more meaningful relationship with their employee, they can then know what buttons to push to activate that person’s engagement and help them grow. It’s all about care.

STEPHANIE: At a larger scale, when a manager does listen in and help the employee on their career path, how does this benefit the team or the organization?

ANGELA: The Career Pathing framework at HBP identifies the critical skills the individual, the workforce, and the business need for success. When these constituents are aligned, growth and performance result.

Let’s say we need people who are more research minded. Upon assessing the team we realize we only have one person with that capability. Now we know we either need to make or secure that talent, or we need to help people grow into that skill.

So investing in the individual’s career path gives the organization visibility into our current state of skills and helps us understand how we get to our desired future state.

The other thing that I think is really interesting about our career path system is that it’s a living process. The skills that we want today may not be the skills that we’re going to need five years from now. And it’s a delicate balance — we don’t want to keep changing the goalposts for employees.

STEPHANIE: Changing the goalposts?

ANGELA: Yes, for example, let’s say I tell a current manager, “If you want to become a Senior Manager, these are the three skills you need to acquire and master.” But a year later, I say, “Oh, actually, you know what, two of those skills are obsolete. I’m sorry that you worked hard on this. But we don’t need them anymore. I need these two.”

That would make it incredibly hard to motivate people. Employees are investing time, and they’re entrusting you with their career. So we have to be really careful about how we identify critical competencies. When done properly, employees will understand what’s needed because we will provide them with lots of visibility into the evolution of their discipline and hold frequent and continuous career discussions.

STEPHANIE: I imagine these conversations could be new or uncomfortable for some employees. What can a manager can do to support their employees’ internal mobility?

ANGELA: People leaders must have the courage to have honest and hard conversations. Too often managers are uncomfortable with sharing hard-to-hear feedback, so it’s given under the radar or not at all. And if the employee isn’t aware that subtle signs are being given, they won’t be of the mind to receive it. That’s when it becomes an issue, because the manager will say, “I’ve been telling you about this” and the employee will say, “No, you haven’t.”

Organizational courage to be candid and respectful, especially when offering feedback, is so important. Equally, employees should feel safe in giving feedback to their managers. Employees need and should have a space where they can tell their managers, “Here’s what I need from you.”

As a manager, get to the compelling proposition for the employee to want to grow. In creating mutual benefit for growth, we all succeed. If people leaders want their employees to grow because it’s better for the business, they have to be able to articulate why it’s good for the employee. And if it’s not compelling for the employee, then we’re likely misaligned. Perhaps the employee needs more support, or maybe they need to be on a different track.

This all requires time and conversation, and finding time to really sit down and listen is hard. I have found my success as a manager when I slow everything down and do more listening than talking. Once you’ve demonstrated that you have their interests at heart, they should be willing to tell you what they want. And then your job is just to do it.

STEPHANIE: Managers and HR leaders reading this might wonder about the best time to discuss internal mobility with an employee. Are there any parameters that they should follow, or is growth allowed from day one? 

ANGELA: It really depends. Our free agency program at HBP encourages people to internally transfer if they’re looking for a new challenge. To participate in the program, you must have been in your current role for 18 months.

Why 18 months? Because it takes time to onboard, to get settled in, and to be productive. That’s the only parameter as we think too much mobility doesn’t build deep skills and can be disruptive to the team and the business.

Other than that, mobility is dictated by an employee’s readiness and an organization’s opportunities. Employee readiness is the degree to which an employee can quickly master and accumulate skills. Providing opportunities, then, is on us as the organization. We must make sure that you’re always learning and growing, and that there are experiences for people to challenge themselves. There is no shortage of ways that people can get involved and grow above and beyond their job description.

The post How to Help Any Employee Grow appeared first on Harvard Business Impact.

Human-Centered Leadership: A Conversation with Alaska Airlines and Arch Insurance

Stephanie Santos

June 23, 2022

The global workforce is, in a word, stressed. Around the world, employees are wrestling with economic shocks, supply and labor shortages, and geopolitical instability — while reeling and healing from the challenges of the past two years.

Rarely in the history of work has the call for human-centered leadership been so clear and so urgent.

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to sit down (virtually) with Shannon Simon, AVP of Learning and Development at Arch Insurance, and Tiffany DeHaan, Managing Director of Culture, Learning, and Inclusion at Alaska Airlines, to explore how their organizations are responding to today’s pressures. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation.

When it comes to your job, what’s keeping you up at night?

SHANNON: What keeps me up at night is preparing our leaders to retain our top talent. The labor market is fiercely competitive right now, and it can take months to fill one of our open positions. We need expertise across so many different disciplines and we want diverse talent at every single level in all of those disciplines.

But for us, we don’t just want a talented candidate. There are tons of them. We want a candidate who cares, who shares our value system. Because that’s how they’re going to be successful and we’re going to be successful. And so, since the market is so difficult, preparing our leaders to retain the top talent that we have is a top priority for us.

TIFFANY: How do we lead and serve our communities? How do we think about wellbeing, retaining our talent, and supporting our employees while they’re here?

We’re a 23,000-person organization, serving about 115 different locations, so our people are spread out everywhere. And the reality for many of our people — flight attendants, pilots — is that their way of life, their pressures, are different than those experienced by those of us who sit in offices all day. Many times, those folks don’t have the opportunity to connect with leaders.

So one of the things we’ve been really focusing on is: How do we create that connection? How do we hold our people together? How do we support them when we are so big, so spread out, and growing so rapidly? How do we support our diversity commitments? That’s what keeps me up at night.

What are you doing to retain top talent, build a diverse workforce, and foster more human-centered leadership?

SHANNON: At Arch, we’ve always been committed to having a workforce that is going to better reflect the communities we operate in — a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the pandemic, civil unrest, some of the things you outlined earlier — they’ve really caused us to pause and there’s a renewed focus and an increased reflection on who we are, who we want to be, what we want to stand for.

So our leadership has been clear: we want Arch to be a place where every single person of any background can feel like they can succeed and thrive. We are looking at initiatives and learning programs for DE&I. One thing that we’re doing is the Arch Experience. It’s a cultural journey that provides behaviors, actions, and practical tips for employees to apply on the job, so that they’re living out our culture, our values — like working hard and smart and continuing to improve, exhibiting honesty and integrity, striving to make a difference.

“There’s a renewed focus and an increased reflection on who we are, who we want to be, what we want to stand for.”

Our focus on culture starts with onboarding new hires, all the way to embedding it into our leadership framework and our leadership development programs. We also provide tools for our managers for their team meetings: practical tips and videos and conversation guides.

Through the Arch Culture Team, we’re also focused on giving voice to our employees. We’re listening. We’re actively asking what we can do, so on the Culture Team, decisions are not just handed down from the organization, but are made based on ideas, suggestions, and concerns that employees bring to us, including around recognition, inclusion, measurement, and communication.

TIFFANY: Given our size and the geographic dispersion, we focus a lot on creating a culture of connections, of building a culture around empathy and listening. This has become especially critical since the pandemic began. Part of me says, I don’t want to go back and think about it, but it is a good reflection. It was hard. It was really challenging, you know, when everything first happened, and people weren’t flying and the airports were empty. We had to right-size, which was hard. And, of course, our employees were concerned about their physical safety, as well.

Obviously, the government assistance helped us persevere, but I think the biggest thing that was really important to us during all this time was just making sure we were staying focused on our values of being kindhearted and doing the right thing. And so, with every decision we made, we went back and said, is this the right thing?

One of the most important things we needed to do was to make sure our people would feel safe.  We had a medical advisor come in to help debunk some of the fear. And we started to embed safety surveys quarterly to help to understand and listen to our people around whether or not they felt they had the right equipment, whether they were feeling safe.

“With every decision we made, we went back and said, is this the right thing?”

Care’s always been part of our culture. It differentiates who we are and everything about us. But the question was really, what does that look like and what does that mean? So one of the things we did was we launched an initiative around leadership, called care moments, which include everything from being inclusive, to being active and visible in our community, to knowing people personally. They’re not revolutionary, but they’re good reminders of where to center our leaders.

Could you tell me a bit about your measurement efforts?

SHANNON: Let me answer that through the lens of what we’re doing around diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’re just putting together our new DE&I team and we’re talking about what we’ll be looking at. First, we’re looking behind the covers to see where we are today. Then, we’re outlined what we want to get to for each of our goals around recruitment, development, and promotion. So we’re going to create a dashboard and have some information that we share back with leaders. And we want to be transparent and share it with the organization, because we want to make sure that they’re involved in helping us and holding us accountable.

“When you can contribute, you feel like you’re important, that you’re part of a company’s larger purpose.”

We’re also gathering data from the initiatives that we’re rolling out, such as feedback on the Arch Experience, which we’ve been rolling out to new hires. We’re doing surveys to see how the Arch Experience has helped them really see how they can contribute to the vision of the company. That’s key, because when you can contribute, you feel like you’re important, that you’re part of a company’s larger purpose.

And here’s an informal measurement: We have a full-day course, Creating a Culture of Belonging. Shortly after we put out the announcement, we’re at 100% capacity with a waiting list. That to me says we’re doing the right thing.

TIFFANY: I’ll also answer this question from the DE&I perspective, but I’ll start that one of the things that an airline does really well is measure things. A lot of things go into making sure we get a plane out on time, and you have to measure all of them. So we’re good at this!

For DE&I, we have an inclusion index, which includes eight questions that we put in our engagement survey. The questions include:

• Do I feel like I belong?
• Do I feel valued?
• Do I feel recognized?
• Do I believe that Alaska is really, truly committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion?

So we measure that, and we want to be ten points higher over the next five years. And so we’re measuring it that way.

We also have explicit goals, and ask: What are the inputs that are going to get you there? Because you can’t get the output you want unless you understand the input. Our DE&I goals include having 50% diversity across candidates, interviews, and leadership development programs and 30% diversity in promotion rates. We look across multiple dimensions: BIPOC, disability, veterans, and we’re just starting to capture LGBTQ+.

We have a dashboard that we review with our HR team every month as the numbers come out, and we have a scorecard that we take to our VPs and above, so they get to see where things are at.  Our employees are also holding us deeply accountable, as is our community, so we do biannual updates on our website where we show how we are progressing. And we are making progress.

One final question: what are the most critical capabilities your leaders need right now?

SHANNON: We had a set of capabilities, but because of all the changes and all the challenges that we’ve been talking about today, there’s been a shift to more human-centered leadership. One of the critical capabilities we’ve found for our leaders today is being vulnerable and leading authentically. Leaders need to be able to connect with people by showing up and being more human. The second one is being an inclusive leader. We have to have leaders that embrace DE&I and create a true sense of belonging. The final critical capability is focusing on the development of others, because people want to know that they can grow and expand, and that this is a place where they can continue to excel.

TIFFANY: We have five leadership principles. We lead by our values. We genuinely care for our people. We build trust. We communicate effectively. And we deliver results. We believe that you deliver results by following the first four principles.

We build all of our leadership development programs in service to developing leaders’ skills and capabilities against these principles. We’ve gotten really crisp and clear on what those are, and we’re going to support our leaders living by our principles.

The post Human-Centered Leadership: A Conversation with Alaska Airlines and Arch Insurance appeared first on Harvard Business Impact.