Stress – Page 11 – mardihumphreys.com

Travel Team

It’s vacation season and if you have a spouse, you want to travel together. But there are things you want to do that they don’t, such as spend five hours at one art museum, spend three hours at a coffee shop, or spend an hour reading a book at a botanical garden. Luckily, you have friends who think these pastimes sound heavenly. In addition to traveling with your partner, take a trip with a friend. These adventures are ripe with lessons you can take back to work.

Getting to Know You

Constant togetherness reveals hidden talents as well as idiosyncrasies. For example, you discover that your friend has an uncanny ability to quickly spot your Uber while they notice that you can easily navigate large airports. On the other hand, maybe you are irritated by your friend’s obsession with the weather forecast and they are annoyed by your insistence to walk everywhere. We learn to be more considerate of each other because our time together is finite. The same is true at work. Projects have lifecycles. Acknowledge an interpersonal conflict when it starts. Be quick to define both your and your teammate’s boundary. Additionally, recognize that taking the time to unravel and resolve miscommunication is time well spent.

Plan B (or C or…)

When traveling, sometimes Plan A won’t work. Issues like flight delays, a car rental company losing your reservation, and a broken air conditioner in your hotel room provide multiple opportunities to not only find out how good a business is at customer service, but also work with your friend to figure out how to overcome the obstacle. Which one of you will: Take the lead in patiently communicating the unacceptable situation to customer service? Motivate the other to remain calm? Influence the service you receive by confirming that everyone is working toward the same goal? After recovering from the setback, you can take the lessons you learned (e.g., active listening, empathizing, aligning expectations) back to work and apply them to your team’s next project. When unpredictable obstacles occur, you can confidently take the lead to solve them because you’ve experienced the emotional intelligence required to get through a frustrating process.

Teamwork

The first time you travel with a friend to a destination that’s new to both of you, logic dictates that you set the parameters of the trip and start negotiating. Who is booking the transportation? Who is booking the hotel? Who is booking reservations at the restaurants, museums, sites, etc. that you want to visit? You divide up the task list according to talent. They are good at determining how much time you need between connecting flights. You can detect if a hotel is as good as its marketing says it is. You must trust each other to complete these tasks. During the trip, you both are gracious when unforeseen challenges happen. You patiently support one another when mistakes in judgement cause setbacks. You encourage each other to stretch outside of your comfort zones. You remain flexible so both of you can reach the individual objectives you have for the getaway. See what I did there? These activities are examples of collaborative teamwork. The same skills and mindset you use traveling with your friend apply to the project you’re tackling with your coworkers.

Do you plan to travel with friends this summer? Where are you going? Please share in the comments.

Satisfied ≠ Engaged

When I hear the term employee engagement, in my head I see a scene like the photo above; engaged people satisfied with their work. I thought engagement was synonymous with satisfaction, but no. An engaged employee is probably also a satisfied one, but a satisfied employee is not necessarily engaged.

What’s the Difference?

Satisfied employees do their job, but don’t look for ways to contribute to the mission or vision of the company. They’re satisfied with short term incentives like a raise, and dissatisfied when the work gets stressful. Satisfaction is how happy employees are, which may include things like getting paid for doing as little work as possible. Satisfied employees avoid accountability, try to maintain the status quo, and resist change.

Engaged employees are enthusiastic about their positions, dedicated to the company, and work beyond their job descriptions. They believe in the company’s mission and actively promote it. They’re both mentally and emotionally dialed in to their work, teams, and organizations and expect a long-term relationship with all three. They embrace change; taking the initiative to seek out processes that can be improved and improving them.

Why is it Important?

Eighty-one percent of business leaders said engaged employees perform better than satisfied ones. They’re more productive, less absent, attract new talent, and stay with the company longer than satisfied employees. This results in growth and innovation in a thriving economy and the ability to bounce back after a recession. Engaged employees know their role in the company’s objectives. When an employee knows their purpose, they filter their work through it. The company can then harness and channel this energy to reach its goals.

How Do You Do It?

Communication: Employee engagement starts at the top. Senior leadership should authentically view employees as their most valuable asset and prove it by:

Casting a vision for the company, clearly and repetitively stating it, and lead accomplishing the company’s mission by example
Giving organization-wide updates on the health of the company including changes. Disclose what leadership is doing to improve the current conditions
Focusing constructive feedback on employees’ performance (not the person) and following up
Offering a process for anonymous company-wide feedback and implementing employees’ responses
Publicly recognizing engaged employees and giving them a system to publicly recognize each other

Cultivation: Business moves at the speed of trust. Senior leadership can build trust with employees by:

Defining what success looks like to the company and how to reach it with honesty and integrity
Providing clear expectations, holding people accountable, and focusing on delivering results
Making enriching employees’ lives a company value and acting like it (e.g., supporting employees’ career development with both money and time)
Developing cross-functional teams to complete projects. Pro-tip: When coworkers do projects together, they organically bond and create positive team memories because they achieve communal success

Contribution: Engaged employees want to feel like they’re instrumental to the success of something bigger than themselves. Senior leadership can tap into that desire by:

Matching roles to employees’ strengths
Giving employees tasks they find both interesting and challenging
Sharing ownership of the company’s mission
Reiterating how the work employees do contributes to the company’s success

A company with engaged employees experiences less turnover, higher sales, and more customer satisfaction. When an employee quits their job in America, it costs the employer about $5000 to replace them. It was hard enough to find good employees pre-COVID-19. It’s so challenging now that it’s simply a wise business decision to invest in keeping the ones you have.

Does your company have an employee engagement strategy? How does it work? Please share in the comments below.

Who Are You?

During the first team meeting after Jane got promoted from individual contributor to manager, she admitted she was nervous about the new role and asked her team for help. Her honesty and vulnerability were counter productive. Instead of regarding her as authentic, Jane’s direct reports perceived her as weak and unable to do her job. They didn’t trust her decisions, making it impossible to lead them. Her leadership style should have evolved as she gained experience, but instead Jane lost the courage necessary to promote her ideas.

What Bringing Your Whole Self to Work Means

Being both courageous and comfortable enough with coworkers to reveal both personal interests and flaws, thus creating space for them to reciprocate
Normalizing what employees experience outside the workplace affects them in the workplace
Includes both the impression we give of ourselves (consciously or unconsciously) and the impression we have of coworkers
Some elements we consider: authenticity (“This is me, warts and all”), humility (“I don’t know everything”), and vulnerability (“I need your help”)

Bringing your whole self to work is a relatively new concept. It presupposes that employees want to find purpose and higher meaning through their jobs. During the industrial revolution, no one looked for engagement with their work. They worked to buy food, clothing and shelter. They looked for purpose and higher meaning at church, in nature, or through art. Even today, some employees will never see their jobs as a source of fulfillment. If employees spend their energy trying to fit in to the culture, then they don’t have a lot left to be innovative, engaged, and productive.

Why You Don’t

Maybe, like Jane, you brought your whole self to work in the past and got judged or were less than your coworkers expected
The culture of your workplace is not conducive to sharing, keeping conversations at surface level
You fear revealing certain parts of your personality will make you appear unprofessional (e.g., you remain silent in a meeting after your feelings were hurt)
You are ashamed of something in your background
You feel pressured to always be right because your work culture does not support learning from failure

Why You Should

The more willing you are to be authentically vulnerable, the more positive an impact you have on both your work and your team. Bringing your whole self to work:

Breaks down silos
Accelerates trust
Creates a culture where honesty is valued
Removes the stress of hiding flaws
Allows genuine connection (critical to successful networking)
Enhances productivity and performance
Boosts creative problem solving
Helps managers resolve conflict in a constructive way

Someone who recognizes when to risk being vulnerable also recognizes a smart business risk when they see it.

How You Can

Start the authenticity ball rolling by:

Both recognizing and appreciating coworkers. There is a difference. Recognizing is feedback on performance. E.g.,“You gave an excellent presentation today.” Appreciating is expressing gratitude for valuable human qualities (e.g., humility, kindness, humor) regardless of whether the deliverable succeeded or failed. E.g., “It’s obvious you care deeply about serving our customers.” Recognizing and appreciating them helps coworkers feel seen. This leads to deepening trust and improving job performance
Having a growth mindset. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn, and we learn more when we do it together
Leading through both modeling and celebrating behaviors like: speaking up, taking smart risks, and owning mistakes. This enables your workforce to feel psychologically safe which leads to creativity which leads to productivity which leads to revenue

How comfortable are you bringing your whole self to work? Please share in the comments.

Balance vs Integration

Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA from Pexels

I mentioned last week my mom is retired. If you’re envisioning a little old lady sitting in a rocking chair and knitting, you haven’t met my mom. If she’s sitting in a rocking chair, It’s more likely she’s on her laptop in her home office, videoconferencing with a mentee in Turkey rather than knitting. Instead of trying to balance work and life, Mom has integrated them. She’s incorporated elements she loves (The Bible, studying) into her daily routine (counseling, mentoring).

If you have a job that can’t be done remotely, (e.g. factory, hospital) you have a better shot at work life balance because you leave your work at the place you perform it. But those jobs tend to have hours that don’t coincide with the school day. Balance then becomes: Are you going to your eight-year-old’s piano recital on Saturday or are you working your normal shift as a hair stylist? If you have more of a sales role (talent acquisition, productivity consultant) or knowledge worker (software developer, career coach) you have more freedom to integrate all of your responsibilities. For example, instead of working eight hours straight, work-life integration could look like this: you do deep work at 5:00AM while everyone is asleep. You break at 7:00AM for breakfast with the family. You work while the kids are in school. You answer emails after everyone goes to bed. Integration blurs the lines between home and work. Life becomes more fluid and less categorized. For example, developing a marketing proposal for a client and developing a vacation proposal for the family are both duties you may have, and you get paid to do one of them.

When I think of balance, I visualize the Scales of Justice and constantly trying to keep both sides even. But you don’t have work on one side of the scale and everything else on the other. Life is more like a large Marion’s Super Cheese Pizza whose squares are unevenly cut. Some are huge and some are tiny. Your squares include work, family, friends, health, personal development, spirituality, volunteering, leisure, etc. Some days, those bigger squares are going to be children (e.g., you have to attend parent-teacher conferences). Some days those big squares are going to be work (e.g., attending the all-company videoconference). After you eat a couple of big squares, you fill up on smaller ones: checking email while awaiting your turn at the parent-teacher conferences, light weight lifting while attending the all-company videoconference. (I recommend both video and microphone muted for this one.) Only you can decide which squares and how many to eat everyday. Make decisions based on your values, goals, and priorities. When you feel overwhelmed, write down where your T.E.A.M. is going (i.e., how many squares you’re eating). If you discover you’re spending your T.E.A.M. out of sync with your values, goals, and priorities, consider reassigning the squares. Maybe today the biggest square is the slide deck that’s due at noon and the smaller square is the social media post you told your church you’d do for them this week. You can even share your pizza, giving a square (like the social media post) to someone else.

Switching your mindset to integration can help you achieve the balance you want. How have you changed your routine to bring more harmony to your life? Please share in the comments.

Teleconferencing Takes a Toll

“Think outside the box,” they say. But teleconferencing (I use Zoom) is a box we have to think inside of. It saves time and money, but what about energy and attention? We yearn for the in-person interactions we used to have, but recreating them virtually is setting our Zooms up for doom. We should approach our various interactions like they’re sports. Each sport has its own set of rules. We don’t play volleyball using the rules for basketball. Neither should we Zoom using in-person protocols. If our mindset is how we can best communicate within the constraints of teleconferencing, then we won’t be so forgetful, distant, quick-tempered, sleepy, and in need of a massage at the end of a day of Zooming.

When communicating, we assign 60-70% of all meaning to non-verbal behaviors like appearance, posture, and facial expressions. The cognitive load this takes to process over Zoom is both invisible and takes more energy than we realize. We stare at other people in proximity reserved for intimate conversations. If I’m at a conference room table with seven other people, I’m not inches away from their faces and staring at them for an hour. But on Zoom, I am. The intensity is exhausting.

We think harder about both giving and receiving non-verbals. In a 1.50 hour meeting last week with seven other people, I felt compelled to nod in agreement until I looked at all seven onscreen. In person, I typically nod three times no matter how many people are in the meeting. I studied the participants’ facial expressions during the silences following thorny questions. I reminded myself to look at the camera while speaking so it appeared I’m making eye contact. It’s work to connect emotionally when delivering our message to a lit dot at the top of our computer screens.

We mentally deal with distractions. While Zooming, calendar reminders, IMs, and email notifications go off. Even if we mute the sound notifications, a visual reminder pops up. (That’s my own fault, but not only is turning them off and on all day a pain; remembering to turn them off and on is too.) The landscapers mow the lawn outside our windows. The kids yell for us. The cat walks across the keyboard. Pretending these distractions aren’t happening isn’t something we have to deal with in person. When I’m at an in-person coffee meeting, I may have to ignore the other customers around us to concentrate on what my potential client is saying, but I’m not distracted by my sleeping dog snoring at my feet.

We look at ourselves for hours. There’s a hide self view on Zoom, but I want to see how others see me. When I’m concentrating hard on a speaker, my face looks like I disapprove. I need to see that non-verbal in order to adjust it. After a couple hours of Zooming, I notice how tired I look. This triggers a domino effect. It lowers my self-esteem, which lowers my confidence, which lowers my desire to participate in the meeting.

No commute allows us to stack multiple Zooms back to back. But just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Lately, when I offer to meet on Zoom, in-person, or with a phone call, my counterpart is politely open to all. When I say I’m tired of Zooming, they’re relieved (three people just last week). Pre-COVID, there were plenty of meetings that should have been emails. Now, there are plenty of Zooms that should be emails, phone calls, or IMs.

Are you aware of the toll teleconferencing is taking on your energy and attention? Please share in the comments.

We Can Work it Out

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

American employees have worked in office buildings since 1906, even though emerging technology enables us to work from anywhere, any time, and with anyone. Companies buy buildings, so we must use the tools that work in them. Besides, if you can’t see your employees, they aren’t working, right? Let’s face it: If they’re watching Netflix at home, they’re probably watching it at the office too. In 2016, 43% of employees spent at least a few hours working remotely. During COVID, the exponential increase revealed outdated assumptions about it. The top three are: productivity, communication, and culture.

Productivity

This study shows employees are actually 35-40% more productive working remotely than in an office. Managers can boost productivity by:

clearly communicating goals (deadlines, KPIs)
giving individual contributors necessary equipment (laptop, industry specific software)
encouraging calendar sharing and ad-hoc communication (IM, video chats)

Time and activity tracking apps are available to keep an eye on the workforce (e.g., Teramind) or managers can insist on hourly activity reports. But, going overboard backfires. Productivity slows when employees have to interrupt their work to report on it; not to mention the distrust it cultivates. Working remotely not only increases productivity, but also reduces costs from real estate, employee absenteeism, and turnover. Research suggests a hybrid-remote work model could collectively save American employers over $500 billion a year.

Communication

Technology allows teams to communicate who is doing what, how close to the target they are, and what the result should look like. Data privacy is an issue; mostly a people one. For example, do all employees know they shouldn’t use free coffee shop Wi-Fi? Most data privacy issues can be addressed through company-wide training, secure VPNs, and well-communicated best practice policies. Implementing a hybrid-remote work policy helps employees understand business expectations, and advances both transparency and accountability for everyone. What should a best practice policy include?

COVID protocol: What are the rules for masks and social distancing? Must employees be vaccinated to work in the office?
Logistics: Who decides if an employee can work remotely; the employee or the employer? When in the office, does the employee have a dedicated workspace?
Equity: Is the remote employee reimbursed for office supplies, internet, and electricity? Will in-office employees receive better performance reviews due to unconscious bias? Is there a central company information hub that’s accessible to all employees?

Culture

A pleasantly surprising result of pandemic-induced remote work is that it has made some underrepresented groups feel more seen. Helping teams bond takes employers’ creativity, as well as time, and technology can facilitate initiatives.

Use employee recognition software to issue company-wide wellness challenges. By broadly defining wellness, (e.g., drinking water and meditation count as well as physical exercise) employers get more buy-in.
Schedule a recurring weekly thirty-minute coworker coffee, or happy hour (or both) via video chat.
Onboard new employees by pairing them with existing employees via instant messaging for one shift.
Engage employees with brief company-wide surveys (e.g., “What do you need most right now to be successful at your job: training or tools?”)

There’s no going back to the office-centric model. If an employer’s attitude is, “My employees have to work where I want them to, and I want them in the office,” then 54% of workers are willing to leave that employer when they find a position that supports remote work. If management and individual contributors come together to communicate what is working and identify where waste can be eliminated, we can create a sustainable hybrid-remote solution.

Do you want to go back to the office full time? Please share your preference in the comments.

Boundaries Battle Burnout

The World Health Organization recognizes burnout as an official medical diagnosis caused by an unrelenting work load and/or no work-life balance. It’s number two on this list of what employees said were their biggest challenges during the pandemic.

They feel:

pressured to be available 24/7/365
lack of flexibility at work
worried about losing their jobs
overwhelmed dealing with shuttered daycare and online school
not at liberty to talk about outside-of-work issues affecting job performance

To begin battling burnout, define, set, and enforce your personal boundaries with your manager.

Define

Your boundaries are based on your values and priorities. When defining them, think about what you need to feel empowered. The last time you felt undervalued, disrespected, or out of balance, what was the trigger? Did you have to work last weekend? Do you buy the office birthday cards and cupcakes for coworkers and it’s not in your job description? That’s where your boundary lies. If you could live that situation over again, what action would you take to change it?

Set

Does your manager randomly call you throughout the week? Schedule a recurring 1:1 catch up meeting with an agenda.
Feeling overwhelmed? Make a list of your priorities and ask them to do the same. In your next 1:1, compare lists. Are they different? Decide together what your top three responsibilities are and how much freedom you have to accomplish them.
If your manager’s expectations cross a boundary, how important is the boundary to you? Is a compromise possible? Is saying no a battle you want to fight?
Give updates on your projects’ statuses and request they prioritize them. Ask them to tell you more about why they need this new assignment done in this timeframe, and why the task requires your unique skillset.
Personal goals count. If your manager wants you to stay late, but your trainer is meeting you at the gym at 6:00PM, offer to get started early tomorrow morning. Compromise so you aren’t saying no all the time.
Best practice is setting boundaries at the beginning of a project. For example: Make a rule to only answer texts after 7PM if it’s an emergency, and define what constitutes an emergency.
Use technology to help you communicate boundaries: change your status to busy in Microsoft Teams (or whatever business communication platform you use), calendar an hour a day and label it as busy. You don’t have to say what you’re using the time for. Get the kids started on their homework if that’s what it takes to enable you to finish your work.

Burnout doesn’t just affect you, it affects the work too. You need to be flexible and accommodate the occasional emergency requiring overtime. But, regular work hours and exceeding the expectations of the project are good boundaries to help you both do the work everyday and juggle the other aspects of your life. Do not apologize for protecting the time it takes to do the work you are already assigned.

Enforce

Practice for boundary crossers. Rehearsal takes the emotion out of holding your boundary. Visualize your manager asking you to work on a Sunday morning; what do you do? Don’t fume over the infraction. Immediately reinforce your boundary by clearly and respectfully stating what it is and why it exists. Be consistent in holding healthy boundaries. You aren’t communicating clearly if you keep moving them. If you said you won’t respond to emails after 7:00PM, don’t open your inbox.

Your boundaries will get challenged. That will reveal where they are and help you to refine and iterate them. Those who set and hold boundaries gain respect. A friend just gave up a committee chair position because she assessed her commitments and realized she needed to off-load some. Will I miss her leadership? Yes. Do I respect her for making choices that help her achieve her goals? Absolutely.

When was the last time someone crossed one of your boundaries? What did you do to hold it? Please share in the comments.

The First Step

The glass ceiling is cracking thanks to so many women beating our heads against it. The light filtering through these cracks reveals that the ladder we’re climbing to get there has a broken rung.

What is it?

At the beginning of 2020, for every 100 men who stepped onto the corporate ladder by accepting their first role as a manager, only 85 women were hired and/or promoted from individual contributor to manager. That statistic refers to white women; the statistics for Black women and Latinas are even worse. The first rung on the corporate ladder is broken for women and it has a negative effect on our talent pipeline. While more women are getting hired for senior management, there aren’t enough at junior management levels to promote. This lack of diversity in management denies our organizations an array of ideas, input, and solutions which adversely affects our bottom lines.

Why Does it Happen?

Women are subject to unconscious gender bias. Adapting to work during COVID-19 has awakened us a bit. Who hasn’t been on a Zoom call where someone (male or female) commented on a female coworker’s children playing in the background? When schools went online and daycares shuttered for months, working moms took on the majority of both housework and childcare. The statistics are worse for single moms and moms of color. Because of the pandemic, over two million women are considering an extensive leave of absence or even leaving the workforce. This makes the broken rung even harder to repair.

How Do We Fix It?

Continuous Development – Women need skills including strategic thinking and negotiation to level the playing field. If your company doesn’t have an official leadership development program, find your own. It’s a good investment of your T.E.A.M.

Get a Mentor – If your company does not offer an official mentoring program, seek one outside the company. Research shows mentees were promoted five times more than an employee who didn’t have a mentor.

Network – Collect people: mentors, coaches, sponsors, peers. A support network makes it 2.5 times more likely you’ll be seen as a high performer and ready for advancement.

Visibility – Share what you’re learning in leadership development with your manager during your 1:1s. Forward reference materials to colleagues and copy your manager. Bring up your development plan during reviews. Post about your progress on LinkedIn. Let the world know you’re taking responsibility for your growth and are ready to serve as a leader.

Stand up for Yourself – If you get passed over for promotion, ask why. Your manager should give you clear feedback regarding what you lack. If you feel the suggestions are vague, press for specifics. Is it a skill? Learn it. Is it not enough experience? Ask your manager to give you assignments that will help you gain it. Make these your immediate goals and achieve them before your next promotion attempt. Keep your manager apprised of your progress.

Have you experienced unconscious gender bias? How did you call attention to it? Have you ever been unconsciously gender biased? What are you doing to be more aware? Please share in the comments.

You’re Asking For It

Our daughter called to tell us that a high-profile initiative she discovered and shepherded right up to the president of the international company’s office was approved. We celebrated then asked if this could lead to a promotion. She reminded us she was promoted in the last round of reviews and no one receives consecutive promotions. I suggested that may be because no one brings this level of business development to the company until now. (You expect her mother to say that, right?) Our conversation reminded me how difficult it can be to ask for promotion.

Problem

Society conditions us to believe our work should speak for itself and our employer will automatically reward us. Your manager’s job description may include developing you professionally, but they don’t have time to ask themselves, “Did my direct reports do anything promotion worthy today?” You are in charge of your future. If you’re doing next level work, you deserve promotion. Just because it’s not normal doesn’t mean you shouldn’t discuss it with your manager. You may be a catalyst for change.

Solution

Study the job description of the position you want. Do and document that next level work (especially your successes), then ask for the promotion at the appropriate time. Prepare for it by answering these questions:

Who profits from it? Promotion has to benefit your team, manager, other departments, the company, your clients, and you. What do others gain from your promotion? Leadership? Loyalty? Labor? Are other people going for this promotion? What makes you different? Do you have more: Certifications? Creativity? Connections? Be prepared to address how you’ll arrange handing off clients, working with teammates who may be jealous, and prioritizing multiple projects.

What have you done to earn it? Know the metrics by which your job performance is measured and track them weekly, quarterly, and yearly. Use this data to quickly and easily build your case. For example: How much money did you save the company? How much revenue did you bring in? How innovative is your solution to a perpetual challenge? What are your department’s KPIs?

When is the best time to ask for it? Traditionally, formal annual job performance reviews are the best time to present your case. If your company evaluates more frequently, don’t let receiving a promotion last time stop you from asking for another this time. If your company doesn’t do annual reviews, request one. You need to know at least every 365 days if you’re doing the quality of work that leads to promotion.

Why should you get it? Think of the objections your manager may raise and prepare for them. For example: Objection: No one receives consecutive promotions. Your Answer: No one brings this level of innovation to the company. Know your company’s top goals. Explain what you did to move the organization toward them using specific illustrations from your data.

How should you ask for it?

Do:

Act confident – make eye contact, sit up straight on the edge of the chair, speak in a conversational tone of voice
Control your emotions – if you feel nervous, convince yourself you’re excited
Be positive – you’re offering your manager the opportunity to shine by recognizing a rising star when they see one

Don’t:

Apologize – you aren’t imposing on your manager; your professional development is part of their job
Give your manager an out – Example: “Maybe this isn’t a good time, but…”
Play the victim – Example: “I need this promotion because (insert personal problem here)”

Result

If you receive the promotion by the end of the discussion, congratulations! But, don’t be stressed if you get a cliffhanger. It’s a good sign when your manager wants to contemplate your case instead of immediately saying no. If this happens, follow up in a week’s time. If you’re denied promotion, ask why. Is this a bad time for the company? Schedule a follow-up meeting for next quarter. Is there something lacking in your current job performance you need to work on (e.g., emotional intelligence, project management, leading a team)? Ask for projects showcasing those abilities. Do you lack the skills or certifications required for promotion? Set goals to obtain them. At the very least, this conversation makes your manager aware of your desire to contribute at a higher level.

What do you think is the most challenging aspect of asking for a promotion? Please share in the comments.

Still Dreaming

On Monday, January 17, 2000, all 50 states began recognizing the third Monday in January as a holiday. Most celebrate it exclusively as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Media typically highlight one of King’s most famous speeches. We haven’t yet realized his dreams. We still have lots of work to do. My dreams revolve around the American workforce. Here are five of them.

Earnings

I dream of equal pay for equal work. The disparity we hear about most is probably the wage gap between women and men. The latest statistics I found are from 2019 when, on the average, women earned $.80 for every $1.00 earned by men. But, employees of color, employees with disabilities, and LGBTQ(IA+) employees experience even wider wage gaps. The U.S. Department of Labor has been trying to fix this since the 1960s and is still working on it; which leads me to my next dream.

Child Care

I dream of safe, dependable, economical, quality child care for every family. Since the 1950’s, the number of women entering the workforce (including mothers) began to rise steadily, peaking in 2000. The cost of living meant a significant number of families required more than one income to survive. Consequently, parents had to pay someone to watch the kids while they were at work. In 2019, around 10% of a family’s income went to pay for child care. There is plenty of research out there on this topic. Here is an insightful article about why child care is so expensive. Here is an article on why America resists universal child care.

Health Care

I dream of available, affordable, and accessible health care for all workers. I have no answers; only questions and research. Why is this so hard? Why does it cost so much? Other developed countries have figured it out, why can’t we?

Inclusion

I dream of every employee having the opportunity to not only voice their opinions, but also have them heard, acknowledged, and taken seriously. It’s time to make diversity in the workplace a given. American companies should employ genders, religions, ages, races, other-abilities, etc., at least as varied as our clients. Our companies’ workforces ought to reflect the people we serve. How can we produce relevant user experiences if we limit our knowledge to how someone like us uses our product? We need to take the next step and embrace inclusion. This goes beyond diversity. If our workplace is diverse, but only one or two group’s opinions matter, the marginalized groups will take their talents to our competition.

Work Week

I dream of workers being compensated for results instead of time. With so many of us homing from work, er, I mean, working from home; haven’t we proven the forty-hour-work week is as dead as the Wicked Witch of the East? The eight-hour workday was invented by Henry Ford in the early 1900’s to recruit talent who were used to working 12-hour days. With the availability of technology, project-based solutions, and team-based problem solving, the current model is no longer best practice. The organizations who develop compensation criteria for productivity based on results will likely attract the best workforce talent.

How would you revamp the current conditions for America’s workforce? Please share your suggestions in the comments.