How often do Organizational Leaders, Human Resources, and direct supervisors get accused of ignoring problems, taking sides, or playing favorites? It’s common for an employee to feel that unless a person is fired, or publicly flogged, not enough has been done to remedy a problematic situation.  Complicating matters further, Human Resources (and other authority figures in the workplace) are bound by confidentiality and often cannot reveal how they are handling an issue.

Allowing this conundrum to remain brings some employees to believe that sharing information with management does nothing to help, yet leaves them exposed. Naturally, they will stop telling you about their concerns even when they continue to be impacted by them. Morale will drop, workplace relations suffer, and unplanned turnover will increase.  In some cases, an employee will feel violated and, if they happen to be of a protected class, may file a grievance or a lawsuit claiming discrimination or a hostile work environment.

What can you do? While the law may leave you feeling your hands are tied, here are five things you can, and should, do when hearing a complaint.

1. Guide them to resolve it themselves.Many complaints leaders, HR, and managers hear arise due to workplace relational issues. In other words, the problem is not about the work, but about how two (or more) people are working together. Attempting to resolve these issues for others can quickly appear as side-taking and favoritism. Instead, learn about the issue (see step 1), then guide the person with strategies to handle it themself.  Your way of supporting them is to provide mentoring, engage in role-play or practice activities, and, when the comfort level is too compromised, offer to be present when the concerned party approaches the source of their complaint. You can find detailed guidance on this in the book Find Fix Fill Your Leadership Gap (see Chapter 11).
2. Listen to both sides. If the concerns cannot be addressed by guiding one party, you must make the time to hear both sides. Treat it less like an investigation, and more like a general concern about the current situation between the individuals. Beyond the balance this demonstrates, what you learn from hearing the other person’s perspective may be essential to getting issues resolved.
3. Take notes.Not copious notes, just enough to show you’re truly listening, concerned, and trying to keep track of the situation.  Remember if it matters to them, they need to know it matters to you too. It’s often good to be upfront with this, stating that you will take notes because the concerns they’re sharing matter.
4. Keep them informed of next steps. This step is more directed at the person who made a complaint, but often can include both sides. Communicate what you’re going to do (generally), and why. Perhaps it’s not appropriate to act on a first-time concern, but share that you are taking notes and plan to keep an eye on the situation. Should the issue require further intervention, you can simply offer that you will be taking action but, due to confidentiality, you cannot disclose any other details.In either situation, be honest about your decision-making.
5. Tell them to keep you informed.This may be the most important step as it assures the concerned party (and perhaps both sides) that you do want to help and are not ignoring their concerns.  Urge them to come to you if the situation continues or worsens.  Remind them that you cannot be of help if you are not aware of the problem. Bonus step – Go to your employee(s) to check in, if they have not come to you.

By responding to complaints in this manner, you will better control morale, turnover, and issues of conflict in the workplace.

Google the words “company culture” and you’ll find nearly ¾ billion results.  Yet ask business leaders to define their company’s culture or to discuss ways their culture was created or changed, and the results are minimal.  Company culture it seems, is a bit of an enigma. 

On the surface, it’s often characterized as a product of the company’s values, beliefs, and behaviors.  But when the stated values, beliefs, and behaviors take a detour from the reality of daily business activities, the culture isn’t living up to the mission of the organization.  And most certainly the employees know it, further destabilizing the potential of that purported culture to ever take hold.  As an added concern, the opportunity for the company culture to positively impact clients, customers, and consumers is lost as well.

So where does the declared culture separate from reality?  The divide occurs through daily interactions, and decisions, through policies and practices.  Look to the following to determine where your culture is truly defined:

1. Rewards.  Who and what is promoted in your company?  Are the hardest and most competent workers rewarded in kind?  Do employee attitude or workplace relations factor into opportunities and pay raises?  How are requests for paid time off granted?  Also looks at areas of nepotism, loyalty (regardless of competency), and highest sales performance (regardless of attitude).  How each of these is rewarded will also impact your company culture.
2. Punishment.  Who is terminated and why?  Does poor behavior, insubordination, dishonesty, or other problem behavior get addressed – and punished – in a swift and decisive manner?  Are problem people allowed to move about seemingly untouched?  How many opportunities is staff given to change/improve before consequences set in?
3. Communication.  How open are the channels of communication?  Do staff have a voice in discussing things that impact them – like a new computer program or a recent update to how work-load is to be calculated?  Or are they blind-sided or surprised by things that are occurring or changes that are implemented?  Can staff adequately rely on the chain of command for getting information to or from where it needs to be?  Is communication one-way (ie: top-down) or reciprocal?
4. Teamwork.  How do people work together?  Are teams thoughtfully created with competent leaders put in charge?  Is blame or finger-pointing a problem?  Are accountability and personal responsibility being reinforced?  Are collaboration and operational reciprocity a reality or are people or divisions siloed and disconnected?
5. Conflict Management.  How are tensions or conflicts managed?  Are people encouraged to seek help or left to deal with issues themselves?  Are people in leadership roles trained in basic conflict management?  When help is offered, is it legitimate and multi-tiered or superficial and temporary?  Do managers and leaders receive training in employee relations or conflict management?

The above questions offer just the start for examining the factors which determine your company’s true culture.  We hope they pose a healthy challenge to all companies looking to create or improve their own company culture.

What is your company’s culture? I’m not asking what you want it to be, or what you tell your customers or clients.  I mean what are the day-to-day behaviors that are encouraged, rewarded, and repeated by members of your team? Some thoughts to consider:

Is success celebrated for those showing camaraderie or cut-throat attitudes?  Do your foster teamwork or territorial behaviors? Are leaders engaged with their teams sufficiently to know what is happening among the group and how it’s affecting the team’s spirit or ethos? An organization’s culture is not about what you say, but what you do.

Attitudinal behaviors are only part of the focus. Organizational actions speak volumes as well. Consider some hot-button issues of the past two years:

Reactive measures of remote work made sense during the crisis of COVID. But do those reasons still hold true today? Are teams better or worse off? Is performance higher or lower? Has the change truly enhanced retention or has it merely made it harder to create collaboration and instill loyalty?

Attending to issues like DEI+B and racial and gender disparity concerns are often vitally important to members of your employee base, but are you embracing an effort toward change, getting educated, and building a structure that supports lasting change, or are your efforts more symbolic and offering nothing beyond lip-service to these concerns?

As we start the New Year, this may be the perfect time to begin looking at making change, building upon what works, eliminating what doesn’t, and creating the culture your organization needs to succeed.  This isn’t about making a statement or creating a Phantom Culture.  This is about making deep, meaningful change.  Identifying and developing the culture that you want requires vision, planning, and commitment.

Vision – Identify what you want the culture to be.  You may not be able to define every specific change, but you know that behaviors, attitudes, or teamwork will be different.  Have a vision, for how work will flow, people will function, and how business will be conducted.  As you determine your ideal, you can begin identifying what does, and does not, currently support that ideal.  As you solidify your vision, recognize who makes up your dream team – those who share your dedication to creating that ideal.  These people are needed to move any vision forward.

Planning – The vision is your end-game.  Planning is where you begin the work to get there.  Assemble your dream team and support them with time, space, and any other necessary tools to begin working toward that goal.  This team will need to work collaboratively to identify the specific qualities, in terms of behavior and performance, which will support the vision.  They will need the freedom to explore and challenge current and planned organizational initiatives.  Their role will be to more fully imagine the vision and to refine the needs that the vision identified. This is where the vision is clarified and broken down into actionable steps and time frames.

Commitment – Creating the vision and developing a plan will not change your culture unless you are committed to implementing it in every way possible.  Creating a culture and standing behind it means addressing those behavioral and performance standards during routine feedback, annual performance reviews, and everything in between.  It means holding every employee, at every level of the organization, accountable to that same standard, and it means making hard decisions when someone doesn’t “fit” your culture.

Creating a new company culture is not simple or easy, but it yields impressive results.  When you identify and support your top performers, loyalty and productivity rise.  When you eliminate those on your staff who don’t demonstrate competency, teamwork, or accountability, you remove errors and stagnation.  A new culture allows you to promote the skills your organization needs to be its best while removing the human hurdles that limit success.  The result – You create a dynamic team that can accomplish great things.  And who doesn’t want, and need, that?

Ahhh… summer.  The feel-good season of the year. We get to enjoy the benefits of longer days, opportunities to soak up Vitamin D, and often a much-needed vacation.  With relaxation being front and center, it may seem counterintuitive to consider that for many workers summer brings about more stress than other seasons. This year that is even more true.  

As COVID fears relent, most of us are looking forward to long-postponed vacations and visits with friends and family. However, those joyful expectations have been tempered by the heightened expense of travel, the possibility of new COVID-related cancellations or changes, and the very real challenge (due to our experience in working remotely) of being able to effectively remove ourselves from work during our vacation.  

Even without a vacation, summer creates challenges for those working from home. As we’ve experienced over the past two summers, parents experience a surge in stress if they have children in the home. Keeping kids occupied in the home is a challenge, but sending them to camp is a precarious option. Restrictions (and testing requirements) due to COVID concerns leave parents in perpetual limbo. How do you plan for a meeting or phone call, set aside “quiet time” for a project, or plan your “focus time” when you have a summer-time level of chaos and uncertainty in your home cum workplace?  

Vacation and parenting issues, as we know, stretch beyond those directly involved. The fall-out impacts anyone who teams with them or relies on them in the course of work.  

Whether it be the intensified workload, the bottlenecks of waiting, or other stressors, the summer schedule creates a slump affecting mood and productivity as much as it does morale.  With employers already contending with a tight labor market and a growing propensity for “job shifting” connected with the Great Resignation, it is essential that company leaders act now to retain talent, build morale, and support productivity. 

Here are five tips for keeping your team calm, cool, and collected even when temperatures (and possibly tempers) are rising in the course of work. 

1. Create pods or partnership teams to allow each person to have ample coverage during vacation (or other out-of-office time). Each group will focus on where they need support, identify who will give it, and create their own best plan for ensuring clients, customers, or in-office staff are supported. Encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking and require each pod to write up their action plan and share it with a manager or HR leader. This builds accountability and allows for an outside/objective person to support the changes. 
2. Summer Hours – Consider allowing half-day Fridays or late-start Mondays to enable your team to take a little extra personal time this summer. Whether you do this weekly, monthly, or as it suits your business demands, it’s certain to be appreciated by your team.    
3. Unexpected Treats & Token of Appreciation – One of the best things about taking a vacation is that unexpected adventures and experiences await you. Recreate this for your workers. Surprise your team with lunch delivery (even to their home!), Starbucks gift cards, or other surprises they don’t expect. These small but significant efforts go a long way in staving off summertime work slumps and are great for building morale.  
4. Summer Shhhhh! Hours –Those team members who are taking vacation get to enjoy time away from ringing phones, office chatter, or email notifications. In other words, vacationing folks get to unplug. Try bringing the same to those who aren’t taking a summer vacation, by having scheduled “quiet time.”  Plan times when the phones and emails can be turned off, so that team members can experience a mini “in-office vacation.”  Encourage team members to use this time to enjoy a quiet activity such as going for a brief stroll, reading a book, listening to music, or engaging in other non-work quiet activities (puzzles, word games, etc.). 
5. Celebrate the Season with a Party – Even if your team is hybrid or remote, take advantage of the season and hold an off-site gathering. A BBQ or themed potluck can help re-establish relationships and build camaraderie. Engage your people with activities that build relationships (think party games like Two Truths and a Lie) and help to form connection beyond the world of work they share.  

These tips all have one common objective— they aim to reduce stress, boost morale, and bring enjoyment to the office (and beyond).  Remember, you don’t have to break the bank to show appreciation or to keep your team happy, relaxed, and productive.  By implementing just a few of these ideas, your team is sure to feel rewarded, and, even if they don’t get to take leave from work this summer, to feel the fun and spontaneity of a vacation of their own.