Four ideas to help us change our world at work

It feels so good to dive into 2023 with you. I had a wonderful time with my family over my break. I got to connect with myself, I had plenty of time to rest and recharge, and I’m feeling so ready and so inspired for this year ahead.

As I look at all that we have ahead of us, I’m thinking a lot about this very interesting time we’re sitting in. We’ve been through the Great Resignation. We’re dealing with quiet quitting, career cushioning, social and political unrest and change, economic challenges, a looming recession, generational gaps in the workplace, trouble with attracting and retaining talent, and staffing shortages. It’s a lot. And while I do feel a bit overwhelmed by it all, I’m also excited about the opportunity we have to do things differently.

Right now, we have an amazing chance to change our world at work for the better. We have the opportunity to come together and make this year better than any year that has come before it.?

As we look to the future, I think there are four main things we can focus on to greatly improve our working lives, both on an individual and an organizational level. Here they are:

1. Growth

I believe that we all deserve to know how we can grow within an organization, and that we should have that information up front. As we help the organization grow, how will we grow along with it? It’s up to our leaders and our organizations to provide that kind of transparency and clarity.?

On the flip side, we need to be transparent and clear about how we want to grow as individuals. Not everyone wants to grow in the same way: What growth means for me isn’t what growth means for you. Not everyone wants to move up the ladder and one day become CEO. Some people are perfectly happy right where they are, and they don’t feel a need to strive for more responsibility or more prestige. In her book Radical Candor, Kim Scott describes the difference between these two attitudes as superstars vs. rockstars. One isn’t better than the other; they are both crucial to thriving organizations. Rockstars have deep knowledge, talent, and expertise, and they are very happy within their roles. They like their work, they’re good at it, and they don’t dream of shooting up the corporate ladder. They are specialists and find joy in the mastery found through repetition. Superstars, on the other hand, are motivated by an upward growth trajectory. These are the people who are excited about taking on additional responsibility and who are motivated to race up the corporate ladder. We need both kinds of people in our organizations. But the thing is that if we don’t know what kind of growth trajectory suits us best, we might just follow the growth plan that has been laid out for us, even if it’s not what we really want.

Growth has to be an ongoing conversation. And if somebody can’t grow into what they want within one organization, that’s a conversation in itself. Leaders have to be transparent and honest about that. It might mean that a person chooses to move on, but I still consider that a success: They spoke up for what they wanted for themselves, and their leader helped them get to that point.

2. Freedom

When the world shut down at the beginning of the pandemic, we were forced to figure out what it would look like to work remotely. And what we found was that remote work isn’t necessarily better than in-person, but it offers something most jobs hadn’t before: freedom. For a lot of people, working remotely meant that for the first time, they had the freedom to choose where, when, and how they wanted to work. They were free to take breaks when they needed them and spend more time with loved ones. They were free to wear what they wanted and be who they wanted to be. I don’t believe it was working remotely that was the appealing part, though. I think it was feeling like work could work with life instead of taking away from it.

To sustain that feeling, we don’t need to be all remote all the time. What we need is freedom, and with it, trust. We need the freedom to do our work in the way that we want to and the way that works best for us. And we need to feel like we are trusted to do that. We need to ask ourselves how we can create more freedom in our schedules, in our roles, and in our ability to choose how we work best. And our leaders and organizations need to trust that we will still perform to the best of our ability.

We also need to have the freedom to take time off so that we can enjoy other parts of life. We don’t want to look back and regret that we didn’t have the freedom to do other things. But even if your organization implements an unlimited PTO policy, that doesn’t mean everyone is going to take it. We have to hold each other accountable to taking time for ourselves, and our leaders need to model that. When leaders take advantage of things like unlimited PTO or flexible working hours, others will follow suit.

One of my favorite things that I did with our team was call a meeting, and then surprise everyone by saying that we weren’t actually going to have a meeting. Instead, I wanted them to protect that time on their calendars so that they could spend the time doing whatever they wanted to do—as long as it was for them.?

So my question here is this: How are we creating environments where work and life are in harmony? How can we give people more trust in order to do that?

3. Feeling Valued?

I think we need to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach and learn how to value people in the way that means the most to them.

From the C-Suite to the hourly workers, we all deserve to feel valued at work. Being valued isn’t just about money—though a fair, living wage is an important part of it. Being valued is also about being seen and heard. It means we have to actually get to know people and ask them about their life experiences. We have to understand what matters to them and what makes them feel the most appreciated.

A small way to start showing people that you value them is to check in with them. Ask how they’re doing at work and outside of it on a scale of 1-10. Ask them to explain their score and tell you more about their answers. Another idea is to invite someone to have a coffee chat and ask them to tell you about their life experience. There is so much we can learn about people, but we often get so busy and fail to create the space to be curious. The deeper we know and understand the people we work alongside, the more we can help them feel valued and significant. Not to mention the better we will be able to collaborate and work together.

When it comes to appreciation, what matters to me might not be what matters to you. We can have the best intentions in the world, but it doesn’t mean that it will match the impact that we will have on someone when attempting to show our appreciation. One way that you can show someone you value them is by understanding their appreciation language.

At the same time, it’s also really helpful and important for you to know what matters to you. In order for others to help us feel valued, we need to know how we want to be appreciated and we have to be able to articulate that. People can’t read our minds. And in order to be seen, we have to be willing to share and be vulnerable. It only works with both sides of the equation.

4. Passion

When I was younger, I was really sold on this idea of finding my “passion.” That one day, I would find the perfect role in the perfect company, and I would feel like I was living my dream every day. But then I ended up building my career in a cleaning company, and it challenged everything I thought to be true about passions and dream jobs.

I now know that the better goal to aim for is a role that allows us to spend 80% of our time doing work that we’re good at and that energizes us. I don’t think it’s human or realistic to find work that keeps us working in our passions 100% of every second of every day, and if that is the bar that we are aiming for, that poses a challenge.

There are lots of things about our work that we will simply never be passionate or excited about, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t find meaning there. Just look at my journey with cleaning, for example: I wasn’t passionate about cleaning, and yet I was still able to find a lot of meaning in it. When we stay in the search for a dream job, I think we overlook opportunities to grow. It might even make us feel more detached because we’re expecting to feel passionate about everything we do when that’s just not the reality. It might even be the reason for turnover, because we are expecting to find our dream job out there instead of cultivating a chance to make a difference right where we are.

Instead, what if we looked at every opportunity as a chance to learn more about what we like and what we don’t? What if the goal was to spend 80% of our time doing work that is aligned to our natural strengths and is motivating to us? What if organizations stopped pitching roles as “dream jobs”and instead pitched them as opportunities to learn what is meant for you and what isn’t? What if we looked for the chances to find meaning and make a difference?

And there we go, friends! These are the things I’m most excited to continue exploring and talking about in 2023. I think that this is our year to use what we’ve learned over the last couple years and start to make real progress toward building a better working world together.?

We’ve got this! Let’s do this! What is one tiny step you can take today?

Big hugs,

Kristen