💛 Every month, Content We're Loving gives you 2-minute synopses of the most noteworthy stories and reports from the world of work, HR, and people management. Check out the best of March.

April was an interesting month in the world of work. 

After many big pandemic-related delays, big tech giants like Google and Apple started putting their new hybrid work models into effect and asking employees to come into their office between 1- 3 days per week. 

Whereas other tech companies like Airbnb announced the execution of a remote work policy for the vast majority of their staff. It will be interesting to see how these decisions will play out for these companies and their employees in the coming months. Will workers push back and leave for more flexibility, or will they eventually concede as life slowly returns to normal? 

Only time will tell. For now, all we can do is to – hopefully, learn from their mistakes.

When a Promotion isn’t Possible: Turning Disappointment into Development

From: ExecuNet
Topic: Employee development, retention

This dilemma is likely to have been faced by many managers and leaders: What happens when you have many employees who desire career development but you don’t have enough promotions to go around.

Promotions, pay, and perks are traditionally linked with development, the author explains. We live in a "climb" culture. But the author argues there are alternate ways to help people grow.

She offers three key strategies to help leaders provide development opportunities (that are not only based on promotion, pay, and perks.)

Be curious: Managers should ask questions that will help them develop a complete picture of the person's aspirations. Whether or not you can deliver the promotion, the attention and care you demonstrate will enhance your relationship, trust, and loyalty.

Be honest: Candour is a must. Tell the truth as you know it is related to what's available and the employee's readiness to move up. The author states, refrain from writing future checks you and they won't be able to cash.

Be proactive: The author urges managers to get creative and proactive in figuring out ways to create new challenges for employees. Maybe you can't offer a promotion, but what about more visibility to the C-suite, a passion project that can enhance engagement or greater flexibility that might improve their work/life balance.

Read the full article

The Four Essential Dynamics of Hybrid Work

From: Gallup
Topic: Hybrid work

In this Gallup article, the authors offer suggestions for leaders who want to develop strong hybrid work strategies. They emphasize hybrid work is so much more than just "office hours and scheduling."

The authors offer the four following "essential dynamics of hybrid work" to keep in mind when developing a hybrid plan and concrete action items for leaders.

Engagement + Well-being

Both engagement and well-being are key components of a happy workforce. The authors stress the importance of keeping your finger on the pulse of both engagement and well-being in a hybrid environment, as an employee's engagement and well-being will differ greatly depending on their role or how often they are required to come into the office.

1. Measure well-being regularly. Identify high-risk roles or departments, and understand the relationship between well-being and engagement.
2. Pay attention to how your direct reports are doing and ask them how they are doing. 
3. Regularly ask your team how they are handling work and life -- not to find balance, but to find out what is right for them.

Fairness + Inclusion

In moving towards a hybrid work future, the authors argue that leaders need to think about how to make differences in work styles feel fair to everyone. They ask: are there hidden costs to flexibility? For example, if important decisions are made in hallway conversations at work, will some employees may be left out by default?

They offer some strategies to promote fairness and inclusion:

1. Audit your perks, benefits and hybrid policies for equity and inclusion. Send out surveys or conduct focus groups to understand who's taking advantage of what perks and why. Consider who's being left out.
2. Make it a point to speak with each of your direct reports regularly.
3. Be sure to involve your direct reports in important decisions.

Trust + Productivity

The authors explain how the pandemic has exposed how much corporate productivity was measured by presenteeism. Yet we all instinctively knew "appearing busy" is not a good measure of true productivity. That's why the path to performance excellence in hybrid work is built on trust and relationships and not "increased monitoring or arbitrary metrics of busyness."

Here are key ways leaders can promote greater trust and productivity:

1. Re-imagine your performance management systems for this new era. Build your strategy around people by training your managers to be true performance coaches.
2. Develop individual growth plans based on strengths that inspire trust among managers and employees.
3. Coach leaders to find more value in output, productivity metrics, and behaviours rather than in busyness metrics.

Relationships + Culture

Many leaders are worried about the erosion of culture and relationships between hybrid and remote teams. To mitigate issues of loneliness and isolation, leaders need to be proactive.

1. Have your team identify barriers and challenges and then come up with ways to address these items. Schedule time to regularly review and update this charter.
2. Design meetings with both in-person and remote team members in mind.
3. Create ground rules for hybrid meetings with your team.

Read the full article

Airbnb’s five rules for work-from-anywhere

From: Quartz at Work
Topic: Workplace news, remote work

Last week, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced on Twitter “five key features” of its new remote work policy. 

• You can work from home or the office—whatever works best for you.
• You can move anywhere in the country, like from San Francisco to Nashville, and your compensation won’t change.
• You have the flexibility to live and work in 170 countries for up to 90 days a year in each location.
• We’ll meet up regularly for team gatherings. Most employees will connect in person every quarter for about a week at a time (some more frequently).
• To pull this off, we’ll operate off of a multi-year roadmap with two major product releases a year, which will keep us working in a highly coordinated.

Chesky believes working from anywhere is “here to stay.” this decision was partially informed by data from Airbnb, which showed that 20% of total nights booked on Airbnb in the third quarter of 2021 were part of a stay of 28 days or more.

Read the full article