Written by: Heidi Dulebohn, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Leaders, if you want your past successes to follow you into the new normal, be honest and examine if your leadership style may need a refresh.
There's nothing like a global pandemic, a pivot to remote work, and a great resignation to get your attention. But, you're a good leader; you've got this.
You understand that you can be objective, meet your goals, and still lead with kindness. To succeed, you need to nurture your team—it’s not only the right thing to do, but it's also good for business—your employees' experience matters.
A study conducted at MIT found that your employee experience is critical to your organization's success. The study revealed that organizations that make it easier to get work done and have a culture of collaboration, creativity, and empowerment falls out on the bottom line, with twice the innovation, double the customer satisfaction, and are 25% more profitable.
Step 1: Interest: Take an Interest in Your Team
Creating a nurturing culture starts with taking an interest in your employees. Kind leaders nurture and authentically care about their teams. They make an effort to take a genuine interest in their employees. It naturally feels good when someone takes an interest in you to help you develop and advance your career. People who feel good are happier, and research shows that happy people are more productive.
The pandemic afforded many workers time to reflect and re-evaluate their lives, and many now choose purpose, flexibility, and lifestyle, even over money in some cases. If you want to keep the top talent you worked so hard to recruit, take an interest in them, and learn, without being intrusive, how it's going for them.
Schedule a 15-minute coffee, in-person or virtually, and ask your team member, "How are you doing?" Mind professional borders, but show sincere interest. Then, sit back, be present, and listen—you're going to learn something valuable.
Consider if you can be a little more flexible in your employee's schedule, remote work situation, or project due dates. In other words, leaders, what can you do to meet your employee's needs and still meet your metrics and goals?
Step 2: Invest: Invest to Train Your Team
You invest in various areas of your business; make sure you invest in your team, too. Determine what kind of quality training and advanced education can help develop your employees. In other words, leverage your team member's strengths and make training an ongoing part of your culture.
An investment in your team is a smart move. The latest 2021 Annual Global State of Frontline Work Experience study by Axonify found that frontline workers from across industries are suffering from burnout.
Half of the frontline workers surveyed plan to leave their current job, and 58% say burnout is the reason. Training to develop individual skills can help prevent burnout.
Employees want to work for organizations that value and respect them, offer a psychologically safe workplace, are flexible, provide fair compensation, and have access to career advancement training. Yet, only half of those surveyed say they have had access to development training. One-third said training only comes with transfers or promotions.
If you train, you'll retain. If people feel like a valued member of the organization, they are more likely to stay, and they can even help recruit other top talents, and everybody knows it's costly to recruit.
Training is good for business. Training can cut costs by increased efficiency. The Association for Talent Development (ATD) has long maintained that an organization with a culture of training does better financially.
ATD’s 2021 whitepaper, "Developing a Culture of Learning," found that organizations whose senior executives advocate for a culture of learning are significantly more likely to be high performers. Organizations that don't push training cite time as the most significant barrier.
Take the time. Make quality development training part of your culture, offered at all levels of the organization, individually, in an ongoing effort to avoid burnout, attract and keep top talent, and increase your bottom line.
The next normal is fluid. Your team needs to keep up – they're only as good as the skills they have today. Give your team members the tools to be agile, continually learning, and successful.
Step 3: Impact: Impact Your Team's Wellbeing
During the pandemic, our wellbeing suffered in many cases, as we worked hours when we could. We juggled homeschooling, family responsibilities, and tried to avoid a devastating virus. Our wellbeing was never more critical or elusive.
We pivoted on a dime to a virtual world and brought our whole selves to work because we had to. Today, the best leaders realize that they are now concerned with the wellbeing of the whole self employee.
We've known since the early 2000s that employee's wellbeing is integral to the success of an organization through research done by Gallup, and today's next normal workplace demands it.
Conclusion
Leaders used to only be concerned with the 9 to 5 part of their employee's lives—knowing much more than that could have appeared intrusive or inappropriate. But, during the pandemic, the curtain was certainly pulled back, and we all got to see the Wizard, the family pets, and make-shift home offices, and we took notice.
The best leaders are kind leaders who have learned to nurture their teams.
Nurturing leaders take a genuine interest in their team members, and they invest in their individual career development through continuous quality training and education. Kind leaders advocate for employees' physical and mental health, offer fair wages, and engage their organizations to improve the wellbeing of their communities.
Kind leaders nurture and reap the benefits of increased productivity, innovation, creativity, profitability, and a happy workforce.
Heidi Dulebohn, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
After traveling the world, breaking barriers and securing several "firsts" as an executive in the grain trading industry, Heidi turned her passion for etiquette into a series of helpful workshops, columns and crowd-pleasing speaking engagements. Fascinated by the cultural history behind traditional etiquette rules, Heidi has devoted her career to empowering leaders with a modern-day version of those same wonderful rules. A highly certified expert on modern etiquette for the digital age, she is dedicated to sharing all she knows to help others live their best personal and professional lives. Her mantra: Be kind. It's free.
