Is boosting morale a myth?
"The only way around is through."
– Robert Frost
The Question
Is boosting morale a myth?
Meta, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, to Salesforce, Spotify, and PayPal, are among the many other organizations to have announced mass layoffs.
Those at the hand of layoffs have even taken to documenting their journey online. Posting TikToks and reels of whether they've survived another day on the chopping block. Or are in the midst of dealing with the transition of layoffs.
This backdrop can leave teams void of morale and experiencing anxiety, survivor guilt, on top of regular stressors.
Can you do anything about it???
The Research
In 2022, 159,684 employees were laid off in the tech industry alone. In the first month of 2023, we're already just short of 50% of the layoffs in 2022. (Layoff.fyi)
Teams are juggling the weight of layoffs, the economic landscape, and (hybrid) work itself on a day-to-day basis. Not to mention the rich lives everyone leads outside of work.
Leaders must acknowledge and adjust to the current challenges and how it impacts their teams' "low morale". Or else it can become superficial corporate speak for the graver emotional toll.
Some Advice
It's vital to check in with your team, acknowledge the elephant in the room and be transparent about any information that can relieve tension.
This is our opportunity to create psychological safety for your team. In tough times, it's an essential pillar to open dialogue about these challenges.
In the Unicorn Leaders Podcast, guest Craig Handy shared his experience with psychological safety. And how it propelled him in his career from Shopify to Director of Revenue Operations at York IE.??
Your Hack
This week's hack is to?organize a team reset.
Resets can take on many forms depending on your current capacity. Resets may look like an open-door policy with dedicated office hours, a monthly team check-in, or an informal get-together).
I recommend a small team retreat to take it to the next level and perform the reset in a new environment.
With a team retreat, you can focus on reconnecting with the team and emphasize belonging. You can do some easy and fun activities like exploring the outdoors or playing a relaxing game).
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But note, these activities will be in vain if you don't encourage the hard conversations. The conversations about the heaviness and impact of what's been happening.
It's an opportunity not only to lean into psychological safety but more importantly to preserve it. Layoffs can erode trust much quicker than it takes to recover it.
If not, current events can impact an individual's perceptions of job security. Especially as they watch high-performers get laid off and as a result lose touch with the team and work. It plays out as a self-fulfilling prophecy. They disengage out of anxiety or attempt to outperform to "earn their place" until they burn out. Or they burn out when left to pick up the pieces at the capacity of a smaller team.
In this blog, I break down how you can organize a successful retreat in 10 steps.
Parting Thoughts
Whether your organization anticipates layoffs or not, a reset opens a candid dialogue. Take it a step further with a retreat and allow your team to physically and mentally step away from the work environment and reconnect to each other.
At worst, it relieves some stress temporarily. While at best, it kickstarts collaboration on meaningful solutions to help wither the storm. All whilst protecting and keeping your team resilient for the long term.
So if you can hold and foster the space for connection, empathy and support. Why not do it?
Getting in touch with your team means practicing your emotional intelligence skills. We have more tips on how to keep you in the flow.??
Unicorn Leaders?— The Podcast
Have you heard the newest episodes!?
Our most recent podcast guests are Shawna Stewart and Florent Schmahl.
???Shawna Stewart (VP of People and Operations at Railz Financial)?shares her personal people-first approach and how that has helped her ability to deliver and collaboratively support her employees and together elevate organizations
???Florent Schmahl?(Chief of Staff at Growcer)?shares his journey and learnings as he shifted his work from overly focusing on developing hard skills to now pursuing purposeful work.
Take a listen & subscribe. ??
THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Sincerely,
The Unicorn Labs Team