LinkedIn Poll Finds Today’s #1 People Issue

By Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick

With COVID-19 changing the way we work and interact on the job, we asked 713 working adults in September 2020 to identify the #1 people issue their organization is currently facing.

Almost half (47%) said worker “anxiety” is their company’s biggest issue, specifically “Addressing increased employee stress and worries.” This should be no surprise given the turmoil caused by the pandemic, economic concerns, civil unrest, and other challenges facing team members in their work and persona lives. Yet in a separate 2019 survey of 1,000 employed adults with anxiety, 90 percent believed it would be a bad idea to confide their anxious feelings to their bosses. Sad.

The second-most frequently cited top-people issue in the survey (at 28%) was “motivation,” defined as “Keeping team members motivated and productive.” The third-most cited response was “Culture,” specifically “Maintaining organizational culture in a remote environment,” which received 22% of the votes. “Other” received 4% of the votes.

What all these results show is that managers can no longer afford to ignore the soft side of business. Being attuned to mental well-being, motivating staff, and building a robust culture are now the skills that keep people moving forward toward goals that are important. This means managers must drill down below the “fine” to find out how people are truly doing and what they can do to help day-to-day.

We’ve found the organizations that are doing the best with people issues in these troubled times are providing training to help their managers learn how engage workers despite the distractions and uncertainty. Let’s face it, after six months of lock-down and remote work, most of us are feeling burned out and many people are losing their focus. Understanding team members unique motivators is more important than ever; and helping craft assignments that will be specifically motivating to them can produce tremendous results.

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 The LinkedIn Poll was conducted by Chester Elton from September 7-14, 2020, and 713 working adults voted. Respondents replied to the question, “With COVID-19 changing the way we work and interact on the job, what is the #1 people-issue your organization is currently facing?” For their New York Times bestselling books, Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton have surveyed more than 1 million employees over the past two decades.