Content We’re Loving: The Best of July

💛 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 June.  

The labour market has taken a noticeable turn as the summer winds down.

The looming economic recession has spurred mass layoffs across organizations. Yet, we're still seeing news that people are quitting their jobs at high rates ultimately, more people are getting jobs, not losing them; making this a unique time in the job market.

This month, we highlight top stories that discuss why organizational change rarely sticks (and what you can do to change that), why top talent recognition is critical for retention, and how hybrid work models improve attrition rates for knowledge workers.  

Leaders Focus Too Much on Changing Policies and Not Enough on Changing Minds

From: Harvard Business Review
Topic: Organizational change, culture

Organizational change is difficult. Nearly 75% of initiatives fail to improve business performance, either short-term or long-term, despite company leaders spending considerable time and resources implementing change.

Invisible fears and uncertainties keep us locked into behaviours and are most often the culprits.

But most organizations overlook what people think and feel; leaders focus on process, execution and strategy. There is no attempt to look deeper or challenge deeply held assumptions or fixed beliefs.

How can organizations overcome this, so change sticks long-term?

The power is in your company's leadership. Leaders must advocate for change, but most importantly, they must model the desired behaviour. Especially the most senior leaders, given their disproportionate authority and influence.

Bottom line: leaders have an outsize impact on the collective mindset. Even employees highly resistant to change tend to follow their leaders simply because most people prefer to fit in rather than stick out.

Read the full article

Great Teams Require This Type of Individual Recognition

From: Fast Company
Topic: Recognition, management, innovation

Employees are quitting at unprecedented rates, and research shows the root reasons are often related to the quality of leadership, lack of career progression, and company culture. 

To prevent attrition, the author argues that leaders must prioritize recognizing talent and make more effort to make employees feel valued. Especially those employees possessing great drive, vision, and passion, as employees like that are hard to come by.

He offers three suggestions for how to successfully recognize talent:

• Recognize innovation over job expertise: Shine the light on people who think outside the box and who can help teach you new things.  An innovative mindset, when nurtured, can encourage others to rise to that standard and help a business grow for decades to come.
  
  
• Acknowledge soft skills: While hard skills are important, praise should focus your praise on people's soft skills, such as emotional intelligence, drive, and learnability.
  
  
• Be in charge of developing talent: Leaders should act as talent scouts. When you spot employees with notable ambition or a drive for innovating, recognize and appreciate that with action - providing resources to develop their talent.

Read the full article

Hybrid Work Reduced Attrition Rate by a Third, Study Shows

From: Bloomberg
Topic: Remote work

A new study of  1,612 engineers, marketing and finance employees found that hybrid work had a number of positive effects on workplace metrics:

• Employee attrition rates improved by 35% 
• Enhanced employee self-reported work satisfaction scores
• No negative impact on performance ratings or promotions
• Those with the option to work from home reported an 8% increase in productivity. 

“Overall, this illustrates that hybrid-WFH is often beneficial to employees and firms, but is often overlooked in advance,” the authors wrote.

Read the full article