Embracing the Messy in the Workplace

Life is messy.

People's lives are messy.

People make up businesses.

So business should be messy?

An apparently messy business probably wouldn't do so well. Regularly openly sharing about the struggles your team faces might not be considered the best marketing plan out there. It could lead to an easy target from competitors to call out your weaknesses, lack of leadership, and organizational faults, and give them great content to show how they can do it better.

However, what would lead to more trust? A company that appears to never have any internal issues ever or a company that is willing to share what is actually happening and how they are working through it?

There's no need to share every single story that makes its way to HR (not to mention all the rules that would be broken by doing so). But when you realize there is a common theme running through the office and you know something must be done in order to break the cycle, create a new habit, and tackle workplace disgruntlement; you have an opportunity to practice vulnerability and build respect and trust and even esteem among your employees and your competitors.

We can't deny that the workplace is changing. More emphasis is being placed on the work culture and there is not only an increased interest in employee care but it is becoming a non-negotiable as people are looking for new roles across the world in every industry. How can a company show they care about their employees if you're not actually willing to talk about the kind of support that is needed across the office? It's one thing to say "we offer X number of mental health days" it's quite another when that employee shows up and says "I've been able to take some time off work for my mental health and it's been the kind of support I needed from my team."

When your employees voluntarily start sharing about the difference they can tangibly feel at work, then you can say with confidence (and evidence) that your company values employee engagement.

Embrace the mess everyone is bringing to the table whether conciously or unconciously. Be willing to openly discuss what's working and what's not working. Demonstrate that work is a safe place to admit that everything actually isn't ok by responding with compassion. This doesn't equate to lowering the expectation of performance and responibility. Instead it's acknlowedeing that some days are more difficult than others and that's when we extend grace and give that break needed so that our team can come back better than before.

Start the movement that gets your employees speaking about what it's really like to work for you. And if you're afraid of what they might say, then it might be the time to reflect and make some changes.