CRISTEN DALESSANDRO: Alright. I think we can go ahead and get started. So thank you everyone for coming today to our webinar, Nimble Resiliency, Rethinking How Organizations Support and Promote Proactive Change.
So before we begin, just a few housekeeping items to take care of. Today's presentation is both SHRM and HRCI certified for one hour of general credit. We'll be sharing the program IDs at the end of today's session. And this presentation is also being recorded and will be sent out to all registered attendees by the end of the week.
But before we get into our content today, I think we should introduce ourselves. So I am Cristen Dalessandro, and joining me in the webinar today is Daniel Patterson.
Daniel is a senior researcher here at the O. C. Tanner Institute who specializes in the psychology that shapes the employee experience.
In addition to his research, he regularly leads client assessment projects as well as tailored client initiatives that analyze business impact and ROI, specifically with an eye to helping organizations improve their workplace culture.
He specializes in mixed method research and holds a master's degree from the University of Utah with advanced studies in research and theory. So welcome, Daniel.
DANIEL PATTERSON: Thank you, Cristen. And, I'm here today with Cristen Dalessandro, one of our top senior researchers and sociologists at O.C. Tanner who specializes in the study of social inequalities as well as qualitative and quantitative research methods.
As part of the O.C. Tanner Institute, Cristen conducts client assessment projects and researches the employee experience and workplace culture through a social science lens.
She has a PhD from the University of Colorado Boulder and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Utah. She's published over twenty articles in peer reviewed journals and her book, Intimate Inequalities: Millennials' Romantic Relationships in Contemporary Times, explores how millennials navigate social and identity differences in their relationships.
Okay. So now that you know a little bit about us, let's go ahead and take you through our agenda for the day. So the first item on our agenda is to take a look at the 2024 Global Culture Report. And this will provide some helpful background because this is where we're sourcing much of the research that we're going to be discussing today.
Then we're gonna look at the state of change in the workplace. We're gonna look then at a model of nimble resiliency.
We'll have some recommendations, and then we will provide a a wrap up there at the end.
So to start off, what exactly is the Global Culture Report, or as we often refer to it as, the GCR?
Well, at a high level, this is, O.C. Tanner's annual report that provides industry leaders with a rigorous look at the evolving shape of work.
Every year, O.C. Tanner tracks, analyzes, and chronicles the latest trends and insights in the workplace using both qualitative and quantitative data to develop a framework of a thriving workplace culture from the employee perspective.
Now more broadly, our report considers three key elements.
First, we take, as the name implies, a global approach by surveying employees in more than twenty countries across six continents around the world.
Second, we explore the talent magnets.
These are the six key characteristics of workplace culture that are crucial to an employee's organization.
And then last but not least, our reporting focuses, as I mentioned, on the employee experience or how the employees view their experience within an organization.
Through interviews, focus groups, and surveys, this year's report engaged over forty thousand employees, leaders, and HR practitioners in twenty seven countries to better understand the state of workplace cultures across the world. And a key theme that emerged from this exploration was the idea of shift.
Now small but powerful shifts in the workplace have employees and leaders questioning how to move forward and adapt to a new business landscape that's characterized by uncertainty and rapid change.
This year's Global Culture Report reveals the insights, strategies, and principles that enable HR leaders to build thriving workplace cultures in the face of these ongoing changes.
So, Cristen, now that we've kind of covered the Global Culture Report, how about we go ahead and just let's jump right into our topic today.
CRISTEN: Sounds good, Daniel.
So to set us up to talk about nimble resiliency, we wanted to start by actually talking a little bit about the state of change in the workplace.
These are in our report, if you're able to to take a look at it.
These are actually two separate chapters, but as you'll see, they they kind of, they really relate to each other in important ways.
So between changes in the actual work space, including the expansion of hybrid and remote roles, as well as more recent return to office mandates, new technologies, competition over talent, and more, it seems like change is really the only constant at the moment.
So for example, according to Gartner, the average employee experienced ten planned enterprise changes last year, up from only two in 2016.
And these numbers don't include unplanned changes, which we know are increasingly common. So due to this climate, the mere mention of the word change can create feelings of skepticism, anxiety, and fear among employees.
So, sadly, according to Harvard Business Review, only about fifteen percent of employees believe their leaders will be able to manage change and disruption in the future. So needless to say, there's a lot of skepticism out there, and the stats are telling us that employees are really feeling burned out on change and the more traditional approaches to change management that are currently in place, which often emphasize a top down approach.
However, this quote gives us a clue as to a better way forward.
"Change cannot be put on people. The best way to instill change is to do it with them, create it with them."
So change is best approached not top down, but as a collaborative journey, a theme that we'll see as we continue today talking through nimble resiliency as well.
You know, one of the main issues we uncovered in our research this year has really been, given all the anxiety associated with change, how do we shift from understanding it as a problem to something that is actually an opportunity?
So in short, we found that taking a people centered approach is really the best course of action for positive outcomes when it comes to something like dealing with widespread changes. And not to jump ahead, but helping employees cultivate that sense of nimble resiliency is really one key aspect associated with taking a people centered and proactive approach.
So Daniel's gonna dive into that a little bit more in a minute. But for now, I wanted us to take a look at these numbers.
For this analysis, we actually looked at a number of different factors that might have an impact on employee change perceptions.
We found that of everything that we looked at, adequate support, communication, and training had the greatest impact on employees' change perceptions.
So it's that proactive approach that really makes a difference. You know, making sure employees feel that they have the support that they need so that when something like change hits, it stings a little bit less.
When employees feel they have the support they need to deal with change, we see nine hundred and sixty two percent increase in the odds that employees perceive organizational change will be a positive thing.
We also see a positive impact when employees perceive that communication around change seems genuine, and then employees feel they have the training that they need to deal with any changes that are coming.
Again, you know, what these factors point to is that need for preparation.
Employees don't like when change is unexpectedly dropped on them. They need to feel like they're prepared. And this is also where our model of nimble resiliency comes in because nimble resilience is all about being proactive and adaptable in the face of change.
So, Daniel, now that we've talked a little bit about, you know, change and how maybe the best course of action for or, some little teasers for how maybe best to deal with it, would you mind telling us a little bit more about the model of nimble resiliency that we've identified in our research?
DANIEL: Absolutely. And I have to say, I guess, apparently, in the spirit of, adapting to change, I don't know if it's coming through, but the lights in this room are going on and off. So I think I sat still enough that it thinks I'm not here and goes dark and then comes back up again. So we're gonna roll with that change.
You know, you gotta keep it interesting. You know? Absolutely. Never dull moment.
Yeah. It we planned this on purpose to you know, it's like a visual metaphor.
They're on their toes. Yeah.
So, I think it'd be helpful actually for the audience, here first if I take a minute to build off Cristen, what you've shown us and talked to us about change, and maybe actually provide just a little bit more background on the idea of resiliency.
Now as Cristen pointed out, organizations today have to be prepared to navigate changes on a number of fronts, and that's from industry and marketplace, technology and customer demands. And, well, you know, let's not forget even, you know, employee expectations.
As a result, many organizations are hoping to weather challenges and changes by building greater resiliency in their workplace.
And in fact, the conference board reports, one of the top priorities for CEOs in the coming year is to, quote, build a resilient workforce to prepare for future challenges.
Now that sounds great, but the question is, what exactly do we mean by resiliency?
Now traditionally, resilience, or resiliency has been defined as having grit, determination, and the ability to bounce back from tough situations and recover from adversity.
It's that kind of, dig deep and just push through mentality, that never-give-up mindset that we often associate with high performers like Olympic athletes and maybe mountaineers who climb Everest or K2.
But when it comes to the workplace, organizations are increasingly finding that this approach isn't really working in today's inherently dynamic workplace, which really raises the question of, well, why is that?
Well, we found that there are three primary reasons that traditional models of resiliency just simply aren't enough for the modern workplace.
First, they rely heavily on the capacity of individuals and not necessarily the culture of organizations.
So instead of organizations prioritizing innovation and a culture that embraces the opportunity for change, traditional resiliency looks to employees to dig in and weather whatever challenges get thrown at the company, which leads to our second point.
And that's that traditional resiliency ultimately demands employees endure challenges without necessarily addressing issues underlying changing roles, practices, or job demands.
And then finally, these approaches are fundamentally passive and reactionary to outside forces.
Resiliency becomes the capacity to recover from challenges or changes and simply endure rather than proactively addressing the nature of future challenges and providing more resources to adapt to them.
CRISTEN: Wow. So when you put all of these together, really, resiliency just becomes whatever the employee can bear, which doesn't sound like a very sustainable approach.
DANIEL: No. It really isn't. And that really bears out in our research findings as well.
So in both our focus groups and surveys, employees repeatedly shared the impact this "dig in" sort of approach to resiliency had on their experience in the workplace.
Now from our analysis, one particular data point that really kind of stands out on this, was this, that when employees feel they are expected to, quote, just push through when the organization faces challenges, there's a hundred and twenty five percent increase in the odds of employee burnout.
Now to be clear, you know, characteristics, traits like endurance and perseverance, they're certainly important qualities at all levels of an organization.
But when these are prioritized over principles like adaptability or proactivity, what we find repeatedly is that organizations and their people suffer.
And I think this quote from John Maxwell really captures this idea in a really nice succinct way when he said, "if you if you're proactive, you focus on preparing. If you're reactive, you focus on repairing."
Okay. So now that we kind of understand a bit more, about the challenges with traditional approaches to resiliency, what are organization organization supposed to do?
Well, from our research, we developed a new model, that we refer to as nimble resiliency.
Now rather than a demand for individual endurance, nimble resiliency or nimbly resilient employees, leaders, and organizations are actually guided by three powerful principles: adaptability, proactivity, and perseverance. And all three are crucial to thrive in a dynamic work environment.
So when we look at each of these principles, adaptability is understood as anticipating changes or challenges and adjusting or innovating to meet them.
Proactivity is continually evolving by seeking new ways of doing things. They're seeing setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow rather than simply as crises.
Now our research also dug deeper into these principles to really see them in practice and allowing us to identify the attitudes and behaviors that reflect the application of these principles at the individual leader and organizational levels.
So, for example, if we look at this table here, and we think about adaptability, which would be highlighted there in that top row, A nimbly resilient individual feels they can quickly adjust their approach to work when project requirements change.
At the leader level, leaders are seen as not being intimidated by unexpected challenges.
And then, when we look at the organizational level, companies are perceived as quick to innovate when needed.
CRISTEN: Thanks, Daniel. I love that we can actually break these down into identifiable attitudes and behaviors. You know, I can see where this would help organizations really rethink policies and programs in order to better align with the principles of nimble resiliency and get the results that they are really after.
DANIEL: Exactly.
And what we find is that when organizations are guided by these principles, we find that they are more likely to create a workplace culture that encourages employees to build relationships, to work collaboratively across disciplines, find new solutions to challenges, and adopt a forward thinking perspective that really embraces change at all levels of the organization.
Now in addition, nimble resiliency has a powerful impact on both cultural and business outcomes.
So, for example, we found that nimbly resilient organizations see a hundred and fifty eight percent increased odds of greater revenue.
We see a six hundred and thirty four percent increased odds of employees with a strong desire to stay with the organization for at least one year.
And in this climate that we've seen over the past few years, being able to not only attract but really retain top talent is a key concern for every organization. So this really has has resonance here.
We also see a seven hundred and thirty seven percent increased odds of innovation in the face of obstacles and a nine hundred and fourteen percent increased odds of having a thriving workplace.
So if we were kinda to say, you know, well, the key takeaway here would be that for organizations to truly thrive in a dynamic ever changing environment, they need to move away from the just push through mentality and adopt the principles of adaptability, proactivity, and perseverance, which in short, they really, as a culture, need to embrace nimble resiliency.
CRISTEN: Thanks, Daniel. You know, one of the things I love about nimble resiliency is that sort of we're extrapolating the original concept to apply to different levels. Right? You know, it's not just an individual, but it's important at the sort of team and the organizational level as well. And, you know, thinking about it in this new way is really where we can help move the needle where maybe it was difficult too in the past.
DANIEL: Absolutely. And I think you bring up a great point there because, even in a lot of the existing literature around resiliency, there are elements of what we're talking about. Some of these principles are at play there.
But most often, resilient organizations really are relying on the resilience of individuals.
So it's still, all that weight for being able to, you know, navigate change, think proactively, it's all resting, you know, the expectation, it's gonna fall on the shoulder of the individuals rather than also kind of breaking that out to see what that looks like at a leadership level and then also at an organizational level in terms of how those policies and programs are being developed and implemented and and the vision that a company has.
So, I think that's one of the exciting parts about about this particular chapter here.
CRISTEN: Right. It works best when we don't just put everything on individuals, but that we we sort of try to see the bigger picture of how an organization itself can also be nimble resilient.
DANIEL: Absolutely. Right.
CRISTEN: So, you know, I'm seeing a few themes here, Daniel. You know, proactivity, seeing setbacks as opportunities.
So now that we've gone through these sort of two broad topics that we discussed in the report this year, the state of change and an approach to nimble resiliency that's really game changing, in my opinion, we want to spend some time talking about how to take action.
And, you know, this is kind of interesting because, often when we do these webinars, I think, usually, you know, the recommendation section is a little shorter. We kind of front load with the information.
But, you know, this topic really lends itself to, okay, you know, now that we have an understanding of what's going on and how we're thinking about this concept in a different way, how do we take action? Right?
So we have a lot of suggestions and examples for the audience. You know, if you recognize yourself and your organization in some of this information, hopefully, you know, this will be a really helpful section for you.
You know, again, we've got so much good stuff that I think that oftentimes, it's kind of the shorter section. We've sort of expanded it a little bit, this time. So, you know, switching things up, never a bad idea.
Keeping ourselves on our toes. We're trying to be nimbly resilient.
DANIEL: Absolutely.
Well, and to your point too, I think what's one of the things that's interesting, and this is, you know, speaking to the work that O.C. Tanner does, that we do with the Institute.
Sometimes, often, we are finding really fascinating, interesting ways to reframe current practices in the workplace or current ways of thinking ways of thinking about things. And sometimes those can get pretty involved and require a lot of unpacking and and a lot of, you know, we have complex models.
So sometimes, in these webinars, the front end, as you pointed out, there's a lot more to go through.
In this case, I think, again, one of the things that's exciting is to take ideas around change and ideas around resiliency, and I think what we find is that a lot of this has a pretty intuitive sort of feel. And so we can kind of present sort of the reframe around this in a pretty direct way, but it actually opens up a myriad of possibilities when it comes to recommendations.
So not to beat the horse too much here, but, I'm excited now to jump into our recommendations.
Right. This is an action oriented webinar. Absolutely.
CRISTEN: Let's get to it. So the first recommendation that we have is to work on creating a healthy company culture in order to shift the idea of change from something that's scary to something that employees actually are in favor of.
And, you know, this is an interesting thing. In a lot of our research on this topic, we found that people can be really resistant to change.
A lot of people listening probably feel that way as well. Either you feel a little resistant to change or you've seen it in action, but employees, or even just people in the world are resistant to change. You know, change is a scary thing.
But what we've really found is that creating a healthy culture helps employees, you know, also cultivate nimble resiliency. It helps them kind of understand that change is something that doesn't have to be scary, but that's something that is actually a step in the right direction. It's something that's gonna move us forward, gonna help us innovate.
So, you know, strategies like embracing modern leadership, cultivating trust, supporting the talent magnets, which I'll say more about in a minute, these all improve outcomes for both employees and organizations.
So here's the impact on employee change perceptions when organizations score high on each of the talent magnets.
So listeners who are familiar with our work, have undoubtedly heard about the talent magnets before. This is something that has really been sort of a keystone in our research and continues to be.
But for those of you who may be new, the talent magnets are those core elements of workplace culture that we measure that together determine employee decisions to join, engage with, and remain at any place of work.
So as you can see here, change is seen more positively pretty much across the board when organizations score highly in these talent magnet areas. So some highlights here just to kind of, to kind of direct your attention, I know there's a few numbers on this on this table, are success and opportunity.
So when employees feel they have a sense of opportunity at work, when they feel like they are an important part of a winning team or a successful organization, we see four hundred and seventy eight percent and five hundred and thirty percent increased odds that they will experience change positively.
And this makes a lot of sense because it goes back to that point that, you know, when you foster a healthy company culture, employees can feel empowered by change rather than blindsided by change.
You know, when employees feel frequently upset by change or unprepared for it, they tend not to react as well. But if you're able to build a culture that, you know, that's healthy, that really supports the talent magnets, you know, when we run the numbers, we see that it really does have a big impact on whether employees are seeing change as a positive thing or as a not so positive thing.
DANIEL: I can add something real quick to that just to really, you know, piggyback off what you're you're pointing out.
I think we can't, you know, we can't say enough about the importance of really building that culture. And a lot of that's gonna come from the top down, because when organizations kind of set out that vision that embraces change, that is genuinely focused, it's people centered, focuses on the needs of the individuals, and really brings them into the vision and the energy around all those various magnets.
Employees, at every level are much more willing and empowered to kind of see change as a positive proactive thing rather than this sort of reactive thing that we have to be scared about.
So sorry. I just want to throw in an extra plug there to just, you raise an excellent point, around the talent magnets.
CRISTEN: Mhmm. Yeah. The talent magnet's tried and true.
And, you know, again, as we saw, the talent magnet framework is a large part of how we're looking at organizational culture. And when those things are supported, we see, you know, there's just a healthier culture overall, which also relates to how employees are reacting to things like change in the workplace.
So one real world example of a company that's really focused on building a people centric approach, a people centric culture in order to improve experiences with change is Microsoft.
When Microsoft set out to standardize the way it tracks sales and operations activities across the company, it knew the biggest obstacle wasn't the new tool itself.
According to their senior business program manager in employee experience, quote, "even at Microsoft, people don't just accept new business processes and go work the way you tell them to."
So the company centered all communication, training, and reinforcement efforts around its people. Pilot projects, existing listening systems, and structured feedback channels helped it understand how employees were adapting, and it asked primary users of the tool to help champion the change as well.
So the result of all these efforts was that today, over thirty thousand users in ninety five countries use the new reporting platform. So this example segues nicely actually into our next recommendation, which is to give employees a voice throughout any change process.
So to give employees a voice in change, there there's actually a lot of strategies that can be utilized. Surveys, focus groups, town halls, and one to ones can all be used as opportunities to give employees a voice.
And any of these strategies listed here is a great way to empower employees to have more voice in the change process.
Although each is impactful on its own, you know, interestingly, we actually found that when all four of these tactics are used, it increases the odds that change is perceived positively by twelve hundred and eighty four percent, so quite a big number. You know, taken together, they're extremely impactful.
So the practice of giving employees a voice regularly can also be a way to encourage the development of nimble resiliency, to kind of make those connections between change and nimble resiliency, because it can help develop those skills of seeing setbacks as collaborative growth opportunities and working through new ways of doing things rather than panicking, you know, if there's change coming down the pipeline.
And in addition to that, it's always good practice, and we got this from both our quantitative and qualitative data, it's always good practice to not just solicit, but to also acknowledge the feedback that employees give. You know, it's great to listen to employees, but it's even better when employees feel that they were heard.
And let's look at the impact when this is the case. You know, in our report this year, we found that when organizations appreciate, acknowledge, and communicate how they use employee feedback, and this doesn't necessarily mean that they take all that feedback. Right? It's just acknowledging that, you know, we've heard you and here's, based on this information and our own realities, here's how we're gonna move forward, it leads to a decrease in negative outcomes such as, for example, anxiety scores, which is what you can see on this, on this, table here.
You know, there's been, there's a lot of talk about mental health in the workplace right now. I've seen, I'm seeing a lot of LinkedIn posts on it.
It's something employees feel like they, it feels like something employees themselves also wanna talk about. So something like measuring, you know, what's the impact of this on anxiety is something that's really useful to know.
On the flip side, you know, it increases positive outcomes like retention. So, you know, just to kinda give you an example, you know, let's look at the last one. Right? The organization appreciated me for giving feedback.
You know, that leads to a forty percent decrease in anxiety, and, a three hundred and twenty two percent increase in, in retention. So, you know, when employees feel like they're heard, there really is a significant impact.
And, you know, again, as I mentioned, organizations don't have to take all feedback. It would be impossible to do so, you know, realistically.
But employees do wanna know when they give feedback, when they're involved in some process, you know, they want to understand, what was the outcome of that, right?
You know, did my feedback just go into the ether, or was it was it actually heard? You know, it's frustrating for employees if they are consistently asked for feedback, and then they don't know what happens to it.
And we see that again and again, and we've actually seen that over different research topics over different years as well that, you know, giving employees a voice and making sure that they understand that their voice was heard is really important, for getting the best outcomes.
So these benefits also extend to leaders as well, by the way. You know, as Daniel's gonna talk about a little bit later, it's really important to empower those leaders, especially middle managers, when it comes to navigating change in the workplace.
You know, when leaders feel empowered to manage change, they have an increased sense of autonomy, decision making authority, a feeling that they are supported by their own leaders or senior leaders, and so on. So in a sense, you know, when leaders feel their voices matter and change, they feel more empowered overall.
DANIEL: I really like this point about leaders because it does show that, you know, voice is something that can have an impact across different job titles.
So especially thinking about those middle managers who really you know, we can kinda think of them as, like, the shock absorbers between their own direct reports and senior leadership.
It's important that they feel that they're heard and supported, as well. We ask a lot of them, and they really need to feel that sense of connection and feeling heard and valued.
CRISTEN: Exactly. And, you know, it relates really closely to our concept of modern leadership too, which I just mentioned. You know, that leaders should have access to that sense of autonomy and competency and feel that they are supported by those who they report to as well.
You know, perhaps, unsurprisingly, when leaders feel they have a voice, you know, the benefits actually extend to all employees.
You know, when leaders feel they have a voice, all employees are more likely to thrive, to feel a sense of community, and to feel a sense of trust.
You know, at the same time, they're less likely to experience burnout. So, again, you know, since they help set the tone for those employees to report to them, it's really important that those mid level leaders in particular feel empowered and that they have a voice within the organization.
So, Daniel, would you mind talking a little bit about how IAG has utilized employee voice in their change strategy?
DANIEL: Absolutely. So, one example of how voice matters comes from Insurance Australia Group Limited or IAG.
Now when IAG embarked on a cultural transformation back in 2020, it placed employees at the front of its change strategy.
So first, it gathered feedback from people at every level and in every region with surveys and listening workshops to understand employee perspectives, including what mattered most and how to best design for the future. And this speaks to, you know, exactly what Cristen was just highlighting with the importance of that feedback loop.
Then, a comprehensive change campaign across multiple channels provided regular clear communication to unite the organization and bring people's voices to life.
And now, a network made up of employees supported by eighteen executives regularly reviews insights, shares data and ideas, and creates cultural change from multiple angles, not just from the top down.
So while IAG, you know, they created that vision at the top, they recognized that for this to really have the kind of, lasting impact, that it had to incorporate everybody within the organization.
And according to, Gillian Folkes, the executive general manager of Culture and Leadership, She said, quote, "a significant contributor to our success in the uplift has been the ongoing executive support and leader buy in and role modeling."
CRISTEN: Awesome. Thanks, Daniel. Love it. So, you know, for for those of you keeping track, a third recommendation that we have, which relates to, some of the things we just mentioned as well, is develop a communication strategy.
You know, this is a really important recommendation. When it comes to communication, employees are really looking for consistency, clarity, and transparency.
And, of course, we have some data from our global culture report that really illustrates the power of open communication.
So this is one of our experiments, that we feature in the report, the 2024 report this year.
And we performed this survey experiment in order to better understand how practices of communication are affecting key employee outcomes, such as, for example, desire to stay with the organization.
So survey experiments are particularly useful because they allow us to examine the causal impact that some treatment might have on an outcome.
So, basically, the way that we set this up, you know, for those of you who are familiar with our work, you probably recognize this, this setup before. But, you know, we like to do these again because they really are the method for showing that causal impact on on a particular trend that we're investigating.
So the way that this experiment works is that, you know, if you are a survey taker, everybody sees the same scenario at first. So in this case, it was, on Monday morning, you arrive at work to find your company has announced a broad reorganization.
You know, something very, very common and yet very broad also.
Today, employees will hear the details of the plan and exactly what the reorganization entails.
So from there, what we do is basically, randomize survey participants into seeing a second paragraph that is different depending on what random group you're in.
And, you know, after we do that, we then ask employees a series of questions to kind of gauge, you know, based on this this scenario or based on the treatments, you know, how do you feel about, things like, you know, do you feel a sense of loyalty towards this organization? Is this a place that you would wanna work, you know, one year from now? Questions along those lines.
So for this particular experiment, the four follow-up prompts were, number one, the leader was unaware of the change and was just as surprised as employees regarding the change, and this served as our, as our control group. So this is the group where we compared the other groups against. Right? In this case, the leader doesn't know about the change and really, you know, had no information to share.
The second treatment or the second paragraph that could have potentially been shown, and this is actually our treatment number one, is the leader was aware of the change but did not communicate or prepare employees prior to the announcement. So they knew about it, but they didn't share that information. No communication.
So the next one was the leader had limited foreknowledge of the change, but shared as much as they could with employees prior to the announcement. So they had a limited amount of knowledge. They didn't know everything, but they shared what they could. So there was, you know, communication based on what they could share.
But there was also a little bit of a blockage on the side of, you know, the communication between the organization and the leader was a little bit more limited.
And then lastly, the last follow-up was that the leader had full foreknowledge of the change and shared all the details in full transparency prior to the announcement. So this is, you know, kind of our ideal scenario where, communication was really open, and the leader was able to share that with employees. So they were kind of prepared for what this reorganization actually means.
So if we look at some of the results here, you know, again, we asked employees a series of follow-up questions on a scale of zero to ten.
You know, how, and in these in these particular questions, you know, to what extent do you feel a sense of trust in the organization?
To what extent do you support change? And, you know, do you have a desire to stay with this organization?
And I'm gonna skip over, I guess, the third column right there for a minute.
You know, if we look at that that column of leader had limited knowledge but shared as much as they could, you know, when the leaders had limited knowledge but shared as much as they could, we saw significant increases in employees saying that they have trust in the organization, support change, and want to stay.
And, you know, however, we saw even better outcomes when leaders had full knowledge and were able to share that with the employees that are reporting to them.
So this is really about a good communication strategy from senior leadership all the way down to individual contributors.
You know, the one place where we actually saw negative results was that case where leaders had some knowledge but didn't share it with employees. And, again, this is compared to leaders really not knowing anything as well.
So what this tells us is that in order to get the best outcomes, we need that transparent communication or else trust, employee support for change, you know, these things are going to suffer.
You know, and even to kinda tie it back to nimble resiliency, the project of working towards cultivating nimble resiliency can suffer too when we really don't, when there's those communication blockages, when we don't have that sort of sense of trust and the ability to navigate around change when it happens.
DANIEL: Well, thank you, Cristen. And, actually, I love this experiment. And a lot of the core ideas that were being explored here tie perfectly into our next recommendation.
So to build a culture of nimble resiliency, organizations really have to develop practices that support the principles of adaptability, proactivity, and perseverance.
And these include things like transparent communication, collaboration, and autonomy. So you're seeing where there's a lot of common threads here between these these different ideas.
So, one way to think about this is that when employees are informed about the challenges facing their organization, they can be more adaptable and proactive in their roles and how they approach their work. They are more likely to embrace new perspectives when they collaborate with other teams and are empowered to pivot when they feel comfortable adapting to change.
So these types of practices not only improve the employee experience, they actually also improve the odds that individuals will see themselves as nimbly resilient.
And so as you can see here in this table, employees are more likely to view themselves as nimbly resilient when some of these best practices are in place.
So these are things like, employees are well informed about challenges facing their organization. Teams regularly collaborate on projects with other teams, and employees comfortably adapt to changes in their job role.
Now, additionally, when leaders regularly share information about changes, when they give employees greater autonomy and encourage collaboration, it positively impacts how employees perceive their organization.
So, again, here, we see some similar data that, for example, when employees regularly see information about the changes facing their organization, there's a hundred and twenty five percent increase in the odds that they're that the employees are gonna perceive their organizations as nimbly resilient.
Now all of this sounds really interesting, but why is this important? Well, according to our findings, when employees perceive their organizations, for example, as nimbly resilient, there's an almost seven hundred percent increase in the odds of of above average engagement, and, five hundred and sixty eight percent increase in the odds of feeling a strong connection to the organization.
And that's just to name a few. So, it's important not only that the practices are adopted that reflect those principles, but in the process too that employees begin to perceive themselves as becoming nimbly resilient, that their leaders are nimbly resilient, and that their organizations are taking this on as well.
Now, a perfect example of this, is, the office furniture manufacturer Steelcase.
Now as a company, Steelcase adopted a philosophy that embraces uncertainty and change, and it's embodied in what they call its strategic workforce architecture and transformation team or SWAT.
The group tracks emerging trends, and then it conducts experimental projects to decide how to respond before any big changes arrive.
Using an internal platform called Loop, the company asks employees to volunteer for these projects that are typically outside their job role so they can gain experience and skills they might not in their day to day work.
Now, one thing that happens here as well. Not only are they gaining new skills and experiences, but these groups actually have employees working across different departments, which, again, is really helping reinforce that sense of collaboration, innovation.
And Jill Dark, who is Steelcase's VP of Talent Futures, she said, quote, "if you give people the opportunity to learn something new or to show their craft, they will give you their best work. The magic is in providing the opportunity."
And Steelcase believes that transformation is the new status quo and that their SWAT team really helps improve existing ways of working, identify and seize opportunities for change, and really co-design solutions that help grow business and employees.
Now our next recommendation is to champion nimbly resilient leadership. Now organizations should actively train leaders to practice skills that build nimble resiliency and then hold them accountable for modeling those behaviors.
Now these practices include things like open communication, collaborating with others, embracing new perspectives at work, tackling challenges proactively, and creating an environment of psychological safety, listening, and understanding.
And I'd say that last one, a lot of these, you know, again, we're hearing some common threads and some of these practices, particularly for leaders. But I think it's also important too to emphasize that need for listening and understanding, something we talk about a lot with modern leadership. But it's really central in creating that environment for employees where they feel that it's a safe space for them to really engage in, like, dynamic environments.
So when we look at some of the data, as leaders take on these practices and exhibit these behaviors, there's an increase in the odds that they will be perceived by their employees as nimbly resilient. And we've already kind of highlighted, you know, some of the importance about around why employees, the benefit of employees perceiving their leaders this way.
I'm not gonna go through all the data here. All of this is contained in the GCR. I wanna make sure we have some time here at the end for a few questions.
But one thing I will say, another piece of data that I do wanna highlight is that when employees perceive their leaders as nimbly resilient, there's also a powerful impact on some really key outcomes.
So we take a look here. When employees perceive their leaders as nimbly resilient, we see a three times increased odds of employees feeling a strong sense of fulfillment, a six times increased odds of employee engagement, and and a whopping fifteen times increased odds that employees will perceive their organizations as nimbly resilient.
CRISTEN: I was just gonna say I like the connection there between, you know, seeing leaders as nimbly resilient and seeing the organization as nimbly resilient. Right? It just goes to show that these things all work together, and that, you know, a nimbly resilient organization also probably relates to leaders feeling empowered to exercise those characteristics associated with nimble resiliency. And when and when leaders feel empowered to do so, that also benefits the organization as well, right, in terms of how employees are perceiving their organizations and leaders.
DANIEL: Absolutely. And if we think about it, you know, at a very practical level, a big part of traditional resiliency that, you know, that we've thought about is that perseverance component. And, again, that's important, but often it gets foregrounded at the expense of some other important principles.
But one thing when we start breaking it down and and, really moving the idea of nimble resiliency to all the levels of an organization, the individual, the leader, and the organizational level. Now what you're doing is you're spreading out, kind of that workload, that need to be adaptable, to be proactive. It it doesn't become the responsibility of one person or one group. It's something that becomes shared across the organization.
And as that happens and as employees begin viewing, you know, their leaders, their organizations in this new way, it's actually going to create greater connections.
And we know that that's a key part of really building a thriving culture. Mhmm.
So the last recommendation, last but not least, after communicating and modeling the attributes of nimble resiliency, organizations have to take that next and most important step, and that's to recognize employees and leaders who practice them.
Now, for anyone who's familiar with O.C. Tanner and with our webinars, our research has shown again and again that meaningful recognition can have a transformative effect on the employee experience, and powerful recognition moments happen when employees are recognized for their day to day efforts. So that means that leaders should give frequent meaningful recognition to those individuals and teams who collaborate, who adopt new thinking, who persevere through change, or who find new ways of doing something.
And, also, organizations that recognize individuals for important core behaviors often see these practices quickly become an integral part of the workplace culture. So if you note here, the impact of regular recognition on the increased probability of several outcomes when employees see themselves or their leaders as nimbly resilient.
And, again, I don't wanna spend too much time going through all of this, but you can see here that as we go down, you know, engagement, great work, that sense of belonging, fulfillment, connection, and that desire to stay with the organization, when recognition becomes part of that equation, it really has a powerful effect on those those really important outcomes.
And one last sort of case study to share here with you. There's a great example of what this looks like in practice, from the Indian multinational company, the Tata Group.
Now, the Tata Group embraces a corporate philosophy that includes ambition, collaboration, and transformation.
It dares people to question the status quo and to take risks and to be curious and passionate about learning.
Innovation is so important to the company that it rewards employees for trying new ideas even if they fail. And this is an important point. It comes back to that thing that we alluded to about creating that safe space for employees.
It's not enough to just, have them embrace change, but recognize that sometimes failure is going to be the part of that process. And that's gonna be okay, that they're that they're in a safe space to do that.
So case in point, for the Tata company, the company's Innovista awards actually celebrate employee innovations, and it's attracting over two thousand entries from around the world to build its culture of sustainable collaborative improvement.
Now categories include both implemented and piloted technologies, but there's also a category that they call dare to try. And that honors employees for great concepts that maybe didn't completely work. The prize is more about what goes into an idea than what comes out of it. And as one of their senior executives put it, "I know innovation is about winning, but more importantly, it's about trying."
CRISTEN: I love it. That is a great quote to end on, I think.
So, you know, hopefully, those many suggestions that we have were helpful to you.
And out of all of that information, there are a few key takeaways that we really wanted to to share with you, to make sure that, you know, of all that information, here's what we think kind of rises to the top.
So, you know, first, for the best outcomes, change management strategies have to be people centered. Right?
In order to get the best outcomes, we have to think about, you know, how is this going to impact people and how can we make this process not just something that happens to people, but something that we work with people to, to make it as painless as possible.
And, actually, if we're really lucky, something that is largely seen as a good thing.
So second, you know, nimble resiliency is rooted in adaptability, productivity, and change. You know, if if these things are, if we're trying to look at, you know, how can we think about resiliency in this new way, in this nimble way. You know, thinking about it in this way that's a little like, beyond the individual. That is, thinking a little more -- we can start to think about ways that maybe all models of resiliency were lacking a little bit.
No shade on them. Just saying.
Or expand. Absolutely.
But, you know, how can we think about this going forward in ways that maybe get us closer to those results that we want?
And then third, nimble resiliency approaches change as an opportunity to innovate and grow. Not a challenge to overcome.
You know, when we're looking at something scary like change, how can we reframe that as something that's not scary, but it's something that actually ultimately will lead us to where we wanna go? You know, taking a nimbly resilient mindset really will help in that regard.
So we don't have a lot of time for questions, maybe one or two, but does anyone have any questions for us that we might be able to help answer with some of this information we shared today.
MODERATOR: Yeah. We have some questions in the Q&A box, so I will go through some of those.
The first one is what questions can we ask via survey to find out how much our organization has embraced nimble resiliency?
DANIEL: That's a great question.
I think, you know, every organization is gonna be different. But I think, I would start by using those three core principles as kind of your North Star. So, trying to get around some of the you know, explore some of the sentiments and the perceptions of, how do you feel at the individual employee level about, you know, facing change, about adaptability, around proactivity?
There are some great examples. You know, we get into a little bit more detail in terms of some of those, when we talk about those, principles in action, and we looked at how those looked at the different levels of an organization.
There's a little bit more information in the GCR. I'd recommend you take a look there. But I'd say, you know, the best thing, use those three principles of proactivity, adaptability, and perseverance is kind of like your guiding North Star and then develop questions that kind of tie in and reflect that and what it would look like in your organization.
CRISTEN: Yeah. I would agree completely. So nothing to add.
MODERATOR: Okay. What does the modern leadership model look like? This is from Andrea.
CRISTEN: Yep. So modern leadership is actually something that we've done a lot of past research on as well.
I'd have to double check which year it premiered in the culture report. But, modern leadership is really a series of characteristics that we've identified in our research that really differentiate modern leadership from what we could call more traditional leadership.
So things like, you know, a modern leader is somebody who is a mentor, is somebody who, you know, doesn't give orders but collaborates, and works with to kind of cocreate things like maybe a change plan or, you know, whatever, the issue of the day is.
And so, you know, modern leadership is really kind of to make a make a long story short, it's really something that, we've developed. It's a model of leadership that we've found in our research that, is is really more effective than the sort of more traditional, authoritarian kinda top down approach.
You know, and you we have a lot of content, I think, on our website and in past culture reports on that if you wanna read more. But to kind of try to put it succinctly, that's really what we're talking about when we're talking about modern leadership.
DANIEL: Yeah. I would agree. And I would say, you know, past GCRs, we constantly are highlighting, referencing, and really kind of unpacking how modern leadership, connects to, informs, shapes, influences a variety of different outcomes. So GCRs are a great place, definitely also on our website as well.
CRISTEN: Mhmm. I don't know if we have, I think that might be all the time that we have for questions.
Well, sorry we don't have more time. We just had so we had so much to say about these topics today, but, hopefully, you found it really useful.
And for those of you who are waiting for those codes, here they are. You know, thank you for attending.
The SHRM code is right there. The HRCI code is right there.
And, you don't have to feverishly write these down. Again, we will be sending the deck out to all attendees, by the end of the week.
But one last thing we did wanna, just touch on before we sign off, we do have our eighth annual, Influence Greatness conference coming up in September.
It's gonna be September 17th through 19th at the Stein Erikson Lodge in Park City, Utah.
It's always a great time.
And if you are interested, we would encourage you to scan the QR code just to kinda see what the conference is about, get more details.
And if you know, you wanna register, you can also do that through our website. Scanning the QR code can get you more information on that.
But, yeah, Influence Greatness coming up. Don't miss it. And I think besides that, we are finished for the day.
So thank you everyone for joining us.
Thank you, everyone.
Yep. See you.
