35: Flexibility is the New Raise + How to Get Employees to Share

Transcript – Episode 35: Flexibility is the New Raise + How to Get Employees to Share

Joe:
Everything. Has. Changed. The last 19 months have completely rewritten the story of what employees want and need to thrive at work. I’ll tell you what appears to be more important than almost anything else when it comes to employee engagement and retention. Plus, we’re sharing a simple BossScript that helps make sure something isn’t left unsaid at a meeting or in a discussion. We’re starting now on Boss Better Now.

Alyssa:
You’re listening to Boss Better Now. Please welcome speaker, author, and a man who will always choose waffles over pancakes, Joe Mull.

Joe:
What’s a BossHero? It’s someone who strives daily to create the conditions for people to thrive at work. It’s someone who puts their people at the center of everything they do. It’s someone who never stops learning how to be a better boss. If that’s you, then you’re a BossHero, and welcome to the show that’s made for you. Every week, we try to provide advice, humor, and encouragement for BossHeroes. Please welcome my cohost, professional coach extraordinaire, *triangle dings* Alyssa Mullet. It’s a thing now.

Alyssa:
It is.

Joe:
It’s the third episode in a row I dropped the triangle on there. It’s a thing.

Alyssa:
I’ll take it. I’m… It’s growing on me, I guess. I don’t know. Your choice of waffles over pancakes disturbs me greatly.

Joe:
That’s a source of conflict for you. Interesting. Tell me more.

Alyssa:
Waffles can be all crispy and crunchy and gross and pancakes are pillows of dense air that is customizable to every taste bud imaginable.

Joe:
Disagree. And that’s our show! Thanks for… No, just kidding. I reverse everything you said and apply it to the, the other thing I find waffles to be much more consistently fluffier they’re thicker, they’re lighter, the butter and syrup. If you’re using it can sit atop it, whereas pancakes are inconsistent, flat, heavy, sticky, thin, not-as-good-as-waffle things. And I will end my argument there.

Alyssa:
I like how the pancakes soak up all of the syrupy goodness.

Joe:
Yeah, no, I like… I mean, waffles do a little bit, but there’s some sitting on the top. I think that’s maybe why it works for me.

Alyssa:
Yeah.

Joe:
Okay.

Alyssa:
Gross.

Joe:
Well, you can weigh in BossHeroes: waffles or pancakes? Let us know. Drop a comment, send us an email, post on social media, make it a thing. We’d love to hear from you. But everything has changed Alyssa. And, uh, you know, there’s a term that’s taking place right now across the world, especially here in the U.S., called The Great Resignation. Uh, we have seen a number of folks who are leaving jobs, who are, um, taking time away from jobs. We’re seeing a lot of places that are struggling to hire and fill roles. And, uh, it’s something that we haven’t talked a lot about on the show yet. A little bit, in a previous episode, we talked about a lot of those vacancies and whatnot, but there has been a complete shift in what employers, what workplaces need to do, need to provide in order to attract and retain talent. And so, I wanted to talk about that a little bit today, um, because we know that employee engagement, the emotional and psychological commitment that people have to their work, is driven by a multitude of factors. We could spend days talking about those factors. Um, but in short, it has everything to do with people feeling valued, people having their work align with their talents, people working with leaders who take a coaching approach, um, our pay and benefits being fair and equitable. There are a number of things that kind of mix into the pie together to give us committed employees. But there is a new factor that has arisen to the top of the list that, it’s always been important, but this collective reorganization of our priorities and values that has taken place since the pandemic has rocketed it to the top of the list. And that is flexibility. Uh, we know that people are looking for more flexibility in their job roles than ever before. It’s become more important than pay. It has become more important than, um, even doing difficult work. Right? People will do difficult work, stressful, hard work that takes a toll, that is taxing, if that job comes with a certain amount of flexibility. And we’re talking about flexibility in all aspects. When I work, where I work, how I work, with whom I work. It is the most important thing. And it’s forcing organizations everywhere to completely reimagine how they structure positions, hire people, bring them together to work. Um, are you seeing that out there? Uh, and why do you think it’s become so important?

Alyssa:
I think this is a beautiful outgrowth of also the last two podcast episodes. So, listeners, if you haven’t listened to those, go back, and listen to those as well. After you’re done listening with this one. But it is the exact space in which we, as leaders, need to, number one, as per prior episode, question our structures of authority that we have come to know and love and be comfortable with. Right? Because, number one, people asking those questions about flexibility means that we, as leaders, need to ask ourselves, ‘Could we? Should we?’ and the answer generally nowadays needs to be, ‘Yes! Yes, indeed. I should. And I could. And I will make that flexibility for you.’ Make that accommodation because you’re putting the person above the position and the widget or the output. Right? And that is how you build commitment as you spoke about. The other thing that I think that it really does is that it starts to, again, uh, work towards the balance that we spoke about previously that has alluded us as employees. So, thinking about yourself as an employee, dear leader, what flexibilities do I need to role model so that I can be an example of balance and what’s possible within this organization.

Joe:
If you think about what happened in the earliest stages of the pandemic, this is where I think a lot of employees got their first taste of what flexibility could really look like. And the result was that employee engagement actually went up in the United States. And if you think about that, it’s absurd. Right? Really the most stressful, disruptive time in our adult professional lives resulted in us having an increase in our emotional and psychological commitment to our work. But it’s true. And if you think about what was happening, it actually makes sense. In March and April of 2020, think about what you, listeners, were doing as bosses. You were oversharing information. Right? You had to constantly communicate with your teams. Um, you were connecting with your folks and trying to figure out how to accommodate their needs based on their unique circumstances at home. Did you have kids at home that needed to be homeschooled? Did you have a partner or spouse who got laid off or who is a frontline healthcare worker and now you need to be home with the kids? Are they an essential worker that are in grocery stores? Or… you know, there were so many conversations taking place one-on-one between managers and their direct reports about ‘what do you need?’, ‘What accommodations do we need to create for you in terms of schedule, in terms of workplace, in terms of work product, um, to meet you where you are, where your circumstances have you?’.

Alyssa:
Yeah.

Joe:
And, and that was one of the core reasons why engagement went up. Uh, and then what you saw happen though, once our new challenges turned into the new normal, uh, and, and spring turned to summer, and ultimately summer turned to fall in 2020, is leaders stopped doing those things. They stopped making accommodations. They said, ‘Well, this is the way things are now. And this is how it’s going to be.’ Uh, and actually we saw employee engagement come back down a little bit in the data. Um, and now fast forward and we’re halfway through…A little bit more than halfway through 2021. Um, and what you’re seeing in the news right now, again, and again, and again, are companies mandating a return to the way things were and employees saying, ‘No.’.

Alyssa:
Yeah.

Joe:
I know of three large organizations, I’m not going to name drop them, I’m not here to poke a stick at their CEO, whose CEOs announced, ‘We will be an in-person workplace’. And was forcing employees back into offices when remote worked just as well. There was no dip in productivity, no dip in customer experience. Uh, and whose mandates resulted in mass quitting across their organization. Um, I know of three companies where the CEOs actually had to come back and say, ‘Never mind. We should’ve listened to you. We will make these accommodations.’ in an effort to stem the tide of mass exodus that was happening in their company because those folks can go get new jobs where flexibility is possible. And so, this is not a question of ‘if’. It’s not a question of if your organization should prioritize flexibility. The only question is, when will you. Because if you don’t, you will not keep talent. You will not fill positions. Right? You will be Blockbuster Video who said, ‘No, we do VHS tapes. This is how it is.’ Right? If you remember Netflix, when they started, they mailed you a DVD. And then they looked into the future and saw the technology changing and said, well, we’re going to adapt in order to be viable and look where they are now, right?

Alyssa:
Yeah.

Joe:
There’s no Blockbusters left. I think maybe there’s that one in Wisconsin or something. I saw a documentary.

Alyssa:
I think it went out.

Joe:
Did it?

Alyssa:
I think it went out over the pandemic actually. Ended it.

Joe:
You know, and Netflix is as huge as you can imagine.

Alyssa:
Yeah.

Joe:
And so, this is an adapt-or-die moment, I think, for a lot of employers. And the ones who will be successful are the ones who innovate around what flexibility looks like in their roles.

Alyssa:
So, I think that it then begs the question: If you’re a part of an organization who is struggling with this, um, and is trying to come to terms with what’s possible, what do we really want? Number one, be on the right side of history. Advocate, the heck out of all the flexibilities for you and your teams that you possibly can. Number two, start role modeling it. Start showing them what works and what is possible. Um, so that you aren’t the Blockbuster.

Joe:
Yes. And we’re going to hear a phrase come into our collective vernacular in the next couple of years, more than it ever has before. And that is the phrase ’employee experience’. You know, we’ve heard for years about, uh, ‘customer experience’ and we’ve talked for years about ’employee engagement,’ but ’employee experience’ brings a couple other pieces into the fold that we haven’t always talked about related to schedule, related to where I work from, related to the role that things like childcare, and vacation time, and workload factor in. There is a correlation on employee experience and, the word I use is, suffering. Right? All jobs are hard in their own way, and they have, uh, periods of difficulty, of challenge. Um, I am not advocating that your job as an organization is how to figure out how to eliminate ‘hard’ from someone’s job. That’s missing the point. There will always be ‘hard’. Work is hard. There are challenges in every job. What we’re advocating for is an understanding that we have to balance the hard with a better work-life balance, with a better employee experience. I’m willing to do hard if the other needs that I have emotionally, and psychologically, and personally, are being met. That’s related to pay that’s related to time. Right? Our biggest, most valuable resource, now more than ever before, is time. You give employees more time back in their lives, where their workload and their quote-unquote suffering at work is minimized compared to where it was because their tolerance for it has changed now, and you will get better at retaining talent. Um, and so this idea of employee experience is critical. It’s why I think one of the most important things organizations can do right now are stay interviews. ‘Your rockstar, superstar, employees who are still there, still showing up.’ We need to be having some really honest and exploratory conversations with them about what they need to be at their best. What makes you stay? If you left, what would the reason be? What are the other pieces and parts that we can build in, as an organization, that would really meet your needs? Both here at work and at home. And listen, really listen, and try to innovate around those ideas. Be cautious of dismissing anything, because you may end up innovating around something that sets you apart. And the result becomes if you build it, they will come. If you listen to what people are asking for, and you build an environment that people go, ‘Yes! This is what I need! This is what I’m looking for!’ Not only will you keep your rock stars, but you will poach others to fill the roles you need to fill.

Alyssa:
Stay interviews. Holy crapola. That is…folks. If you don’t send this podcast to 20 other people with this strategy – like you’re not doing your job. You will…this is free advice you just got, that is some hardcore, going to make you and your company. Stay interviews. Do that! And all the other things that Joe just recommended. Do it now!

Joe:
Thank you, my friend. Do it! Do it! We should have a new segment called Do It! We have the Stop It! segment…

Alyssa:
Yes!

Joe:
…where one of us rants about something that drives us. We actually did a Stop It! segment earlier in the podcast, uh, episode list on exit interviews. I did a whole Stop It! Thing – exit interviews are stupid, right? And we mentioned stay interviews there – that do stay interviews instead. We need to ask the people who stay. Maybe we should do a whole new segment called Do It! and, and we would do ‘Stay interviews – Do It! Yes. Um, and, and the “do it” here is not just about the stay interviews. It’s about where do we need to innovate around flexibility?

Alyssa:
Yeah.

Joe:
That’s the big, next thing that is going to be the most important. And I know so many of you who listen to this podcast who have CEOs and senior vice presidents above you, who write us in and say like, ‘my people don’t buy into that.’ I need our owner or our CEO… Um, this is a hill to climb for your organization.

Alyssa:
Yup.

Joe:
And it’s something that you may have to just continually chip away from and share examples of other organizations who are creating flexibility and saying, ‘our people are going to work there’. It comes back to the point that I made earlier, which is, it’s not a question of if you should. It’s only a question of when. Well, what do you think? We want to hear from you! We want your reactions to these ideas. I know there are many challenges around creating flexibility around roles, and workplace, and schedule but if you have innovated, boy, I would love to hear about the things that you’ve changed that have made a difference in your ability to attract and keep talent. That…helps us keep our finger on the pulse of what’s happening out there. So, if you, uh, have a story to share, I would love to get an email from you at bossbetternow@gmail.com or you can drop a comment in the box below the video, if you’re streaming us online.

Joe:
And that brings us to the Camaraderie Question of the Week. Every week, we give you a question, you can use at meetings to facilitate connection and build camaraderie. Because camaraderie is a key ingredient to group cohesion and team spirit. You see, when people find things in common with each other at work, things that don’t have anything to do with work, they access each other’s humanity. And that cuts down on blaming, on gossip, and on adversarial relationships. It makes it more likely that people are going to give each other the benefit of the doubt and want to actually be helpful and a teammate. And so, our Camaraderie Question of the Week, this week, Alyssa, what was your favorite subject in school and why?

Alyssa:
I have two. And that would be literature and history.

Joe:
Yeah.

Alyssa:
Um, primarily both for the same reason, uh, that I really liked the teachers. The teachers made the subjects for me. Um, there is no end to the amount of praise and worship and hallelujahs I could give to teachers. And…when you asked this question, I was thinking, ‘Oh, okay. Was it based upon my interest?’ and a little bit maybe with the whole literature thing. But then what I was thinking about it, no, it was really the teachers.

Joe:
Uh-huh.

Alyssa:
That’s what made it for me.

Joe:
Yeah.

Alyssa:
What about you?

Joe:
Lunch. No. I’m just kidding. My son, Miles, says that. What’s your favorite part of school? He says ‘lunch’. Um, my, uh, my first answer was, uh, history. I loved history classes most of the time. Um, I remember being really, uh, into the Civil War, uh, as a subject. And really, I wrote a lot of papers about that. I read a lot of books about it at the time. That was my most favorite kind of period to learn about. Um, but I actually think that the right answer to this question for me is probably choir.

Alyssa:
Ah.

Joe:
I know that sounds like a funny thing to say.

Alyssa:
No. That’s it. That’s you.

Joe:
Um, but, but I, I feel like, like choir saved my life in school. Um, I had a hard time in school. I was always very small and very smart, and that’s a pretty vicious combination. I was bullied a lot in school all through that I can remember. Um, and I got roped into choir by a friend of mine and by a really amazing, dynamic teacher – I think I’ve talked about her on the podcast before. Um, and you know, I don’t, uh, high school was hard. I really struggled, but I found a place in the arts with other people who were like me. And it really resulted in me being the person I am today. I step on a stage for a living, and I think it all started probably, uh, back in choir. So, shout out to Mrs. Esther Spadaro from, uh, Ringgold High School, uh, and her incredible tenure as the choir director there and all the opportunities she gave me. Uh, Spud for short. Everybody called her Spud. Um, yeah. So, I’m going to go with choir.

Alyssa:
That’s amazing. I gots all the feels.

Joe:
And that is the Camaraderie Question of the Week.

Joe (Ad):
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Joe:
All right, Alyssa, we are back with a BossScript. That music always reminds me of like an old-timey TV commercial.

Alyssa:
Tried and true.

Joe:
Yes. Baking soda. It cleans everything. *Singing* Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. All right. Well, that’s our BossScript music.

Alyssa:
Well, much like our BossScripts.

Joe:
That’s right!

Alyssa:
These are, these are really valuable, uh, timeless things that will absolutely be keepers.

Joe:
So, we hope that you take these BossScripts, and you try to use them. Like, you will remember them, and they will become a part of your boss toolkit, your boss utility belt, only if you use them. Right? So, jot this down on a post-it note, stick it up somewhere where you can see it, and try to use it this week in an interaction you have with an individual or at a meeting. Your BossScript this week is: And what else? And it’s like, it’s the Swiss army knife of coaching questions. Right? You can use it in so many different places. You know, imagine you’re having a conversation with someone and they’re telling you that they’re feeling frustrated and they’re feeling angry. And you do a good job in that moment of saying, ‘Okay, what I hear you saying is you feel frustrated and angry. That must be hard. Um, I can understand why you might feel that way… And what else?’ It’s a next-level probe. It’s a chance for you to uncover some things that maybe would be left unsaid because sometimes we move on to the next thing, right? Let’s, let’s try to fix it, or let’s process it together. And that’s good. We should do those things, but only after we’ve uncovered the roots of the problem and the deeper stuff that sometimes lives under the surface. Imagine you’re at a staff meeting or a huddle, and you’re asking people for ideas or, or to talk through a problem. Uh, and, and the first one or two people volunteer some ideas. And then we’re off and running into that problem-solving. Sometimes as a leader, we have to bring it out back and say, ‘and what else?’ And what else? Um, if you’re giving people a voice to their complaints, if you’re sourcing ideas, if you’re, uh, wrapping up a meeting and everybody’s getting ready to leave, but you stop at the end and you say, ‘Hold on. What else?’ It’s, it’s such a powerful tool. And I want to give credit where credit’s due. This is one of the key questions that Michael Bungay Stanier writes about in his book, The Coaching Habit. And so, um, it is a powerful tool in his toolkit. Um, that’s where I first encountered this. Uh, and it’s absolutely worthy of including on your coaching utility belt. I know you use this one a lot, Alyssa. What are your favorite circumstances in which to use ‘and what else?’ and why is it so important?

Alyssa:
Well, you know, it’s like the silence scalpel. And I… Whenever you said it, I didn’t know which coach it was, but I was like, that’s a coaching question.

Joe:
Yeah.

Alyssa:
So, but to me, this is like, you know, whenever we talk about leaving this space for people to fill the silence. Right? This part of this deep listening that we’re trying to hold as leaders. This is like when the silence isn’t working for somebody.

Joe:
Mmm-hmm.

Alyssa:
And they’re just trying to wait you out. Then you take the silence scalpel of ‘and what else?’ Right? So, you always have one or two of those folks on your team that are kind of, you know, you may brush it off at first glance as, as introversion, but if it’s not in a group setting and you’re trying to, um, have it, um, especially in one-on-ones to deepen that connection, to truly understand what’s going on, what maybe is… You’re not aware of that could help build a next-level connection with that team member. And what else? I mean, I think you actually used this on me at the top of when we started recording and I went into some… It doesn’t take much for me to talk but… Something about my disillusionment and blah-blah-blah, and, you know, trying to find my joy and still, you know, not letting it escape me. This is like that underwater, scuba diver going, ‘Okay. The water’s all surrounding us. But what else? What else are we going for?

Joe:
I like this, especially because I think it, in, in a lot of cases, when we use it, it signals deep caring about the person that we’re talking to. Uh, if you’re trying to uncover frustrations or feelings and you use this after you’ve drawn out the initial surface-y stuff, and you say, okay, and what else? And then you use it again and then you use it again and they give you an answer and say, okay, what else? And it’s not like… How we deliver the question matters because if it’s slow and it’s deliberate and we demonstrate with our body language that we are in no hurry and that our biggest priority in the moment is to be fully present with this person and to get it all out.

Alyssa:
Yeah.

Joe:
That becomes a really deeply caring experience, I think, for the employee. Um, I also really like this when we are challenging people to come up with options. You know, we love our coaching question: Well, what options do you see? ‘Uh, well, I guess I could try to handle it on my own.’ ‘And what else?’ Yeah. So, it, it forces you down the path of exploring some of those options and sparking some additional creativity, or self-examination in the person across from you. So, we can use it in the first way that I talked about, and it’s a signal of deep caring, but we can use it in this other way, which doesn’t let people off the hook.

Alyssa:
Yeah.

Joe:
It’s this kind of ninja-like accountability mechanism in the dialogue that we’re having with people.

Alyssa:
Yep. Yep, yep, yep. That’s my deepness. Yes!

Joe:
So are there other variations of this, Alyssa, that you might use in coaching conversations? So, we’ve given them this boss script, ‘And what else?’, which is really about uncovering and making sure that, if possible, we don’t leave something unsaid.

Alyssa:
Yeah.

Joe:
Are there other turns of phrase or questions that you like in your coaching interactions that do something similar?

Alyssa:
You know, again…I called this the ‘silence scalpel’, but truly my go-to – because I could fill all the spaces, all the spaces with all of the words – but my go-to is to just hold the silence. So, whenever you’re talking about asking that question, then holding the silence and then, ‘and what else?’ It’s a beautiful composition and combination of coaching tools. Holding eye contact, really feeling truly seen and heard. That’s what this does.

Joe:
I’m so glad you brought up the eye contact because as I alluded to a minute ago, what people see on us – on our affect — on our face, in our body language – when we have these kinds of conversations matter just as much as getting the question right.

Alyssa:
Yeah.

Joe:
You know, if we say, ‘And what else?’, and it’s rushed and it’s hurried and we’re looking around and, and, and our phone’s dinging and our email’s popping up on our screen and we’re glancing at the clock above the person, that sends every bit of information they need to know what your priority is in that moment. But if we are fully present in the moment with them, and we’re making that eye contact and we genuinely come to it with curiosity, I want to pull it all out. Then we end up having much richer discussions. The other, I don’t know if it’s a variation of this but, one of the first Boss Scripts we gave on our podcast here many episodes ago was ‘Tell me more about that.’.

Alyssa:
Hmmm.

Joe:
And I think you can use that kind of in place of this though they don’t do the same thing. Right? Tell me more about that is about drilling down on a single idea, maybe, that somebody just said. Whereas ‘and what else’ asks for the other stuff that lives around it. Right? Maybe and what else is on your list? Um, sometimes ‘And what else?’ is a little injection of courage or bravery. Right? Because maybe I’m going to tell you what’s bothering me, but I’m not going to give you the whole story.

Alyssa:
Yeah.

Joe:
And I’m just going to talk about it at the kind of surface level. But then you keep saying, ‘and what else?’ and I’m seeing that you are entirely comfortable with what I’m saying. I’m seeing that you care about pulling it out and I have to work up to it. And you’re creating a safe place for me to do that by continuing to ask ‘and what else? And what else? And what else?’ So maybe it’s going to take 10 minutes of, ‘and what else?’ for me to get to the real thing that’s buried deep that I’m going to pull out. And by asking ‘And what else?’ over and over and over again, you’re actually creating that safe environment for that conversation to happen. That would never have taken place if we hadn’t ‘And what else?’ 1, 2, 3, 5 times.

Alyssa:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Joe:
And that’s your BossScript, friends.

Joe:
All right, folks, before we wrap up today, a small request. This is your show. So, we want to hear from you. What topics, discussions, or ideas do you want to see us tackle? What burning questions do you want to toss our way? What are you struggling with as a boss at work or on your team? Email your thoughts or questions to bossbetternow@gmail.com. Your suggestions, your questions, they help shape our show, and I’m willing to bet would not only help you, but help many others facing similar challenges. We can’t wait to hear from you until next time be well and boss better.

Alyssa:
This show is sponsored by Joe Mull and Associates. Remember, commitment comes from better bosses. Visit JoeMull.com today.