Navigating Organizational Uncertainty

The welcome (5 mins)

To begin, allow five minutes for people to show up, get acclimated and settled in. During this time, the leads will welcome participants as they arrive. You may consider having some music playing as they enter the room. If virtual, you could pose a question in the chatbox such as "where are you joining from today?"

The connection (10 minutes)

Questions to consider asking to get them primed for this discussion:

• what variables do you see creating ambiguity in today's world? or creating ambiguity especially at your organization? Potential responses could be:

  • possibility of recession

  • supply chain disruptions

  • geopolitical instability and conflicts

  • ongoing COVID-19 pandemic

  • worldwide rise in inflation

  • global tech stock crash

This question could be asked aloud, via chat or via a tool such as Slido. 

Have a brief discussion around how these things are impacting their employee experience and creating uncertainty. 

The work (45 mins) 

This is where you'll get into the research. 

What's worth sharing?

• Your culture determines:

  • How quickly you're able to pivot and continue to prosper in diffifult times

  • How much time employee spend on productive work rather than spinning their wheels

  • How committed and willing employees are to go above and beyond - both during the good times and the not-so-good times

  • Whether employees feel that working at your company hurts or helps their wellbeing - which ultimately decides whether they choose to stay

The foundations of this research
We're able to measure the employee experience to understand what it feels like in a particular culture. 

Culture Amp looked at:

• 2,483 companies worldwide

• 1,889,861 employees 

The findings:

1. One significant factor that impacts an employee’s experience is how quickly the people around them leave the company.
   
   

2. Unsurprisingly, employees at low-retention companies, who see their peers leaving, are more (+6% points) overstressed than employees at high-retention companies.
   
   

3. The other major factor that influences your employee experience is how quickly people are joining the company. New members disrupt the status quo.
   
   

4. Interestingly, employees at high-hiring companies have a positive outlook despite the struggle to maintain a healthy work-life balance. These employees feel more motivated and are more likely to believe the company will succeed.
   
   

5. So, why are these employees motivated to put in the extra time? These employees believe working hard will be good for their career. According to the data, development is the second most influential driver of engagement at high-hiring companies.
   
   In contrast, the top driver of engagement is psychological safety for employees at low-hiring companies. 

6. While retention and hiring have distinct impacts on the employee experience, four unique company directions are revealed when we look at the intersection of these two factors.
   
   

   1. Rotating - High hiring rate and low retention

   2. Expanding - High hiring rate and high retention 

   3. Holding - Low hiring rate and high retention

   4. Decreasing - Low hiring rate and low retention
      
      

7. Despite the differences, some findings are true for all company types. The top reason employees say they join a company - development - is also the top reason they ultimately leave a company. While many companies "sell" employees the dream of career development, few actually deliver on that promise.

Every company's culture is unique, but there are general best practices you can implement depending on the company's direction (i.e. the intersection of your hiring and retention rate).

Have the group reflect on the insights.

Potential questions to pose to the group:

• What surprised you if anything about these insights?

• What type of company is your organization? Where do your organization fall in these four quadrants?

The Work (continued)

There are some things each of the four types of companies can take action on to set a solid foundation that enables them to endure and overcome uncertainty.

1. Rotating (High hiring rate and low retention)

Focus on promoting employees from within and creating opportunities that motivate them to grow in place.

• Implement exit surveys/interviews (or stay interviews) to better understand why employees are leaving (or planning to stay).
  
  

• Create internal opportunities for growth by asking employees for their development aspirations and taking their preferences into account when designing upcoming job openings. This will require a personalized yet scalable approach to development.

• Focus on future-proofing your systems and processes for scale, along with your culture.

• If you aren’t doing so already, focus on bringing in more diversity to the organization. As part of this process, assess if those employees feel included and like they belong.

2. Expanding (High hiring rate and high retention)
   In high hiring companies, the data shows women are taking on significantly more workload than men. They have the worst gender gap when it comes to diving workloads fairly. Focus on implementing a structured performance review process to close the gender gap.
   
   

• Evaluate their hiring plan to ensure they’re keeping workloads reasonable for employees.

• Ensure role expectations are clear. This can be difficult as roles quickly change during hyper-growth, but can be achieved through regular 1-1 conversations between managers and employees.

• Implement a structured performance review process so that all employees, tenured or not, have an equal playing field.

3. Holding (Low hiring rate and high retention)
   These employees are uniquely motivated by feeling respected and they want to be valued for the unique contributions they make to the company. Focus on implementing performance calibrations to increase the employees' perceptions of accurate recognition.
   
   

• Focus on creating psychological safety, so employees feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to work.

• Implement performance review calibrations so that employees are evaluated on the same criteria across managers and departments.

• Ask employees how they want to be recognized and appreciated, as each person will have their own preference.

• Celebrate long-tenured employees on their work anniversaries.

4. Decreasing  (Low hiring rate and low retention) 
   These employees want to play a part in the company's (hopeful) comeback story. They care a lot about factors like decision-making at the leadership level.
   
   

• Implement exit surveys/interviews (or stay interviews) to better understand why employees are leaving (or planning to stay).

• Continue to seek employee feedback and act on it.

• Create a compelling vision for the future. Ensure that employees have a framework for aligning their individual goals to team and company ones.

• Create accountability for achieving those goals.

The Action (25 mins)

It's all about putting the learnings into action. 

Potential questions to have the group reflect on:

• What is your organization doing to endure and overcome uncertainty? Does that align with the type of organization you are?

• What is your organization doing to invest in career development?

• How might your organization invest more in career growth?

• What are some realistic next steps your organization could take?

• What's one thing you're committed to personally taking action? 

• How can you move the needle in creating a better world of work as it relates to this research? 

Close (5 Min)

Potential check out questions: 

• What's one word to describe how you are doing now?

• What was your biggest takeaway from today?
  
  

Create space for the community to connect with one another.  Consider inviting them to your slack channel. Consider having them share their LinkedIn profiles in the chat.

Wrap up by thanking everyone for attending and sharing your upcoming events and how they can stay involved.