Five Hard People Questions

Sonya Zilka, Chief People Officer, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network and Jonathan Becker, Principal, This Team Works

While COVID continues, a lot is returning to pre-pandemic conditions. At work, COVID exposed issues that were lurking in plain sight. While the pandemic recedes, it doesn’t mean the issues COVID laid bare are gone. We offer five tough but essential questions that organizations should answer as a SET.

Question 1: How inspiring and trusted really are our leaders?

COVID weakened the bonds between organizational leaders and their people. The lack of in-person connection was certainly a factor, as was the way COVID prompted people to re-assess relationships of all kinds in their personal and professional lives … and generally question how they were living their lives.

Question 2: How can we satisfy our needs AND our people’s preferences about where and when they work?

Some high-profile leaders of large organizations, and some leaders less in the public eye, have had an insistent and indignant tone in their efforts to get people back to work. Even past proponents of a results-only work environment (ROWE) are basically saying: forget what we said, just come back to the office. Fully remote work is not the answer for most organizations, but the experience of work flexibility has changed things.

Question 3: What kinds of physical spaces really work for our people?

Terms like serendipity and innovation are used to justify changes in physical work environments that just haven’t worked for some or many people. And people are aware that lowering real estate expenses has been a driver of change, especially lately. Getting people back to work in spaces they don’t like is a tall order.

Question 4: How strong is our organization’s center of gravity?

Zoom creates a disembodied work experience. Lumpy, inconsistent back-to-work movements have made things only a little better. The core – mission, vision, values, culture – remains weak in many organizations. Many people experience going from Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting without feeling part of something and in it together with other people.

Question 5: How can we manage performance in ways that actually strengthen our organizational health and success?

In many of these discussions, the missing north star is this: what is the real value contribution we need from people, and how can we measure it? Traditional performance management systems were already under fire before COVID, and their weaknesses are more apparent than ever.

Conclusion

The evolving state of the economy has shifted the power dynamic and created a marginally higher tolerance among workers for sub-par work experiences. While it might be helping retention, it’s doing nothing for engagement and contribution. A cooler economy has just raised fear and the quest for security … not great drivers for exceptional performance.

These five questions aren’t new, but during COVID the waterline dropped. It’s more necessary than ever to have the clarity, courage, wisdom, and empathy to address the things that really haven’t been working for a long time. And to answer them together. Every organization still has the chance to make something positive of the disruption COVID created.