2022 Round Up

Transcript

This is our last episode for 2022. And looking over the year, I thought it would be good to start with a few stats. So, for this year, we've had over a 1000 downloads of our year's episodes, and the most downloaded was actually episode 2, what does kindness look like in the workplace? Which I know has a bit of an advantage being an earlier episode, but it has actually stayed up there all year in terms of highest number of downloads.

And most of our listeners are in Australia, but I do want to shout out to those in the US, Singapore, UK, Indonesia, India, Germany, Malaysia, and even the Netherlands. And I really enjoyed discussing some important topics this year with you, Lachie, and also with our guests. And when I was thinking about the year, it's been such an interesting one. Yeah. Our first episode went live not long after Russia invaded the Ukraine, and that combined with floods, a new prime minister in Australia, a new prime minister in the UK, a new king, you know, increasing inflation, Musk taking over Twitter.

You know, there's been some really serious changes in our world, but no matter what's happening, what we can control and what is within our sphere of influence for business owners and leaders is how we can contribute to workplace culture and building great teams. And I know I've received some great tips from our guests this year and learnt some new things in my own research for the episodes, which I'll share, you know, what I thought of my highlights as part of this episode today. How would you sum up your year, Lachie? Unexpected, I reckon. I think we, we came out of that COVID freeze ready for a stellar year and just didn't materialize, how we thought it would, I think.

Yeah. As you said, Russia invading Ukraine in Feb, we had floods in Australia, interest rates and inflation, all sorts of macroeconomic craziness kind of took the wind out of the sails and really contributed to an environment of uncertainty and ambiguity, which I think after a couple of years of that, we were hoping it would be different. So I think, and I was thinking back about this year, I was thinking compassion really took center stage for me as a way to try to deal with all this change and uncertainty. And also I think these events encouraged me to think about the human aspect of life and business. I think sometimes, humanity can get lost or pushed to the back when we're stressed and uncertain and overwhelmed and we become super focused on what's directly in front of us.

And if lots of us do that, then we can lose the ability to look out for and support each other. So I think that's been really challenging this year. And I remember talking to my executive coach, Linda Murray, who we had on the podcast a few episodes ago, talking to her earlier in the year about the situation in Ukraine. And she said to me that you're getting stressed over a world that you don't have control over, which impacts the world that you do have influence over. And that really stuck with me.

I've been trying to find a healthy balance ever since. And I do personally focus on this a lot, trying to identify the things I do have control over and focusing on them, while letting go of the vast majority of things I've got no control over. And, you know, most of those are those external events that that we mentioned. And I'm really happy that that Kindness episode resonated with listeners. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, and I think it's something that's discussed, openly, very often.

So, you know, I listened back to it and we talked about respect and and psychological safety. And we dived into that further with Linda Murray in episode 18. And we also talked about compassionate leadership with Jenny Steadman from the potential project in episode 14. And then you and I have talked about vulnerability at work as well. So I think there's a theme here of bringing empathy to the workplace and trying to meet people where they're at.

And for that to be okay, you know, if we're not feeling okay, if we're feeling a bit flat or we're feeling down, but that's okay. And we shouldn't have to pretend that everything's okay if it's not. So I think, though, balancing that with not overextending ourselves with empathy, with the events that we talked about going on in the world, challenges at work, at home, family life. If you're an empathetic person, it's easy, I think, to take on more than you can manage or more than it is sustainable, which can be unhealthy in itself. Yeah.

Absolutely. And and I think that's true, you know, that empathy has become more accepted as a word in the workplace. And it can be hard to find that boundary. And, you know, when Jenny spoke about compassionate leadership in episode 14, I think I really resonated with that, and and I started to use the word compassionate more often now than, empathetic. And we also discussed workplace culture a number of times, most overtly perhaps in episode 1 around if your workplace should be your family and episode 2 with what kindness looks like in the workplace.

And and as I was thinking about that over the year, it reminds me of this really small part of our brain called the reticular activating system, and it helps our brain to work out what we should pay attention to. So, you know, if you've ever gone to buy a car and you decide, okay, I'm gonna buy that particular car, you know, all of a sudden you see that car everywhere. And that's that system really kicking into gear. And I thought, yeah, mine kicked into gear for researching into those 2 episodes because this year I've started to notice much more how people describe their workplace culture especially in job ads. And you know, unfortunately most people stick to performance culture or great culture.

But the key is really getting into the specificity because if we can determine the type of culture that we want and that we have and we can start the process of cultivating that, then we have a really powerful tool to attract and retain great people. So if we can say we have a fun and kind culture, we have a, you know, caring and learning culture, that can be a real key point of difference. And have you noticed, those words being used at all this year? Not a lot, but I'm encouraging people to do it. Like, you know, so when I'm talking to clients about, you know, looking at their job ads and, you know, what they've got out there at the moment because a lot of people are having trouble hiring, then, you know, I'm looking at what they're saying.

It's like, well, how is that different to the other person that's advertising the same thing? So, you know, let's go back to your employee survey. And how did your employees describe your culture? Because that's what we need to start doing. And I think that's really important because it will, you know, attract the right kind of people into the business, you know, to filter out people that aren't interested in that kind of culture.

And it also just goes to this is actually how we're different to every other job that's out there at the moment saying, hey, we're a great culture. Well, how do you know? Like, what does great mean? And I think it's much more appealing to people to have more specificity around that. So they go, yeah, I want that.

I want a caring learning culture or no. That sounds awful. I don't want to work there. I think that's quite important. Yeah.

I agree. I think the specificity is important. I think it's actually a good exercise even if you're not hiring to to write a mock job ad and try to describe your culture. Mhmm. And it could be interesting to ask different people in the business to do that and and see which words they use, because it's hard, right?

Like, it's this intangible thing that has a massive impact. But how do you describe it? It's it's probably going to be different, for different people. And we've talked about culture a lot. I think we talked about it in episode 8.

And we also chatted about, Bernice Brown's take on vulnerability, which I think is, you know, we talked about a really key part of culture and also, psychological safety, which we cover with Linda Murray. And, she says that for vulnerability to work, you need trust and boundaries. And, you know, going back to what we were saying before about compassion and empathy, I was really sort of surprised initially when I read that that Brene says setting boundaries is being kind so people know where they stand. Because sometimes I think, oh, well, don't wanna be too firm because that might feel like pushback or it might feel like, a firm know, that there's no possibility for discussion, you know, or exploring it. But I guess then the flip side is that a boundary sets expectations, and expectations are important for people to feel safe and to know where they stand and to know what they can disagree with and to know that that's okay, that that's safe.

There's not a risk there. And I think Jenny Steadman as well from the potential project shared with us too a few skills leaders need to operate with wise compassion. So she talked to 4 caring presence, caring, courage, caring candor and caring transparency. I think those last 2, the caring candor and caring transparency really resonate with me, which is trying to be direct and that actually being clear is is kind in itself. Interesting concept.

Yeah. And it's hard because, you know, when we have difficult conversations with people, yeah, our our natural tendency is to try and, you know, sugarcoat it or we kinda waffle along. We try and find other ways of of getting to the point. But it it's not fair on the other person because they're sitting there saying, well, well, like, what on earth is Lachie talking about? Like, I mean, what is this conversation?

And so, you know, I like to use the analogy with people that, you know, if you just ate a sandwich and you had mayonnaise on your face or you had something between your teeth, you know, for me to tell you that is being kind. For me to ignore it is is not. So, you know, giving feedback or having difficult conversations is difficult. That's why I'd call it that. But it needs to be seen through the same lens.

You know, and if we go about it with positive intent, as we discussed, then, you know, it is a learning opportunity. It is a kind act. And I think if we all put ourselves in those shoes and say, well, if I wasn't doing a very good job, would I want my manager to not say anything to me and everyone just talking at me behind my back? Mhmm. You know, or would I actually want the feedback?

And I would suspect that the vast majority of us would want the feedback as hard as that is to take. So, you know, also looking at the year, you know, unfortunately, we can't get away from COVID as much as we wanna pretend that it's gone. And I think every day at the moment having conversations with people, it's like, oh, so and so's got COVID, so and We're we're back to this time last year. So which goes into, you know, workplace design again. And yeah, I really enjoyed episode 7 where we discussed that with Christina Kim.

And I'd love to know if any of our listeners have updated their physical workplace this year that as they embed a hybrid working style. And it did make me wonder, you know, what does the next 12 months look like as we continue to see this to morph and the expectations of our physical workspace change? Mhmm. Yeah. I've heard, people that I've spoken with talk to how the the conversation is that they've had about the purpose of their office and the type of work that they wanna do when they're all together.

Hybrid seems to be the dominant, working style at the moment. A little bit of both, I guess. Working from home a couple of days seems to be about 2 days and then in the office for 3 days. But the time in the office is is deliberate, which is, I think, a big shift. And I would say positive.

That's that's really positive, to what we used to do, which was 5 days in the office. And that's just how we do it and everything is done there. And I want to ask you because you've you've gone back to the office space, in the last few months. And I think you're the happiest you've been for a long time. So what motivated you to make that decision?

Yeah. So, actually, yesterday, I came into the office for the first time in 3 weeks, and I'm back here again today because I really missed it. And I've been out for so long over those, you know, 3 weeks because I've been on-site with clients. I've been travelling interstate. Running some whole brain thinking workshops, so our listeners may now know a bit more about after we discussed that with Michael Morgan in episode 19.

So although I wasn't in my office, I was out of my home and that's the important part for me. And, you know, when I think back even prior to the pandemic, I never really enjoyed working from home. I used a coworking space. You know, I was often in the city at that you know, lovely government run co working space above Wynyard Station as well, where I was on-site with clients. I was at a co working space that was local to my home.

And, you know, I feel like we've all been on this huge journey about working over the last few years. And what it's come back to is that it's okay to say, well, this is what I prefer. And so for some people that's being at home. Some people don't. Some people like a mix.

But for me, I just had enough and I didn't really want to continue working from home and our clients aren't in the office that much anymore. So it's not like I was spending 2 or 3 days out on client sites, which I used to. Mhmm. So that's why I decided, you know, it's time to just bite the bullet and just get an office space again. Mhmm.

So I still work from home when it's practical to do it. Like, if I need to to pick up and drop off the kids from school or, you know, going swimming with a friend in the middle of the day or I have an appointment to make, then there there's no point then coming into the office and then going back out again. But Mhmm. Otherwise, I do prefer to have a completely separate space. And, you know, I acknowledge that I was really fortunate that I did have a separate office space in my house.

So, you know, for some people, you know, don't even have that, and they're working off dining tables, which is just awful. Mhmm. But for me, it's like I'm still at home, and I don't feel like I can switch off there. So, so the going into a separate office has been really important to me. And, you know, we recently had a small end of year celebration here, and we invited our clients and our partners.

And it was just really nice to see people in person. Some clients we've only ever spoken to on Zoom. And some of our broader team including my copywriter who helped me with the editing process of my book last year. So, you know, we had a really close relationship and it's quite an emotional process writing a book. So it was just such a nice moment to actually see people that meant a lot to me and the team.

Mhmm. So how about you? Are you continuing with fully remote work for the foreseeable future? Yeah. It's a good question because when I when I hear what you're saying, and we're thinking about boundaries and it sounds like, yeah, you want to really have some clear boundaries in place between work and home.

And you've done that by getting this office space. And I'm I'm the same. I've been thinking about boundaries at home a lot because I work from home full time, and those boundaries are very challenging to put in place. Walk out my door. I'm fortunate to have a separate room, from my office here.

Walk out the door and I change roles and I go to dad, husband, and and plaything for the dogs. And that change happens in a second, and my brain doesn't move that fast, you know, so it is challenging. One thing we've talked a lot about is incorporating more face to face catch ups. So we aim to catch up at least once a month for the team who are in Sydney, and often, our interstate will will fly in as well. We do 2 off sites a year where we all come together, over 2 days, and they're really fun.

We've got one next week actually for our Christmas one. Mhmm. And I think organizing even more face to face catch ups when we need it at a co working space, in Sydney. So I think for me, yeah, I would like to be probably in person once a week, once or twice a week. But because our team is so distributed, you know, there's not a Sydney's probably got the most, but even then, it's probably less than half the team.

Yeah. So thinking about, you know, how do we catch up either with people who live near us, and they're not necessarily work at Yarno. And actually, a part of this that I really like is catching up with partners or with people in my network who live locally but are in a totally different business. So I get that social interaction. I get to hear what's going on, in other businesses, in a broader network than I would if I was just going to the office.

So I've kind of changed my perspective on that. And like you, I really value exercising, you know, at a time that suits me, doing life admin, all those things. I really value that flexibility. So, I would want to continue, on that path and and continue to have that choice, just with where we see a little bit more in person interaction. Because like you were saying with your end of year celebration, I I just don't think you can beat it.

Yeah. That sense of rapport that you build and just being able to see the nonverbal body language, like it's you really do miss out on it, on Zoom. Yeah. There's a lot of people commenting on, oh, like, that's what you actually look like. You know, if you only see someone's head, it's not it's not actually the whole person.

And it's a bit kind of weird when you first see them because you you recognize them, but you don't. Because your brain hasn't actually looked at their whole body before. So you're kind of like, oh, that's who you are. Oh, look, you're so tall. You wear really nice shoes.

You know, whatever it might be. It's it's quite quite a different, process. Yeah. Yeah. So so we've been, you know, going back over the year.

But if we think forward to 2023, and I went on a bit of a search engine mission, and I came across PwC's report of what nearly 18,000 workers in that Asia Pacific. Think about work today, and that was published in July 2022, so not too long ago. And just a couple of, the snapshots of their findings were that only 57% of employees in the region are satisfied with their job, which is really quite sad, actually. I I felt really sad when I read that. You know, 1 third plan to ask for a pay rise in the next 12 months, and 1 third plan to ask for a promotion.

1 in 5 intend to switch to a new employer, which is actually, less than I thought it would be. Maybe we've already had a lot of people switching this year. Employees expect organizations to be transparent on critical issues. And as we were just talking about, hybrid work is here to stay. Yeah.

That is interesting, isn't it? Because it's 57% of employees are satisfied. So you've got a fair few, 43% who aren't, yet only 20% intend to switch to a new employer. So perhaps if we look on the positive side, they're more likely to, you know, just ask for pay rise or ask for promotion or really push their current employer. And I guess that's, that's good.

Yes. I agree. Yeah. I think, employees agitating for change is certainly a theme, that I hear from those stats and from others that I've read and kind of not being afraid to ask for what they want. And I think that ties in with a delight report that I read earlier in the year on the retail sector.

I was talking about gen Zed and millennials, but they're more likely to buy from brands aligned with their personal values. So climate change, equality, work life balance, and so on, but then they use the same criteria in choosing their employer, which makes sense, right? Cause their, their personal values, which are going to drive our perspective and decision making in our life, work's a big part of that, but I still think that's a big shift. I think about my career when I started, you know, you just didn't do that. Like you just took the job and you were grateful to have a job.

And, I wasn't putting pressure on my employer and asking them about their ASG strategy or quality or even work life balance. I mean, you were lucky to have any kind of flexibility, and it was at their discretion, which is so different to now. So I think that's great. I think it puts a lot of healthy pressure on employers, and to communicate openly with their staff about what their principles and values actually are. Can't have the those, big general platitude word values on the wall anymore.

Mhmm. You actually have to be able to describe them and see them in action, and that's that's really cool. Mhmm. I think also acknowledging where we can do better and that we don't have it all figured out. I know, you know, coming back to vulnerability, I think that's pretty hard Yeah.

For some of us to do and for for some organizations to do because we want to appear as if we do have it all figured out because that is, you know, confident and it shows that we've got a direction for the future, and that's going to encourage people to come along on the journey. So trying to find that balance in sharing vulnerability whilst also communicating, you know, a desire to to see it through to the end and and a confidence, I think that's that's a challenge. Yeah. Absolutely. And another I'll I'll respond to your statistics with a statistic, which I which is somewhat related.

And then I think it's quite interesting one. The Center For Future Work in Australia did a study on staff disconnecting from work. And I think this follows on from, some research being done around the world. I think in France they legislated, was it this year, that employers, are not allowed to contact staff outside of work hours. I think unless it's an emergency, which is pretty interesting, that that is legislated at a government level.

They say it as so that much of an issue. And anyway, the Center For Future Work, did a study with about 800, Australian employees, and 84% of them expressed support for the federal government to legislate a right to disconnect that directs employers to avoid contacting workers outside of work hours unless it's an emergency. Says to me there's a big problem here. Yeah. It's really quite shocking, I think, that people feel there's a need to legislate That and, yeah, going back to what we're just talking about with workplace flexibility.

So one of my team, she emailed me at 11 o'clock the other night, But it didn't bother me because I know that she's a night person for 1. And secondly, we'd already talked about that day she had to take 2 or 3 hours out of the day in the middle of the day to do some appointments. So I knew that she was emailing me at 11 o'clock at night because she was just catching up on her work that she'd missed out on because she was doing those appointments in the middle of the day. But, yeah, we were actually talking about it yesterday because, we were saying that if I do that, then Outlook actually brings it up and Google may do the same. And it says to me, do you wanna schedule this to send it in the person's working hours?

So it's not difficult to just say yes to schedule it. So I'm actually I don't know. Kind of in two minds about that statistic because it's like that many people that feel that their home life is being impinged on. Does that mean they don't have that kind of flexibility? They're only working 9 to 5, and then they're getting an email at 6:30 or something?

I don't know. Or is it yeah. I'd be interested to know because you know a lot of good statistics. The 800 people, like, what industry are they in? Like, we know where do they work?

Like, because it just it comes back to culture, doesn't it? Like, the type of business that you're running and how you're treating your people. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

And I think, I mean, I know from my perspective, if you're quite flexible, that can really create a gray area, I guess. Mhmm. Because you are relying on yourself to set your boundaries. Because if you're able to work from anywhere, then you can work from anywhere at any time. Yes.

So if the leaders in the business do that and work into the night, and then you have to set your own boundary that you're not gonna respond to them, that's a risk, I guess. Yeah. Like, for me, like, I don't check my emails after about 6 PM. So yeah. And I there's there's just no HR emergency out there that I need to be aware of after that time.

You know? But, that's why I mean, I'd like to know what industries they're in because there would be some industries where I can imagine, yeah, there would be emergencies and things happening, and you feel the need to keep looking at your phone. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's true what you said about culture.

I mean, this is this is a great signal that the culture is is not healthy. Mhmm. There is even ambiguity about it. I I feel as though I need to respond. And I imagine challenging too if you're working with colleagues overseas all in different time zones, and it hasn't been clearly defined what the expectations are for, response time.

Yes. Yeah. That's true. So yeah. It it just really is a 3 hour time difference.

Right? So yeah. So what does that look like? Exactly. So you gave me a statistic on my statistic.

You know? But anyway, I'm gonna give you another one. So Oh, good. It's a part of that earlier PwC report. You know, I held back this statistic was that less than half, so 45% of all employees say that their company are upskilling their workers.

Mhmm. And I kept that one back because it really nicely segues into our 2023 season. Show me series 4 of our podcast and the theme will be building the place people want to work. So it's all about building workplace culture, upskilling, developing ourselves as leaders, and developing our people. Yeah.

This is huge. I'm really excited to delve into this, and I think learning is critical for our growth. And as a respected HR researcher and author Josh Berson says that building career pathways are said to be the number one driver to grow skills and to give everyone better power skills. So he's he's relabeled soft skill and power skills. I like it.

We've talked about this as well in a previous episode. Is it Brene or Yes. Brene Brown. Yeah. Yeah.

She she, she doesn't like the term soft skills, and and I agree. I like power skills. That's quite good. Yeah. And he makes a point that leading companies invest in their people, and learning's a significant part of that.

And I think all companies need to be active in this space or risk being left behind. And if we look at the other stats that you shared, the 20% of employees are looking for a new employer. I do think, you know, willingness to grow both personally and professionally is super important people now, especially because the work environment is changing so fast. So it's unlikely that we get a set of skills, and they're the only ones that we need for our career. We need to be supported in upskilling all of us.

Mhmm. And I think too, there's a shift, I've noticed, towards talking about skills rather than roles. So, you know, in the past or even still, I think, talk about a role at a high level, but what are the skills within it that we actually need? And if we're putting a team together, what are the skills that we need in that cross functional team? So if we look at power skills through that lens, Berson talks about these as emotional skills such as communication, empathy, humility.

And, yeah, as we said, Brene Brown talks about these as well and how they really come to the fore over time. And that businesses are really crying out for these skills because these are the skills we need to be able to adapt to change and ambiguity and work through it together. Yeah. If we have poor communication and a lack of empathy, it's going to make us very difficult to work with in a team that's dealing with a lot of uncertainty. It's going to be extremely stressful environment.

And in addition, if we look at, you know, automation that is that is coming, and jobs or roles with a lot of repetition, if that's slowly gonna fade away, what we're actually left with, are tasks that are non repetitious. And to manage those, yeah, we need that empathy and excellent communication skills so that we can navigate whatever's going to be thrown at us because one thing is for certain, we're not going to know what that's going to be. No. No. I think we've certainly learned that over the last couple of years, haven't we?

Like, we've always talked about our, you know, change is constant. It's all the time. But, I think the last couple of years has really shown actually, this this change is really it can come out of nowhere. It can be really accelerated. You know, it's not just the pandemic.

It's the technological leaps as well. You know? Who heard of Zoom 5 years ago? You know, so I think it's yeah. If you if you want to be able to keep your business successful and growing, you you can't just say, okay.

Well, I'm gonna go on hire for this particular role because that role may not exist in 2 years. Yep. So, and also and, you know, I won't give away everything we're going to talk about next year, but, yeah, we know that upskilling and development and growth is really important to employees. So you're gonna be able to keep people in your business longer if you're actually helping them to work through and develop these skills as well. 100%.

Absolutely. So look. It's been a fantastic year, and I wanna, thank you from the bottom of my very large HR heart for having these conversations with me because, there aren't a lot of people that I can just talk with for hours on end about workplace culture that's not in HR. So thank you, Lachy. I always really enjoy our conversations.

And, yeah, I think out of today, even just, you know, going through this conversation, you know, start to reflect on, you know, what are the takeaways or the actions for the the listeners as well. And I would like to encourage everyone to reflect on the year. And it's a difficult thing to do because we tend to just look at the last couple of weeks. But, you know, actually go back and do a Google search. And what happened in February this year?

What happened in April this year? Or, you know, look at your calendar and say, what you what were you doing in May? And just have that bit of reflection time to go, yeah, you know, this has been an interesting year and give yourself some recognition for the challenges that you've navigated. But also to start to think about, okay, what does next year start to to look like? And, you know, I think some of the research reports we've talked about today will put those links on our websites as well because they can be really interesting pieces to to go back and read through as well.

Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. I think reflecting is so important. So easy to to look ahead.

But it's so important to stop and and look look behind at what happened and especially those, times I think that we were challenged this year. I think they're they have the potential for the most growth. Mhmm. And I was I've I sign up for a daily email called the daily stoic. Stoic being stoicism, the philosophy.

And today's, it's in the US, so it's all about thanksgiving and and gratitude. And the author was making the point that it's okay to be grateful about hard things. Mhmm. The things that we didn't want to happen that did because there's the greatest potential there for learning and healing, and and that's really resonated with me. And I think that's true for this year as well.

And I'm gonna be doing that exercise, for sure. And I think too, I thank you for your kind words, Karen. And right back at you, I've really enjoyed our conversations. It is a joy to do the research and then talk through these concepts in detail. I do love the detail and specifics that you bring along with your experience, makes the conversations really rich and I hope, really beneficial for our listeners.

So I'm looking forward to continuing on in 2023. Thank you. I can't believe we're getting into season 4. Yeah. And links to the articles and anything else that we've discussed will be over on our website.

Just go to yano.com.auor amplifyhr.com.au and follow the links to the podcast section. And if you receive value from this episode, we'd love it if you could leave a rating or review over at Apple Podcasts. And we we are taking a break. We are taking a break. We will see you in February 2023.

Any final thoughts, Karen? Oh, just, I hope everyone has a fantastic, end of your break, whatever it is that that you're up to. And, thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time on the Make It Work podcast.