When you hear the word ‘feedback’, what is your first thought?

Perhaps, ‘Oh no, I’m going to be told what I’ve done wrong or need to do better.’

Or, ‘Great, I want to know how I’m doing and what I can improve!’

Or maybe, something in between.

Talentsmoothie tip

Our generational research, over the years, has discovered something interesting. The older generations Xers and Boomers are more likely to initially feel more negative towards the mention of feedback, whilst Ys and Zs will be more positive.

We think this is the reason that Ys and Zs who have Xer and Boomer managers, sometimes feel they don’t get enough feedback. It’s not that Boomers and Xers can’t give feedback well, it’s just that they don’t value it in the same way, and so, don’t prioritise it.

So, we have another question for you.

Are you making the most of great feedback to support, encourage and motivate your people during the C-19 Pandemic?

At talentsmoothie, we help businesses create work environments that enable all generations to thrive equally. We’re experts in helping organisations create motivational work experiences for their people, especially during times of change and transformation.

We LOVE giving and receiving feedback ourselves. It’s motivating!

So, we’re delighted to share some words received recently from our wonderful client, Save the Children, about working with us: 

“Justine has worked with Save the Children over several years, and over that time has built a really rounded understanding of who we are and the culture we’re trying to build. She has a thoughtful and kind approach, providing great counsel and interesting food for thought in every conversation, and is generous with both her time and expertise. We were especially grateful to Justine for her proactive offer of support during the COVID-19 Pandemic, where talentsmoothie’s ‘Check-in Survey’ and analysis enabled us to build a really rich understanding of how colleagues were coping in some really challenging times.”

Melissa Stewart – Save the Children, Strategic Engagement Lead
Vici Fendall – Save the Children, Senior Internal Communications and Engagement Manager

We’d love to help you in a similar way. We have some special C-19 offerings, including the ‘Check-In Survey’ mentioned in the testimonial, for you to explore.

Or download our printable PDF flyer containing the details.

Talk to us. We’re ready to support you.

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What about this?

Welcome to our second What about this? podcast about the Employee Experience in 2020: The Employee Experience through Covid – what’s worked, what’s next? In this episode Justine and Cathy are joined by special guest Ashley Hever, Talent Acquisition Director at Enterprise Holdings, to discuss what has contributed to a positive employee experience over the last five months, and emerging ideas about what’s required next for a bright future.

Listen to the podcast here, enjoy!

Developed for HR, Employer Brand, Talent and Resourcing professionals, and business leaders, the What about this? podcasts are a collaboration between Justine James, Managing Director at talentsmoothie, and Cathy Hyde, Client Partner at White Label, a recruitment marketing, digital media marketing and employer brand agency. If you’ve got a question you’d like us to cover in a future episode, get in touch and let us know.

Other ways talentsmoothie can help

We don’t have all the answers, but, by contributing what we know, we hope we can help you make good decisions for your organisation and your people over the months ahead.

Our focus is on helping organisations understand what’s important to their employees and how that might have changed. We’re reviewing Employee Value Propositions to make sure they will create the culture required for success in the ‘next normal’.  We’re also supporting individuals with coaching and, in some cases, outplacement support, and we’ve reduced our prices in order to help as many people as we can. Please talk to us about how we could help you.

Or, download our printable PDF flyer containing details of some of our C-19 offerings.

justinejames@talentsmoothie.com
www.talentsmoothie.com

The post <i>What about this?</i> Podcast series, Episode 2: Covid and the Employee Experience appeared first on talentsmoothie.com.

What about this?

Welcome to our What about this? podcast series about the Employee Experience in 2020. We’re excited for this new venture and to share it with you! Our aim is to provide you with current, easily digestible and useful content that you can listen to wherever you are. We’ll be discussing relevant ideas to help you manage during these uncertain times.

Episode 1 tackles a topic on our clients’ minds as we all emerge from lockdown, Office v homeworking – what’s the optimal mix? You might also like to read our related research-based blog post, Planning the next ‘normal’, where will we work post C-19?

Listen to the podcast here, enjoy!

Developed for HR, Employer Brand, Talent and Resourcing professionals, and business leaders, the What about this? podcasts are a collaboration between Justine James, Managing Director at talentsmoothie, and Cathy Hyde, Client Partner at White Label, a recruitment marketing, digital media marketing and employer brand agency. If you’ve got a question you’d like us to cover in a future episode, get in touch and let us know.

Other ways talentsmoothie can help

We don’t have all the answers, but, by contributing what we know, we hope we can help you make good decisions for your organisation and your people over the months ahead.

Our focus is on helping organisations understand what’s important to their employees and how that might have changed. We’re reviewing Employee Value Propositions to make sure they will create the culture required for success in the ‘next normal’.  We’re also supporting individuals with coaching and, in some cases, outplacement support, and we’ve reduced our prices in order to help as many people as we can. Please talk to us about how we could help you.

Or, download our printable PDF flyer containing details of some of our C-19 offerings.

justinejames@talentsmoothie.com
www.talentsmoothie.com

The post <i>What about this?</i> Podcast series, Episode 1: Office v homeworking – the optimal mix? appeared first on talentsmoothie.com.

Home versus office working

In the UK we’ve just experienced a dramatic switch to home working – from 12% working from home before the Pandemic, to over 40% now. There are plenty of commentators telling us that everything has changed and that working from home, where it is possible, is the next ‘normal’. You might have seen this recent article in The Guardian, The office is obsolete. And that’s a good thing.

But will this really be true? Talentsmoothie research suggests otherwise.

It is, of course, unlikely that companies will return to exactly what they did before C-19. There is an opportunity to learn from the massive work-from-home experiment that so many of us have been living. Every organisation should reflect on their experience and what has been learned, both positive and negative. It’s most likely that what comes next will be some kind of hybrid with the way we worked pre-Covid.

Any organisations previously nervous to allow working from home – because of technology security concerns, productivity concerns, or just not being comfortable with the concept – have had the opportunity to see that it can have real benefits. Myths have been quashed, and leaders may be more open to it as a more frequent way of working as a result.

So, what do employees want?

First, we need to understand how working from home was for everyone and what the best solution moving forward could be. Here are some of our learnings from employees we’ve surveyed, HR Directors we’ve spoken to and our own generational research.

The case for more home working

1. Productivity: Working from home doesn’t appear to negatively impact productivity – people felt that they could be really focused and productive, and that they were trusted to get their work done. Yes, the situation right now, where people are juggling work with other caring responsibilities, is not particularly easy, but under more normal circumstances the majority of people, we spoke to, felt working from home did not hamper their ability to get the job done and, in many cases, improved it.

2. Inclusion: For some, the use of technology (audio or video) for meetings was a real positive. Where they might not have felt confident to speak up in a face-to-face meeting, an online meeting felt more inclusive and empowering and easier to contribute to. It’s actually harder to talk over people online, making it easier for introverts to take part. Building on this, observational research at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, Ontario suggests introverts do their best work without threat of interruption, and so remote working can aid their productivity as well as their wellbeing. (Extroverts on the other hand are more likely to suffer, as one of their assets is their ability to communicate with people face-to-face.)

3. Connection: Having video on and thus seeing people in their own homes has really connected people. They’ve seen another side of their colleagues, which has brought them together, and that’s been a positive. It seems to have a levelling affect. We feel we are connecting with another human being, rather that someone in a position or a role. 

4. Networks: Online working has encouraged people to reach out to more people within and outside of their organisation and to make new connections. This is totally natural for the younger generations but perhaps less so for the Xers and Boomers. It encourages and supports a shift, from the traditional hierarchical structures we see in many organisations today towards a more networked structure, which we know is a  preference of Gen Ys (born between 1980 and 1994) and Gen Zs (born 1995 onwards). Understanding your company’s natural network and how things get done will further support a change in how organisations structure themselves; it will help to inform the right balance between office space and homeworking in the future.

5. Wellbeing: From a wellbeing perspective, some employees find it easier to switch off when they work from home and they set themselves better rules; when in the office it’s easier to work late. There’s also the saved time on the commute – although there are some who find the commute a great opportunity to decompress before arriving home! Reduced travel might also contribute to the ‘wellbeing’ of the environment, of course.

These five points give some compelling reasons to reduce time in the office and continue to trust employees to work from home.

However, it seems that ‘the office’ is definitely not dead.

The case for maintaining at least some office space

There are some good reasons to maintain office space going forward, even if you decide to reduce the amount you have. Employees told us:

• How important incidental conversations with colleagues are for their sanity, either for idea generation or just to have a chat about things beyond a work focus. These are harder to replicate online.  All our research tells us that face-to-face is still the preferred method of communication for all generations, and that includes Gen Z.
• Working in the office helps with setting boundaries between work and home, which, for some, can be hard to achieve when working from home.
• The routine and discipline of going to the office can be important too for mental health.
• Others were just struggling with the space they have at home – it isn’t conducive to working productively, for them, either because they literally don’t have enough room, or they don’t have the right equipment to create a comfortable working environment. 

As well as this, our Generational research over the last twelve years has shown that the preference for where people work is a mix between home and the office, with a slight preference for more time in the office than at home.

In our recent Gen Z survey, (the results of which we are yet to publish) on the topic of preferred mix of work location, 40% of respondents said their preference would be to work 30% from home and 70% in the office. Only 4% said they would like to work 100% at home, and 14% said they’d like to be 100% in the office. 

This follows a similar pattern to that from our Gen Y research in 2008 where the most popular response (37%) was for 30% home and 70% office. Our Baby Boomer research (seven years ago) showed the same preference for 30% home 70% office work mix. It’s possible the Covid experience could have pushed this preference more towards home working but it’s clear a blended mix is important. The exact mix will differ from one individual to the next.

How to transition as smoothly as possible

Whatever the right blend turns out to be for your business, we leave you with our talentsmoothie tips to help you make a successful transition to the next work normal: 

• Don’t rush to go straight back to what you did before – look at what your business and employees need, and decide on the best combination of home/office-working. From our research, we’d suggest this should be somewhere around 30% home, 70% office, or even 50/50. Most people aren’t ready to switch to 100% home working yet.
• Keep employee motivation high during this transition period. Now is your opportunity to remove any culture of presenteeism. Embrace the technology and trust and empower people to get the job done. Being trusted at work always features highly during any employee research we conduct, and it continues to be important for the new generation entering the work place now. In our most recent survey, Gen Zs said that the most essential pre-requisite for a good manager was ‘being trusted to do the job’; they put it above things like ‘supporting my wellbeing’ and ‘being supported to develop my career’, although these were also important.   
• Continue to encourage and coach managers to manage the outcome and not the process, as this fosters the culture of trust, empowerment and accountability that we know works for so many people.
• Move from a one size fits all, to adopt a more individualistic approach where possible, showing an understanding of personal circumstance and requirements. Talent will have the opportunity to work flexibly somewhere – if you don’t offer it, other organisations will.
• Get the mix right, so that you can maximise face-to-face premium time (particularly important for extroverts) as well as give the opportunity to work from home (great for introverts) where there are less distractions. But, make sure working from home does not mean back-to-back Zoom calls – to offer space that allows teams to be as productive as possible is the way forward.   
• Consider using technology to understand your natural networks i.e. who is networking with whom to get things done. This information will help inform how the organisation should be structured, to optimise ways of working that will deliver business success and create the best Employee Experience.

How talentsmoothie can help

We’d like to share our knowledge and expertise during this period. Please check back for our blog posts and for our new podcast series What about this? going live mid June.  ( UPDATE 17th June 2020, our first podcast is now available, do take a look: What about this? Podcast series, Episode 1: Office v homeworking – the optimal mix? )

We don’t have all the answers, but, by contributing what we know, we hope we can help you make good decisions for your organisation and your people over the months ahead. Our focus is on helping organisations understand what’s important to their employees and how that might have changed. We’re reviewing Employee Value Propositions to make sure they will create the culture required for success in the ‘next normal’.  We’re also supporting individuals with coaching and, in some cases, outplacement support, and we’ve reduced our prices in order to help as many people as we can. Please talk to us about how we could help you.

Or, download our printable PDF flyer containing details of some of our C-19 offerings.

justinejames@talentsmoothie.com
www.talentsmoothie.com

The post Planning the next ‘normal’, where will we work post C-19? appeared first on talentsmoothie.com.

How are you?

A simple question, but one that today conjures more complex answers than ever. The current situation is impacting us all in such different and unexpected ways. As well as the distress caused by the disease itself, there are so many unplanned consequences that we will be exploring and trying to fully understand for months, and possibly years, to come.

There’s never been a more important time to do the right thing for your employees, but it’s also most certainly never been harder. How you act now will set the tone for your relationship with your people in the longer term.

The impact of the C-19 virus is complex. There are intrinsic and extrinsic consequences. We have identified a number of ways we can support you to help your employees across your business, at organisational, team and individual levels.

‘Check-in’ Survey
(offered in exchange for a charitable donation to Mind)

We have designed a ‘plug and play’ survey to help you understand:

• How your employees are coping in their new work paradigm, whether they continue to work or are furloughed
• How to support your employees as you come out of lockdown

The survey questions focus on intrinsic and extrinsic needs. They will help you clarify how your employees are coping, what is going well for them, and what support they would welcome – both now and as you transition out of lockdown. There are two survey options: one focuses on employees who continue to work, but mainly from home, and the other on those that have been furloughed.

How it works

We will provide a survey link for you to send to your employees from our survey platform. The survey can be sent to a particular team, business unit or all employees, it’s up to you. We will analyse the responses and provide you with a short report including our observations and recommendations.

If you prefer to use your own survey platform, we will provide you with the survey questions. We can still analyse the responses if you share the results with us.

We are motivated to support as many people as we can through this challenging time, which is why we are waiving our fees for this service, in lieu of a donation to the charity Mind. Mind provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. They are currently facing increased demand for their help and we’d like to contribute to their financial resources. We know budgets are tight, so we are asking you only for the contribution that you can manage, however big or small.

Survey recommendations webinar

There is the option for a follow-up Q&A with senior teams to discuss the survey results and our recommendations about how to continue to manage remote teams or transition out of lockdown – nominal fee of £75 per hour.

Coaching support

We have a cadre of excellent coaches at talentsmoothie. They are here to help you offer confidential coaching to your people now, at a time when they may need that additional layer of support. We are temporarily offering our coaches for a much-reduced fee; their services can be purchased by the hour as you need them.

Individual coaching

‘It’s good to talk’ – some employees, whether still working or currently furloughed, could be struggling. Some might welcome a confidential conversation with someone who is trained to listen without judgment. Our coaches can help them think through new possibilities, solve difficult issues and face the future with less fear. As always, the coaching content will be based on goals agreed with each individual. In our experience, topics may vary but are likely to include areas such as managing change, uncertainty, resilience, managing difficult people and/or situations, and health and wellbeing.

Coaching support for teams

Our coaches can support any of your teams that are struggling to manage the changing way they need to work together. We can help them support each other and maintain their focus on what they need to achieve.

We usually sell our coaching services in packages – but we want to help as many people as we can. We are temporarily offering our qualified coaches for £75 per hour of coaching, with no minimum purchase required.

Our coaches can support any of your teams that might be struggling to manage the changing way they need to work together to continue to support each other and maintain focus on what they need to achieve.

We hope we can help you, and in doing so also help the great charity Mind.

We’re ready, just contact us and we can get started together.

Or download our printable PDF flyer containing details of these offerings.

justinejames@talentsmoothie.com
www.talentsmoothie.com

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Organisations are increasingly adopting or enforcing ‘flexible working’ strategies in the hope of reducing the spread of coronavirus. It will be vital to make the best of working remotely, so we can remain as productive and engaged as possible during this uncertain and unsettling time. 

From our work helping a wide range of organisations to deliver great employee experience across the globe, here are

6 top tips for successful virtual teams:

1. Clarify the WHAT – what are the goals, roles and responsibilities of the virtual team?  Given you are working in isolation, it’s even more important to be crystal clear on what you need to do by when, what your interdependencies are, and what you need to prioritise to ensure good progress is made.  Keep things simple and ensure everyone knows what they are expected to achieve.
2. Clarify the HOW – we often talk about leaders needing to trust and empower their workers, and manage the output, not the process, but with virtual teams there is real merit in managing and coordinating the details of the process you’ll use to complete your work, to ensure alignment across virtual workers.
3. Build a team spirit – when you are working remotely it’s very easy to feel disconnected to the day-to-day hustle and bustle of office life. To counterbalance this, build in set catch up times – ideally on a regular day and time so that everyone knows to keep the slot clear and can look forward to it. Start meetings by focusing on the team members first. It might not be possible for everyone to give a personal update if the team is large – but rotate updates so that everyone has the opportunity to share something about them unrelated to work, as well as something they are working on.
4. Develop shared responsibility – for achieving goals, so that everyone feels equally responsible for the success of the group. This could be role related, or via coaching and sharing knowledge within the team. 
5. Choose reliable technology – that everyone has access to, otherwise you risk alienating members of the team. Reliability of the technology is essential too, so that it’s easy for people to connect without wasting lots of time. It might be that you also need ‘shared drives’ to mitigate against data breaches and to help with file management. Be clear about what you need to manage your virtual teams and choose a system with a proven track record. There are many options!
6. Keep on track – with virtual teams you can’t see how engaged they are feeling or how productive a day they’ve had. Checking in on scheduled catch-up calls, as well as occasional one-to-ones, is essential to gauge how things are going. It’s also a good idea to have some form of milestone tracking. This can be done through simple status updates each week along with a commitment to what will be achieved in the following week, or more visually through a project dashboard. Whatever you decide on, you don’t want it to be too onerous a task for people to keep on top of, or anything that demoralises team members when the main objective is to keep momentum and focus.

How might the loss of face-to-face, person-to-person working affect your employees?

Under any other circumstances we’d also include a seventh point, to build in a face-to-face element. All of our research across the generations shows that the preferred method of communication is still face-to-face. Even the newest generation to enter the workforce, our Gen Zs, have indicated in the latest talentsmoothie Generational Survey that face-to-face is their most preferred method of communication. It helps us to build connections, build relationships and develop trust. All essential for effective team work. We know that having an occasional opportunity to meet is helpful, even for virtual teams. How do you think your teams will fare with enforced virtual working?

What will be the longer term impact of enforced virtual working?

At talentsmoothie, we are always future-focused and curious, so we’re also thinking about how we’ll choose to work once things return to normal. Will we return to our previous ways, or will we retain our move to virtual teams or develop some sort of hybrid?

We’d love to hear your experiences and learnings. 

Wherever we go from here, let’s remember to make the most of the time we are able to spend together – something tells us that’s going to be more of a luxury in the future.

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