Negotiating Today’s Workplace
INSEAD Knowledge
Impactful research and thought leadership from INSEAD, The Business School for the World
This month, we explore strategies for navigating the day-to-day challenges of the workplace, be it devising the optimal flexible-working arrangement for your organisation, fostering psychological safety within your team or giving culturally sensitive feedback to your employees.
We also provide insights to help teams be more effective and intentional when planning meetings, alongside advice on how companies can streamline the hiring process. Finally, we examine the link between stress and organisational performance.
Happy reading!
Although conflicting perspectives on remote work are nothing new, tensions seem to be escalating. Why are we having such difficulty agreeing on how to approach this issue, and how can employers and employees arrive at a solution that works for both sides?
INSEAD’s Mark Mortensen outlines how using the 5 W’s framework can help ensure a more holistic perspective and provide the necessary tools to foster dialogue that is balanced, respectful and ongoing.
Many workers are overwhelmed by the number of meetings they have to attend. While people develop various coping mechanisms, such as blocking time off for quiet work, we need to move towards a more collective perspective when it comes to coordinating team work.
In new research, INSEAD’s Guillaume Roels and UCLA’s Charles J. Corbett use stylised game theory to come up with insights that can help teams be more effective and intentional when planning their meetings.
As organisations strive to adapt to the challenges of today’s business landscape, research from INSEAD faculty Mark Mortensen, Maria Guadalupe, Nathan Furr and Henrik Bresman highlights approaches to cultivate and enhance psychological safety within teams.
Their findings offer valuable insights into creating an environment where employees feel empowered to share their opinions; adapting one-to-one meetings to emphasise individual needs or tasks; finding a balance between psychological safety and intellectual honesty; and promoting the appreciation of different perspectives within diverse teams.
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LinkedIn is filled with stories of candidates being put through countless job interviews for a single role. Beyond causing psychological stress for candidates, a prolonged job interview process also has practical implications for firms.
INSEAD’s Chengyi Lin elaborates on what companies may be doing wrong and offers suggestions to make the process more efficient and effective. This can ensure that the time spent interviewing is purposeful and empower an organisation to hire the right individuals.
While valuable for improvement, feedback does come with its challenges in the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) era. Diverse workplaces require tailored feedback approaches across cultures, says INSEAD’s Erin Meyer.
As an example, direct feedback can be perceived as hostile in some cultures where indirect approaches are more accepted. For people to receive criticism well, they must first feel safe with the person providing it. Listening to cultural speech norms is therefore essential.
We all know that excessive stress is bad for individual performance and health, but in a new study, INSEAD’s Felix Jan Nitsch and Luk Van Wassenhove uncover the complex connection between stress and organisational performance.
By linking individuals’ stress response to the quality of their work decisions, the authors used modelling to arrive at concrete steps organisations can take to determine optimal stress levels for individual employees, and in turn, improve workplace performance.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our selection this month. For more, listen to our latest podcast with INSEAD’s Chiara Spina on how to nurture thriving start-up ecosystems.
Have a knowledgeable week ahead!
Best wishes,
The INSEAD Knowledge team