Cultivating more human workplaces in 2023

Sharing inspiration to ring in the new year

As we look ahead to the coming year, it will be challenging as leaders. But we believe that by focusing on the fundamentals we can create engaging workplaces, be change agents, build trusting cultures, and grow our personal leadership skillsets.

At Cultivate, we’ve been inspired by quotes that remind us ways to create more human workplaces. We hope you enjoy a few of our thoughts and mantras as we ring in the new year!

Change begins with us 

“ Focus on things that are small enough to change but big enough to matter.”

– Kat Cole

How many times have we set out to improve a process or solve a problem and missed the mark? In a year that will be filled with outside distractions, make the biggest impact through the smallest changes. Don’t know where to start? Ask employees what small change they would make and watch the ideas pour in!

Culture is not words on a wall

“There’s no magic formula for great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be treated.”

– Richard Branson

Yes, there’s no magic formula. Guided by our People Helping People mindset, we’re good at setting member experience expectations aligned with our brand. Yet, there can be a lack of focus on aligning the employee experience with the best-in-class culture we want. One of our favorite questions when hosting employee listening sessions is, “what would you say about working here at a friend’s party?” Their first responses say it all!

 To build trust, start with communication

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”

– Stephen Covey

Communication happens in every business and team setting. But to build a culture of trust, the communication must be effective. Reading information posted to an intranet or hearing updates at a quarterly town hall isn’t enough. Engage in two-way communication, use short videos to bring concepts to life, and lead with transparency (even when it’s tough!)

The future belongs to the learners

“Every day is a learning day.”

– Winston Marshall

Our world is changing, and evolving faster than ever – chat GBT, anyone?! The faster we learn, the greater the impact we’ll have on the lives of our employees, our members and communities we serve. A great way to make learning a priority is to set up a steady stream of content from a few sources you like. So, whether you prefer to learn by reading, listening, or watching, make space every day to explore new ideas. (… and don’t forget to share your learning with others!)

The end goal is deeper engagement

“People want purpose, meaning and gratitude. Purpose is shared, meaning is personal, and gratitude is the great connector.”

– Eric Mosely & Derek Irvine

We hear a lot about the current state of the workforce — frustration with old ways of working and a lack of connection, especially in hybrid environments. Connecting employees to our mission, to their managers and to each other can elevate work satisfaction. Give a greater sense of purpose, meaning and gratitude by encouraging 1:1 discussion centered around common goals, peer-to-peer feedback, and good old-fashioned conversation.

Beyond the laughs – Valuable leadership lessons from social media humor

What every leader can learn from TikTok star Corporate Natalie

We’ve all seen the memes, TikToks and other social media content poking fun at workplace norms, remote work struggles, and co-worker relationships.

As a self-proclaimed “aspiring TikTok star,” @corporatenatalie rose to influencer stardom last year when she began creating short videos that highlighted the uncharted territory of working from home during a pandemic. Her Instagram and TikTok accounts have since grown to over a half million followers, and there’s no question why. Her content has been explosive with millennials and gen Z, but will likely resonate with anyone in the workforce. She highlights what so many of us struggle to put into words; the awkwardness of video conferencing, return to office anxiety, challenges connecting with co-workers from home, and more.

While influencers like @corporatenatalie can give us a good laugh, I believe we can take away more than a smile. Her content sheds a light on opportunities we have to better support our employees as we look ahead to a forever changed workplace. Here’s a few things we can all learn from @corporatenatalie:

Normalize stepping away for breaks

We’ve all read the studies and know the importance of taking breaks. Whether it’s a quick walk or lunch break, does your work model support breaks at home, as well as in the office? Encourage employees to intentionally reserve time on their calendar for breaks.

Check-In On Your Employees 

Whether you’re still remote, in an office, or evolving to a hybrid environment, it will take a lot of time to solve the mental health challenges many employees are facing. Connection is more important than ever. Be sure to ask the question behind the question “how are you doing?”. Inquire about their personal interests and ask what you and your credit union can do to support their wellbeing. Asking once isn’t enough – be sure to incorporate this connection point into your regular cadence of 1:1 meetings.

Lead by example after hours and during time off 

With PTO banks at an all-time high due to limited travel opportunities, encourage employees to use their PTO and help them truly unplug. A leader I work with recently turned off his phone during his vacation, and his team said they felt more empowered to do the same. Leaders really do set the tone here! This includes email after hours. Unless there’s an emergency, consider scheduling your email to be delivered the following business day. 

All laughs aside, the pandemic has surfaced some opportunities to re-think how we work and enable our employees to be their best. With these pearls of wisdom and new perspective, let’s be more intentional than ever to connect and engage our employees.  

EVENT: Ignite Employee Engagement

New Framework for Bringing Out the Best in Your People

Chary and Derek Irvine, senior vice president of strategy and consulting at Workhuman, will discuss a simple conceptual framework that can serve as a guiding light for your HR strategy in 2021 and beyond. Your organization needs a better way, right now. This framework will help you create more genuine moments of human connection and develop a high-trust culture that fuels engagement.

You will learn:

• How empowering everyone to give recognition with a tangible reward promotes a sense of belonging and cohesion – and creates a well-rounded, crowdsourced picture of employee performance

• Why traditional performance management is being replaced by a continuous stream of check-ins, team feedback, and agile goal setting

• Ways to reinforce community in the new world of work by celebrating important milestones, such as an anniversary, marriage, birth of a child, or graduation

Hosted by:

CU Management Feature | Leadership Matters: Is Your Organizational Design Due For A Tune-Up?

6 best practices for improving efficiency, driving engagement and staying focused on strategy

The world is evolving quicker than ever, and financial services are not exempt from these market changes. Over the last several months, credit unions have helped members find new ways to connect by leveraging online channels and redesigning branch experiences. They have deployed employees remotely, and teams are working efficiently and productively. Now, leaders should focus on their organizational structure—how it’s been affected with the changing landscape, how it’s impacting the way work gets done and how it’s preparing the CU for the future. A well-designed organizational structure will improve work efficiency and output, bring more value to members and help employees through future changes in business direction as the financial industry continues to evolve.

Make a Connection to Strategy

Long before COVID-19, the credit union industry consistently delivered exceptional value for members. And now, it’s a more opportune time than ever to evaluate how organizational structure can drive business strategy and an improved member experience. Understanding how your structure delivers on the mission and vision and the strategic plan should be your primary focus. It helps to start by evaluating the current structure and asking questions like: Have projects and initiatives strayed from delivering value? Are there employees whose role has changed and should be deployed to new teams? Clearly defining how departments and divisions impact the mission, vision and values will be imperative as our businesses pivot, ultimately helping employees understand why changes are happening.

Create the Ideal State Before You Add the People

It is a best practice to design organizational structure without individual people in mind for roles, evaluating how work and decision-making should happen to be most productive. It’s hard not to take into consideration personal relationships and individual strengths of people. Along with the challenges of letting current employees dictate the structure, business events like leadership exits can cause changes in structure that never get reviewed. A good example is the temporarily re-assignment of departments or projects during a vacancy—when a new hire is on board, those decisions are rarely revisited. Important questions to ask: How will work get done most effectively, with little friction, with expedited decision-making? Is the structure a result of personal relationships or aged decisions that need to be reviewed? When organizational design review is a frequent occurrence, it addresses gaps much quicker and improves people’s experience with these changes.

Connect Employees to the Bigger Picture

Employees are keen at identifying where there is inconsistency in reporting and titling due to an unmanaged organizational design, and oftentimes we can’t deliver a thoughtful response as to why. Leaders need to be able to adapt on the fly and add new roles with needed skillsets to remain competitive, yet understanding and evaluating differences in organizational design is key. It is important to address reporting irregularities that create silos and frustrations for employees. They want to understand how new roles impact the overall success of the credit union, how they will have access to information (that is often cascaded down from the top) and desire access to leaders who can help elevate their challenges.

Ensure Equity Within Roles

Expectations of employees with reporting relationships that skip levels can create performance inequities. For example, if a director reports to an executive team member, yet a director in a different division reports to a vice president, might there be differences in expectations and deliverables? What if one director is expected to create a strategic plan, but that’s not in the general director job description? If this leader is expecting more from the director, could there be pay inequities? Evaluating roles and responsibility by each title, and then reviewing reporting structure and its impact on role expectations is an essential activity.

Provide Guardrails for Leaders

Leaders are morphing their teams to meet the needs of members by reassigning functions or even moving employees to different departments as business direction changes. Without thinking of the larger organizational picture, these leaders may have already designed their future team structure, and it can be difficult to undo or change course. Without guardrails and best practices documented with considerations like reporting layers, span of control for teams, or titling requirements, it can create inconsistencies across the business and create confusion for employees about variations.

Get Started Today

First, find an outside partner who will respectfully challenge decisions and continually encourage new ideas. This partner is important because they won’t know the reasons why the current structure is the way it is and can offer industry specific trends that align with your strategy. Invite key senior leaders to the table, set the stage that nothing is off limits, and start digging in. Here are a few questions as the project kicks off:

• What are the most important focus areas needed to deliver more value and improve the member and employee experience? What would really drive the mission and vision forward?

• If the organization structure could be totally redesigned to align with the strategic plan, and there weren’t any employees hired yet, what would it look like?

• What is the current state across all teams? Is a centralized/decentralized model working? Is there misalignment in reporting structures?

• What process is needed to review the current structure? How will the redistribution of functions, reassignment of reporting relationships, and titling inequities be addressed? What is needed to create best practices for other leaders?

• What if people in key roles make an exit for retirement or other job opportunities? Do you have a robust succession plan in place to fill any talent gaps?

Pivoting to address our changing world includes understanding how to leverage people to achieve our strategic objectives. This focus will improve work efficiency and output and drive high levels of engagement for employees and leaders who want a work experience where they understand how work gets done, how decisions are made and how they fit into the bigger picture.

Putting people at the heart of return-to-work plans

There’s an end in sight for the days of remote work, drive-up member service, and A/B shifts. So, how are you preparing? Most return-to-work plans focus on logistics like sanitization and scheduling, but it’s important to consider how we prepare and engage our people in the process. Here are five actions you can take to ensure a successful re-entry: 

Get your house in order

Many employees are craving routine and community, and we need to be ready. With all the details that will plague us, it’s important to lead with social distancing guidelines and some quick wins to get the ball rolling.  

Action: Consider repurposing conference rooms, lunch rooms, and other communal spaces to allow for more distance. Be thoughtful about the shared workplace activities where employees come together like recycling bins, printers, and entry points. 

Engage employees in the solution

Last week, Chary Krout shared how leadership will impact employee experience now more than ever. She called out the importance of including employees in the return-to-work conversation, and to be clear that this process will involve compromises, and the goal is to find the best solution for the employee and to ensure team deliverables can still be met. 

Action: Create an exercise for departments to revisit team deliverables and goals, and reprioritize as needed. Then, talk to each of your employees to understand any unique working or scheduling needs and share the plan back to the team.  

Connect on a personal level

Stress and anxiety levels are higher than ever. Additionally, some employees are dealing with logistical challenges such as child/senior care, limited public transportation, and empty PTO banks. Don’t overlook the importance of asking questions and listening to see how you can help. 

Action: Have frequent and personal check-ins with your employees. Even a 5-minute phone call just to see how they are is meaningful. If they’re struggling, encourage them to reach out to Human Resources or remind them of the Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

Review employee goals and expectations

Work has changed over the past five months. Employee’s goals, job role and schedule might look vastly different. There’s no better time to come together, review goals, identify any changes and re-align expectations. 

Action: Schedule a 1:1 dedicated to the employee’s role and responsibilities. Consider: Is there a change in the goals and what is expected? Will a different schedule be requested or required? 

Prepare your people for what’s next

Credit unions are going to need to remain agile and pivot to address the ever-changing market conditions — and so will our employees.  Focusing more resources on professional development will not only help employees feel valued and grow their resume, but better equip your credit union for any future business disruptions.

Action: Prepare a customized development plan in partnership with your employee. Include a focus on technical skills, but don’t forget soft skills like resiliency and adaptability. Make sure you help your employees set aside time to complete plan activities and share their learnings with others.

With so much content and advice for businesses on the future of our work and how to prepare our workplaces, we can’t lose sight of what we’ve put at the center of our organizations for decades – the people. If you’re able to put your employees at the center of your return-to-work plan, you’ll not only ensure engagement, but demonstrate compassion—something we’re all craving right now.

Leadership will impact employee experience now more than ever

How we return our people to our offices and branches will be one of the most important employee engagement activities this year. Not only will our re-entry impact the bottom line, it will also impact our engagement survey scores, employees’ decisions to stay or look for other opportunities, and how they share their experience with members and prospective hires. 

So, as leaders, are we ready to challenge our personal working preferences to ensure the best employee experience? Here are a few questions to consider:

• Have employees been successful at home, and can they continue to work from their home offices? 

• Have managers set clear expectations and understand how employees are performing both in and out of the office?

• Can managers build connections with employees, manage performance, communicate messages and give recognition remotely? 

• Are there differences in how teams or departments work that could allow for unique return-to-work plans? 

• Can everyone participate in return to in-office decisions? 

As leaders, we need to assess our current beliefs, understand the true state, and then take action.  Time is passing quickly, so here are a few actions you can take:  

Come from a place of empathy: Start by acknowledging that COVID-19 has been and is a shared experience for us all. Acknowledge that each employee is unique and psychological safety comfort levels will vary.

Engage employees in the solution: Invite employees into the return-to-work conversation. Create an exercise for departments to revisit team deliverables and goals,  and reprioritize as needed. Then, talk to each of your employees to understand any unique working or scheduling needs. Be clear that this process will involve compromises, and the goal is to find the best solution for the employee and to ensure team deliverables can still be met. 

Communicate the why: Make sure shared goals and values are not forgotten in this process. Remind employees of why their work matters. If having employees in an office/branch is needed, be clear about why, and make sure they know how you are keeping them safe. Communicate often and make sure there is a ‘source of truth’ where employees can get the information they need.  

Create or revisit remote working resources: With a long-term mindset, look at your work from home policies and practices and re-evaluate how managers and employees will connect for 1:1s, dispersed team meetings, etc.  

Don’t be afraid to do the right thing: In the absence of a playbook, put humanity first— listen and find solutions in partnership with employees. An A/B schedule can ensure you have a response if someone complains, but being inclusive will drive employee engagement. 

Don’t let your personal preferences and beliefs interfere with one of the biggest employee-impacting decisions to date. When you engage employees in the process and solution, they’ll feel an increased commitment to the credit union, their team and your members. Now more than ever, we must live out our mission of “people helping people.”