Welcome to 2022!
If you have been paying attention to the news, you may have heard forecasts that the chaos and disruption endured since 2020 will continue as we all try to figure out how we “roll with it” and not deceive ourselves with talk about when we finally get back to “normal.”
In the workplace, trends for 2022 continue to center around the “great resignation.” It was recently reported that over 244,000 Idahoans quit their jobs last year. Virtually every sector and organization have been impacted. Restaurants are closed or short-staffed, we complain that we can’t get help in retail stores, shelves are empty, and we don’t have people to drive trucks for products and personal deliveries. Many are left wondering what those who have resigned are doing? Where are they going? How are they getting by? Which begs the more direct questions for Boise State, “How do we find and retain team members?” and “How are we doing?”
In my coaching practice, I get to hold these conversations. Not only is there a “great resignation” in the workforce, but there is also a sense of general resignation in life. A malaise, a burnout that Covid and navigating the past two tumultuous years have created.
It feels like constant chaos: two plus years of canceled vacations, disruptions at work, in school and at home. People share that there’s only so much escape to be found on social media, gaming, and Netflix. People desire recovery and reconnection. They want to feel vibrant, vital, and alive. They want positive people interactions and to establish a more centered norm.
We have had to reconcile that we may never go back to true “normal.” We can’t even say what a new “normal” looks or feels like, but we must identify ways to receive motivation and energy where we are.
Business and Industry leaders suggest the following to re-engage and demonstrate commitment for team members. If you are a leader and reading this, rethink how you look at your role and imagine extending it beyond obtaining results. Sometimes we think that our team members are there to support us. We are also there to support them.
This involves seeking opportunities to teach, coach, mentor, and create an engaging environment where people feel that they have purpose and that their work and outside-of-work-life is meaningful, and they have the resources to be successful.
Leaders:
- Provide flexible work options
- Engage people
- Help people feel like they’re a part of something bigger
- Involve everyone, seek input on ways to make lives easier, look for process improvements
- Focus on teams, create camaraderie so that people feel like they’re not alone
- Identify ways to provide growth and career opportunities
- Promote self-care and well being
- Articulate vision and everyone’s role in our mission success
As a team:
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- Talk to each other about what you do that really makes a difference
- Show appreciation and thank each other
- Look for opportunities for career pathing and succession planning (as others retire, this creates vacancies). Plan, stretch, and grow.
- Identify and advocate process improvements to free up more time to focus on activities that elevate yourself, others, and/or department
- Share your ideas
- Identify ways to create the kind of engaging work environment that reignites passion and purpose for what it is we do
- Leverage free campus services and benefits: Health & Wellness programs, GROW workshops, set up a coaching session through Human Resources.
- Get outside, breathe fresh air, hug a tree, and walk (barefoot, not during winter) in grass
– Jerri Mizrahi, Boise State Human Resources Leadership, Career, and Personal Success Coach