The hybrid work model has become increasingly popular as it offers a unique blend of benefits, including increased engagement, autonomy, and collaboration. It represents a new work era where employees can choose where and when they work best, and organizations can foster a culture of trust, creativity, and productivity.
Although some employers may require a set number of days for hybrid employees to be in the office, a recent Gallup® poll shows that only 43% of employees reported having such a requirement.
Recently, Tuesday through Thursday appear to be the days that hybrid employees often choose to work in-office and are also the days that most employers require employees to work in-office.
Hybrid work has been around for a long time, but it’s evolved with new standards, challenges, and best practices. Companies are wisely exploring the best ways to balance in-office and remote work to meet the needs of their employees and the organization.
What Is Different About The Workplace Compared To Previous Years?
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the work landscape experienced a transformation, with hybrid work models emerging as a new demand for employers to figure out. Below are significant factors that influence the meaning and significance of hybrid workplaces.
Rapid-Changing Technology
The widespread adoption of cloud computing, collaboration tools, and virtual communication platforms has made remote work more accessible and efficient. This has enabled organizations to adopt hybrid work models, providing employees with increased flexibility in where they work.
Changing Employees Attitude
COVID-19 accelerated the change in employees’ perspectives on work, with many now placing greater importance on work-life balance. This shift in attitudes has led to a growing demand for hybrid work arrangements.
What people are looking for isn’t flexibility of location. It’s the flexibility of time. The pandemic has shown everybody that we’re whole humans. All this hybrid talk misses the fact that it’s not the geography, the location. It’s the flexibility of being a whole human. – Marcus Buckingham
Employees care about balancing in-person and remote because it enables them to prioritize life outside work, leading to a more well-rounded and fulfilling life.
New Management Approaches
Bridging the gap between remote and in-person teams and facilitating seamless collaboration requires different thinking, new tools, streamlined processes, and transparent communication to ensure they have the resources to manage and support a hybrid workforce effectively.
Increasing Focus on Employee Wellbeing
Exploring how to motivate employees is driven by recognizing that happy and healthy employees are more productive, engaged, and likely to stay with the organization for longer.
It’s imperative for employers to understand and facilitate hybrid work models that acknowledge individuals’ humanity. If not, leaders will retain top talent and high-potential employees.
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- Overcome the tension of pausing productivity for development opportunities
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- The evolution of human skill development
- What Automated Coaching™ is and how it works.
Applying The Hybrid Work Model
The hybrid work model blends remote and in-person work for flexibility and better work-life balance. It is designed to accommodate flexibility within two primary dimensions; time and place, or in other words, when and where.
The Time Factor (When)
The time factor in a hybrid work model transitions employees from working synchronously with others to working asynchronously whenever they choose.
The Location Factor (Where)
This component allows employees to choose where they work. The options for a work location expand outside the office, including working from home or wherever the employee sees fit.
It’s best to envision both dimensions upon a quadrant because there is room for variation in how organizations exercise these two elements.
Office-Centric: Employees are expected to work in-office the majority of the time according to a mostly fixed schedule.
Remote-Centric: WFA is the only option for all employees and during times that are best for their schedule.
Time-Friendly: Employees can mostly choose their working hours but still require most of their time to be spent in the office.
Location-Friendly: Team members can work from anywhere but generally during the same times as others on the team.
Hybrid Work Model: A truly hybrid work model exists with fluidity for teams to shift within the quadrant according to the team and individual needs. Doing so gives team members autonomy and trust while expressing expectations for remote collaboration and teamwork.
Hybrid workers view their work as a “flow.” Hybrid workers are willing to work outside traditional work hours to balance their personal needs during the day.
As you can imagine, this flexibility is especially beneficial for individuals with unique situations, parents with children, or who prefer to manage their time and responsibilities with deeper trust.
How To Determine Which Model Is Best For Your Team
There are several questions to ask to help decide how your team can start implementing or improving your hybrid work model:
Based on the Hybrid Work Model, what extremes exist within our team, and how can we move them closer toward the center?
Which areas of our organization are suited for hybrid work?
What processes and workflows are necessary to support this environment within our organization?
What tools can we implement to support efficient, timely, and collaborative communication?
What values must our leaders adopt or model to influence supportive behavior within this environment?
Organizations can ensure that their hybrid work model is effective and sustainable in the long term by prioritizing communication and collaboration and investing in the right tools and workflows.
Adapting To A Hybrid Work Model Could Help Improve Your Culture
Hybrid work offers several advantages, such as improved work-life balance, reduced burnout, higher productivity, and less commuting time.
Hybrid work environments promote a sense of ownership and accountability among employees. With the ability to work in remote and in-person settings, employees naturally experience more autonomy and trust to manage their workloads and schedules, fostering transparency and open communication.
Additionally, the increased flexibility and focus on work-life balance can result in higher employee morale and well-being, contributing to a more positive and supportive work environment. Moreover, remote work can help reduce turnover and attract new talent who value flexibility and independence.
Adapting to remote work options is one of the strategies for increasing employee engagement. When employees can choose where and when they work, they feel more in control and can tailor their schedules to meet their personal needs. For more on this, visit the post: Creating An Employee Engagement Strategy For A Human-Centered Workplace.
Who Wants To Work From Home Or At Office Or Both?
The desire for remote work or a hybrid work model varies depending on the individual and their personal preferences, work style, and job responsibilities. Some people may prefer the structure and routine of working in an office, while others may enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working from home. Others may find that the ideal solution is a hybrid model that allows them to split their time between working from home and the office.
Many companies are now finding that not all of their employees don’t want to come back to the office; their older employees don’t want to come back to the office. Younger employees actually do because, for people in their twenties in particular, the office is a source of social connection. –Jason Feifer, entrepreneur.com
The success of remote and hybrid work models has led to a greater emphasis on results-based performance rather than the number of hours spent in the office.
It could be that people don’t want to be back in an office all day, every day. Because the problem is that nobody has thought about what happens next when somebody returns to the office. People don’t want to just be in a room. Nobody cares about that. People want connection. Maybe there’s a different way to do that. –Jason Feifer, entrepreneur.com
Clearly, the workforce desires more from their work and employer; they want meaning and fulfillment. People want their life and work to matter and to flow seamlessly together as much as possible. Hybrid work models could be a way to achieve greater levels of flexibility, collaboration, and fulfillment.
Best Practices for Hybrid Work Environments
While hybrid work models offer several benefits, they also come with their own set of challenges. Hybrid employees may face difficulties accessing work resources and equipment or experience feelings of disconnection from the company’s culture and their colleagues.
Maintaining work relationships with teammates can also be more challenging for hybrid workers, affecting team dynamics and collaboration. Additionally, it can be difficult for hybrid workers to develop their careers within an organization if there is a decrease in personal and professional familiarity with their colleagues and managers.
To overcome these challenges, companies must proactively strategize to ensure that hybrid workers fully integrate into the company culture by providing resources, tools, and support to facilitate their success.
To capitalize on the benefits of hybrid work while steering clear of the potential detriments, leaders, and employees should consider the following three suggestions.
Define Work-Home Boundaries
Working remotely can lead to increased productivity, providing best practices are implemented to set up a conducive work environment to minimize distractions.
Set boundaries with family members
Block off non-negotiable times or days to work
Create a workspace conducive to productivity
Individuals can minimize distractions and maintain focus during work by defining these boundaries and communicating them when necessary. For tips, visit the post: How to Stay Happy and Productive While Working Remotely.
Prioritize Team Building
Hybrid work arrangements can lead to less in-person interaction with teammates. This limitation is potentially problematic, affecting trust and information sharing. Therefore, it is essential to incorporate team-building activities into hybrid work environments to create opportunities for employees to interact with each other, share common interests, and build camaraderie.
Here is a list of virtual ideas to help your team get started:
Coffee breaks
Designated lunch hour where remote and in-office workers can chat over lunch in break-out rooms
Trivia
Book clubs
Fitness challenges
Happy hours
Collaborative music playlists
Designated communication channels to share non-work updates or life events
With some creativity and intentionality, hybrid teams can build strong relationships and collaborate effectively, regardless of their physical location.
Practice Consistent Communication
Virtual leadership can be complex in a hybrid work model. Regular check-ins are a great way to establish a time for communication between leaders, teams, and teammates.
Establishing a cadence for check-ins within a hybrid work model should happen in several contexts that primarily include:
All-Team (think once a quarter)
Leadership Team (think once a week)
Manager and Team Member (think once a week)
Peer To Peer: (think project-based, as frequently as necessary)
Finding a cadence to ensure productivity without micromanaging is crucial to maintaining trust. Technology like Calendar Sharing, Zoom, Slack, or 15Five facilitates efficient information sharing among team members.
Conclusion
Hybrid work models are no longer a trend but a new standard in the modern work environment. As hybrid work becomes the new standard, companies must be prepared to embrace this new way of working and create a supportive and inclusive environment for their employees. Although there are many ways teams can experiment with hybrid work, organizations must understand that a successful model requires a shift in mindset and an intentional strategy.
Research suggests that a dismal 15% of employees worldwide actively engage in their place of work. This is unfortunate, as findings suggest that engagement is related to a host of beneficial outcomes, including performance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.
Over the last decade, we’ve come a long way in figuring out how to measure engagement. We’ve also made great strides in figuring out how actually to increase employee engagement. The challenge, however, lies in the execution. Organizations that do it well will experience the greatest return on their investment.
Concerning this, outlined below are several aspects of implementing a successful employee engagement strategy. You’ll also find the nuanced difference between engagement and motivation, along with evidence-based recommendations of the specific metrics and drivers of engagement to ensure you get it right with your team.
What Does Employee Engagement Mean?
The most widely-cited academic definition of engagement is a positive, fulfilling work-related state of mind characterized by three dimensions:
Vigor – high energy and mental resilience
Dedication – a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge
Absorption – being fully concentrated and deeply engrossed in one’s work.
Interestingly, organizational settings often provide a broader conceptualization for understanding engagement factors. Feeling energized at work through vigor, dedication, and absorption is one of four formative engagement indicators.
The other three are: feeling a commitment to the organization, identifying with the organization, and feeling satisfaction from their job.
With this conceptualization, engagement is not just how the employee feels while working but also their relationship with their job and organization.
This broader context helps explain why engagement surveys ask about much more than just energy at work.
SIDE-BAR: Is engagement the same thing as motivation?
Many people confuse engagement with motivation. Technically, engagement is one form of motivation, assuming that engagement leads to some change in behavior (e.g., more effort, more prosocial behavior, etc.). However, more clearly understood, motivation considers a process whereby the intensity and persistence of a targeted effort are observed.
Therefore, when organizations refer to engagement, energy, job satisfaction, organizational identity, and organizational commitment, it is a combination of factors representative of heightened motivation.
HUMAN SKILL PROGRAMS ARE HITTING LIMITATIONS...
5 THINGS THIS FREE RESOURCE WILL TEACH YOU
- Close the widening gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Overcome the tension of pausing productivity for development opportunities
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- The evolution of human skill development
- What Automated Coaching™ is and how it works.
Which Engagement Metrics Are Most Important?
When implementing engagement surveys, you need to consider two metrics: dimensions and drivers.
The first and most apparent set of metrics entails measures of the four dimensions of engagement.
The 4 Dimensions Of Engagement
Energization: the amount of inspiration, enthusiasm, and intensity an individual draws from immersing their self in their work
Commitment: the amount of care and dedication an individual feels toward the organization
Identification: the amount an individual believes their work organization aligns with their values and things they deem to be meaningful
Satisfaction: the amount of contentment and fulfillment an individual experiences as a result of their work.
This baseline for measuring engagement helps increase understanding so that you can track whether certain engagement metrics are increasing or decreasing across time.
The second set of metrics entails the predictors (also called drivers) of engagement. Or, in other words, the actual levers that are causing engagement to increase or decrease.
Across an assortment of organizations that offer employee engagement tools, their internal research suggests that some of the most critical drivers of engagement include excellent leadership, career-growth opportunities, non-toxic work environments, and collaborative teams.
11 Effective Drivers Of Engagement In The Workplace
High-Quality Leadership
Leadership & Career Development Opportunities
Meaningful Work
Work-Life Balance
Inclusion & Belonging
Healthy Work Cultures
Recognition
Feedback
Autonomy & Empowerment
Supportive Team Members
Equitable & Competitive Compensation
SIDE-BAR: Any guesses on which predictor is consistently one of the most impactful drivers of engagement? Supportive leadership.
Employees that have leaders or managers that are respectful, transparent, and supportive is the clear winner.
Additionally, a recent predictor is a significant consideration concerning an employee engagement strategy: time affluence.
Post-pandemic, employees are beginning to express that they want more than work-life balance but also tools (e.g., high-quality virtual meeting tools) and systems (e.g., work-from-anywhere or work-anytime) that facilitate employees’ ownership of when and where they’ll work.
7 Ideas To Create An Employee Engagement Plan
1. Provide a leadership development program for managers and supervisors to assist with upskilling leadership within your organization.
2. Implement opportunities for personal development in the workplace to strengthen leadership and career skills by supporting training unique to team members’ roles.
3. Provide coaching opportunities for employees to help them grow personally and professionally.
Cloverleaf serves daily Automated Coaching™ tips that help employees increase self-awareness and emotional intelligence, fostering a physiologically safe workplace and team effectiveness.
4. Offer remote work options, including the ability to work from home or other remote locations and flexible schedule options, to empower employees to manage their work and personal commitments better while still achieving their job responsibilities.
5. Facilitate open communication among employees by implementing the following strategies:
Encourage two-way communication between management and leadership and among teammates.
Practice transparency by sharing information about the organization’s goals, plans, and performance to build trust and understanding.
Encourage collaboration by creating opportunities for cross-functional teams, project-based work, or group problem-solving.
Use technology like Slack and 15Five to facilitate faster and easier communication.
Celebrate teamwork by recognizing and rewarding teams and individuals who work together, support one another, and model your organization’s values.
Work hard to clearly communicate the organization’s mission and values to employees and ensure that their work aligns with these goals.
Facilitate regular, timely, and constructive feedback.
6. Recognize and reward employees for their contributions to the organization. Use a tool like Bonusly that includes both formal and informal ways to acknowledge and appreciate team members.
7. Provide employees with equitable and competitive compensation packages aligned with their skills and experience. Regularly review and adjust compensation packages to ensure they remain competitive in the marketplace.
These characteristics of the future workplace experience represent trends changing employee expectations of their leader and teammates. Employers can prevent toxicity and promote an effective employee engagement strategy by actively implementing a plan that values teamwork and collaboration.
Critical Components For A Successful Employee Engagement Strategy
Implementing an employee engagement strategy is crucial for organizations; however, there are three key components to ensure it is effective and successful:
Surveying Employees
Interpreting The Results
Acting On Results
This process should be ongoing, focusing on identifying positive and negative contributors affecting engagement and the measurable next steps based on the results. Doing so can better ensure that the organization continuously improves its engagement strategy and fosters a human-centered workplace.
When And How To Survey Employees
Organizations typically use engagement surveys in one of three ways:
Annual Benchmarks
Ongoing Pulse
Initiative-Based
1. Annual Engagement Surveys
These surveys tend to be lengthy, in-depth, and have a mix of quantitative (e.g., 1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) and qualitative (e.g., open-ended text response) questions. These surveys give organizations a broad annual benchmark for how they’re doing.
2. Pulse Surveys
These are typically around five questions and are pushed out to participants from weekly to monthly. These shorter surveys tend to have higher participation when the questions are quantitative and straightforward.
The benefit of the pulse survey approach is that it ensures organizations know what’s happening throughout the entire year, in the moment. This allows organizations to make adjustments promptly. Tools like Officevibe can assist leaders in making this process easier.
3. Initiative-Specific Engagement Surveys
These use customized questions relevant to the initiative to ensure immediate and targeted feedback.
Organizations will inevitably change as their industry evolves or objectives are rolled out as strategies. Planning a well-timed engagement survey in coordination with this effort can help keep things on track.
How To Interpret Employee Engagement Survey Results
Analyze the data to figure out which predictors are changeable or worth changing. The goal should be to understand the most influential predictors of low engagement scores. Some engagement tools automatically conduct these analyses.
When interpreting these results, it’s best to only focus on one or a few key metrics at a time. Changing too much too quickly will make it challenging to understand what is working or not and how best to apply the findings within your employee engagement strategy.
What To Do With The Results
One of the quickest ways to see employee engagement survey participation drop is to fail to act on the results. It’s best to be transparent about the results, show how the results compare to similar organizations, and communicate a clear action plan on what they will do to improve specific metrics.
These communications tend to work best when leaders add a narrative that can help interpret the results at the organizational level. Then managers can use the results at the team level or during one-on-ones’ with direct reports.
Perhaps, one of the biggest challenges with engagement tools is that they are heavily weighted towards diagnosis but not prognosis.
Engagement tools are great at understanding what’s wrong, but they aren’t built to help organizations understand what to do about it. Typically, these solutions must be customized to address the organization’s specific context.
By understanding when and how to conduct employee engagement surveys, interpreting the results, and taking action based on those results, organizations can gain valuable insights to improve the plan continuously.
3 Common Questions and Concerns About Employee Engagement
Should we use an engagement tool service or do it ourselves?
Although engagement tools can be expensive, the key benefit is that they ensure the engagement responses are anonymous. If an organization sends out a survey to employees, the employees will inevitably assume that their responses can be tracked back to them individually.
No matter how much an organization promises that the responses will be confidential, it isn’t likely to land with employees. Relatedly, engagement tool services typically set a threshold for which there must be a certain amount of responses before data are revealed. This policy can increase employee response rates since they know they won’t be exposed if they make a qualitative comment in a survey that could be traced back to them individually.
Another critical consideration is whether the engagement tool service will allow you to view data at the individual level or not. Sometimes engagement tools only give access to the aggregated reports, which makes it hard for organizations to understand the nuances of their findings. For example, aggregated findings can hide outlier data that could be the source of a brewing issue or accidentally cover up the fact that the data distribution is bi-modal, with half the employees rating low and the other half rating high on a particular metric.
What should we do if the employee participation rate is low?
One of the most important things organizations can do is have senior leadership express why surveys are being implemented and how they will be used to make employee-friendly changes.
Also, as previously mentioned, organizational leaders must act on the data. If they don’t, employees will perceive that their participation is not worth the time.
Additionally, organizations should dial in the length and cadence of the surveys. The longer and more often, the lower the participation.
Low participation rates are problematic. Without a complete sample representation, the results might be inaccurate or directly signal that the employees are disengaged.
How are machine learning and artificial intelligence being used in engagement surveys?
Although some organizations are starting to implement sophisticated algorithms that help deliver suggestions to users of engagement tools, it’s not quite reached the threshold of being considered machine learning.
Machine learning would entail outputs from the system being automatically reintegrated into the algorithm so that it updates (i.e., “learns”) in real-time, generating better and more tarted results on the next iteration.
Along those lines, organizations should not assume technology can solve engagement issues.
The recommendation here is to take a “tech-first approach,” which recognizes that people can’t process data with the same accuracy and efficiency as machines, so using technology to be the front line that helps direct people’s attention is worthwhile. Nonetheless, people and social systems are complicated, and it takes people capable of critical thinking and intuition to ensure the direction is ideal.
Conclusion
Employee engagement is a crucial aspect that organizations cannot afford to neglect. Ignoring engagement can lead to unhappy and unproductive employees, resulting in a detrimental impact on the overall performance of the organization. But why settle for mediocre results when it’s possible to achieve greatness? By understanding the importance of employee engagement, organizations can create a roadmap for success by identifying what to measure, how to measure it, and a plan for taking action on the results.
Without a strategy to engage your team, it will probably never happen. Using a plan while measuring what is effective will help prevent guesswork and provide clarity for your team.
In short, investing in an employee engagement strategy is not a luxury but a necessity for organizations that want to achieve their full potential and stay competitive in today’s market.
You are in the comfort of your bed and having extraordinary dreams. Then your alarm clock jolts you awake. And you suddenly realize that you must go to work again. You might hit “snooze” one or ten times before finally motivating yourself out the door.
If this sounds like you, you have something in common with thousands of Americans– you dread going to work.
But there are actionable things you can start doing today to ease these feelings. Continue reading to learn how to lessen your dread and improve your job!
One of the most significant challenges remote employees face is the development of professional familiarity, which entails gaining insight into their colleagues’ work habits, strengths, values, and preferences related to their jobs. – fastcompany.com
At the heart of successful remote collaboration lies the ability to foster self-awareness and emotional intelligence within team members, which is essential for building strong connections and overcoming the social distance that can arise in displaced team environments.
This blog post will explore the importance of self-awareness and emotional intelligence in remote collaboration and strategies for engaging and motivating globally-dispersed teams.
12 Things to Do When You Dread Going to Work
If you dread going to work every day, here are twelve things you can try to mitigate your feelings.
Talk To Your Boss About Your Workload
Talking to your leader is the best step if you feel overworked or stressed. They might not be aware of your feelings and could help reduce your load or give you other assignments.
Create A Daily Routine For Yourself
When you have a daily routine, it can help ease feelings of dread. You know what to expect each day, and it becomes more predictable.
Set Goals For Yourself
Rather than feeling overwhelmed at work, try setting smaller goals that you can accomplish each day or week. This will make you feel more productive and in control.
Try To Identify The Issue
The first step is to try and identify what it is about the job you hate. Is it the people you work with? The hours? The commute? Once you know what is causing your angst, you can start taking steps to change it.
Knowing is half the battle, so start by acknowledging what makes you dread work.
Negotiation and leadership experts have long advocated for perspective-taking—attempting to understand your counterpart’s thoughts, feelings, and motives. The result is reduced social distance. – hbr.org
If employees feel disconnected, it becomes more challenging to establish trust, maintain open communication, and foster a sense of belonging, which are all crucial for effective team collaboration.
Do You Want To "Dread-Proof" Your Workplace
Download the playbook to get:
- What The Future Workplace Looks Like
- How To Activate Emotional Intelligence Within Your Team
- Factors Of Employee Motivation
- Strategies For Employee Engagement
- A Hybrid Work Model For Collaboration, Flexibility, & Fulfillment
- The Power Of Coaching In The Workplace
- How To Reduce The Impact Of Labour Turnover
Set Realistic Goals
If you’re someone who likes to achieve goals, then set some realistic ones for your job. Don’t aim to be the CEO overnight, but rather try to be the best at your current position. Not only will this give you a sense of accomplishment, but it will also show your superiors that you’re serious about your career.
Start Taking Care Of Yourself
If you’re not taking care of yourself, it will be challenging to take care of your job. Make sure to get enough sleep, eat healthy foods, and exercise. This will help reduce your stress levels and make you feel better overall.
Create A Positive Mindset
To enjoy your job, you need to have a positive mindset. Don’t focus on the negative aspects but try to find the good in them. Once you do, you might start to look forward to going.
Determine If Things Can Change
Lastly, if you’ve tried the tips above and still dread going to work, determine if things can change. Talk to your boss about getting a new position, finding a new job that’s a better fit, or see if there are any ways you can change your current situation.
Remember That No Job Is Perfect
One thing to keep in mind is that no job is perfect. You will have good days and bad days, but it’s important to remember the good ones. So, don’t dwell on your job’s bad aspects, but try to fix them. And if you can’t fix them, find ways to make them more tolerable.
Find The Positives In Your Work And Focus On Them
While it’s easy to focus on the negative aspects of your job, try to focus on the positives instead. This can be difficult but worth it in the long run. Once you start seeing the good in your work, you might enjoy it more.
Do Things You Enjoy During Your Days Off
Finally, if you want to enjoy your job more, try to do things you enjoy outside of work. This can be anything from reading, going for walks, or spending time with friends and family. Doing something you love will help reduce the stress levels caused by work.
No one should dread going to work but try the tips above if you struggle with these feelings. They can help make your job more enjoyable and less stressful.
How to Determine if It’s Time to Quit
If you’ve tried the tips above and still dread going to work, it might be time to quit your job. This isn’t a decision to be taken lightly, but it might be the best option for you if things continue to be unbearable.
To make a career change decision, ask yourself the following five questions:
Is my job causing me physical or mental health problems?
Do I dislike my job for reasons that can’t be changed?
Are there other jobs available that are a better fit for me?
Can I see myself enjoying my job if the negative aspects are fixed?
Do I have enough savings to live for six months without a job?
If you answer yes to any of these questions, it might be time to quit your job. Talk to your boss about your concerns and see if there’s a way to fix the situation. If there’s not, then it might be time to move on.
Below are some of the most important things you should consider before turning in a two weeks notice.
You Frequently Approach Work With Exhaustion Or Burnout
One of the biggest signs that it might be time to quit your job is if you frequently approach work with exhaustion or burnout. If you can’t even muster up the energy to get out of bed, then it’s definitely time to take a step back and identify the problem.
You Actively Look For Ways To Avoid Work
If you find yourself actively looking for ways to avoid work, it’s also a sign that you may need to quit. This includes browsing the internet, playing games on your phone, or taking too many breaks.
Your Job Drains All Of Your Energy
If your job drains all of your energy, more than likely, it’s not a good fit. To be productive, you need to have some energy left over at the end of the day. If your job takes everything you have, it’s time to find something else.
The Work Environment Has Become Unhealthy
If the work environment has become unhealthy, it may be time to pursue other work. This includes being constantly harassed, bullied, or feeling unsafe. If you have tried to address the situation, but it hasn’t improved, it’s time to move on.
You Hate Your Job For Seemingly No Reason
If you hate your job for no reason, it might be time to quit. This includes disliking your boss, the work itself, or the company. If these factors are causing you to dread going to work, it could be time to find something new.
You Feel Stuck
If you feel stuck in your job, it might be a good idea to end your employment. This includes feeling like you can’t advance any further or that there’s no room for growth. Moving on can be the best choice if you feel like you’re not being challenged anymore and there is no opportunity to keep growing.
You Don’t Picture Yourself There Long Term
It might be time to move on if you don’t see a future with your company. This could include seeing layoffs happening or the company going bankrupt. If you don’t see a future at your job, then it’s time to start looking for something else.
It’s Taking A Toll On Your Emotional, Mental and Physical Health
If your job is taking a toll on your physical or mental health, don’t keep working there! This includes having trouble sleeping, eating, or concentrating. If your job is causing you physical pain and mental anguish, it could be time to move on.
Everything Feels Overwhelming
If everything at work feels overwhelming, you need to understand why. This includes feeling like you can never do enough or being constantly behind. If you can’t keep up, it might be time to find something else or initiate a conversation with your leader.
You’re Only Staying For The Money
If you’re only staying for the money, you need to assess if there are additional motivations for staying. If not, it is probably best for you and your team if you start looking for new work.
You Procrastinate More Than Work
If you procrastinate more than you work, it might be time to quit. This includes spending more time on social media, browsing the internet, or playing games on your phone. If you can’t focus on your work, there’s something you dislike about it. Pursuing new opportunities may be your best option.
You Dread Going To Work
Lastly, it might be time to quit if you dread going to work. This includes feeling stressed out, anxious, or depressed. If work is the last place you want to be, you need to figure out the issues, why you feel this way, and if you have taken appropriate action to resolve these problems.
How to Find Work You Will Love
If you’re struggling to find work that you love, here are a few tips to help you out:
Figure Out What You Love
The first step is figuring out what you love. Do you love working with people? Or do you prefer being alone in a quiet space? Once you know what you love, finding work that matches your interests will be easier.
Research Careers That Match Your Interests
After you identify exciting work, it’s time to research careers that match your interests. There are many different career options, so it’s important to spend time considering your options.
Try Out Different Careers
Once you have an idea of the careers that interest you, it’s time to try them out. Many companies offer internships or job shadowing opportunities. This will allow you to see if the career is a good fit for you.
Talk to People in Your Field
Once you’ve narrowed down your list of careers, it’s time to talk to people in your field. This includes talking to friends, family members, and professionals in your chosen field. They can give you an inside look at the job and how to prepare for it.
Know Your Strengths
Your strengths are qualities that come most naturally to you. Every individual possesses strengths to different degrees, giving each person a unique strengths profile. When you know your strengths, you can improve your life and thrive.
Are you unsure what you’re strongest gifts are? Start by taking a CliftonStrengths® Assessment on Cloverleaf.
Take Action
The best way to find work that you love is by taking action. This includes applying for jobs, networking with professionals, and learning new skills. If you’re willing to put in the effort, you will find work you love.
Conclusion
Returning to the work routine after the holidays, vacations, or long weekends is hard. Feeling the “Sunday Night Scaries” can be expected. However, if you truly dread going to your job the next day and will do nearly everything not to show up or log in, it’s time to figure out why and what you’re going to do about it.
According to Work It Daily, you need to locate the source of that dread. Is it the difficult boss, conflict with teammates, low pay, or long commute? Or is it deeper, and you feel that your work does not align with your strengths or values?
Work will never be perfect. However, you can improve your work environment by building an action plan. Need a better commute? Find remote work options with your current role, or look for a new employer closer to home.
Are you struggling to see eye-to-eye with your boss or with your teammates? Cloverleaf can help you to understand one another and work through sources of conflict.
If the idea of Automated Coaching™ is new to you, or you are curious about how personality tests for employees can help you understand your individual strengths and those of your teammates, start a free trial today.
Your career is a journey, so make an effort to find meaningful, fulfilling, and enjoyable work.
When I talk about the importance of teamwork or collaboration I often refer to it as a math equation where 1+1 should equal more than 2. It’s not uncommon for 1+1 to equal 3, but for the best teams that equation could be 1+1 equals 8 or 10 or possibly even 20 and beyond.
Organizations that figure out how to promote, equip, and support this type of collaboration and teamwork could multiply this impact across hundreds or thousands of teams and the impact can be game-changing innovations and breakthroughs.
That is the growth side of the argument for investing in teamwork and collaboration. However, there is also another argument to be made for investing in team cohesion in order to minimize lows.
Yes, we all have bad days or from time to time are drowning in the work that is in front of us. Teams are a critical mechanism for helping us get back on our feet and building relational and emotional equity for when we return to full strength and can produce at a high level as individuals.
Y Combinator, the wildly successful startup accelerator, has always required startup cofounders – not solo startup founders for this very reason. It is lonely building something big and different and there are so many days of self-doubt and negative thoughts that can sabotage success unless you have an awesome co-founder that you can lean on, get different perspectives, and move past roadblocks.
My experience building Cloverleaf with Kirsten Moorefield is a testament to this critical aspect of teamwork. We have had so many lows and setbacks and times that we should have quit moving forward but we have always been there with encouragement and new thoughts just when it was needed.
When we hire new team members we talk about those moments and the important role that trust in your teammates plays in having personal and team success.
Work teams can often produce as individuals working asynchronously on cross-functional teams. There is a constant rhythm of coming together to connect, communicate, and align. Then each individual goes off and completes tasks independently according to individual strengths and skill sets.
And in short to intermediate bursts there can be high levels of productivity even when the key ingredients of high-performing teams are absent.
That’s right, in the short term people and teams can still be productive when a team has a dysfunctional culture, mistrust, and even sabotaging behaviors. But over time it is this intangible element of teamwork where people genuinely care and sacrifice for each other in a way that picks individual team members up when they are down that allows teams to thrive over the long term.
It’s the accelerant in my formula that allows 1+1 to equal 20, 50, or even 100.
Bad days and difficult challenges will happen (and if you are doing something great it will happen frequently), and teaming up with people who understand this often overlooked element of teamwork can be the rocket fuel for sustained, long-term and outsized team performance.
Facilitating a diverse workforce very important. The problem, however, is that it doesn’t always work because companies fail to facilitate inclusion. If diversity is the beautiful colored puzzle pieces, all unique and different, inclusion is when they come together to create that beautiful picture. If you really want diversity to work, you have to focus on one of the four different types of inclusion.
1. SOCIAL INCLUSION
The first type of inclusion is called social inclusion. At its core, inclusion is really about feeling socially accepted. When individuals feel like they’re left out from participating in initiatives and projects, they report lower levels of social inclusion. For better or for worse, it’s human nature for people to feel more comfortable with those that seem to be similar to them. Organizations must be proactive in counteracting these tendencies and try to orchestrate opportunities for everyone to feel socially involved. There is no “out-group” versus “in-group”. Everybody’s part of the group.
2. Relatedness Needs Fulfillment
Human beings have three underlying needs: self-determination, competence, and relatedness. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, we’ve been conditioned to seek out the satisfaction of these needs because doing so helps us survive and thrive in our work environment. In the second type of inclusion, relatedness needs fulfillment, human beings instinctively understand that they’ll have a higher likelihood of success when they work cooperatively with others. In the workplace, we need to feel as if our colleagues genuinely care about us and will support us when needed. We need to make meaningful connections, and the degree that organizations create these opportunities for colleagues to build those authentic relationships, they can reverse the negative impact of unfulfilled relatedness.
3. Belongingness
The third topic to consider is belongingness. Inclusion is more specific to the behaviors that can improve the situation, such as dismantling the in-group versus out-group mentality. Belonging, on the other hand, is more emotion-focused. It’s about making people feel like they’re a part of a community. Affective commitment is representative of belonging because it represents an emotional attachment to the organization. Affective commitment goes beyond a cost benefit analysis (which is called continuance commitment). Affective commitment entails finding a sense of meaning from being a part of the organization. There are several predictors of affective commitment, but they don’t come easy. Organizations that create supportive and fair cultures are more likely to see an emotionally attached employee. Organizations can also increase employees’ affective commitment by investing in their employees’ growth and development. Said simply, organizations that invest in people can cultivate a sense of belonging through affective commitment.
4. Organizational Identification
The fourth topic of interest is organizational identification. This is another belonging-related concept that entails the extent to which employees self-identify with their organization’s, values, mission, and brand. When employees see themselves as stewards of the organization’s purpose, they’re more likely to exhibit proactive performance and citizenship behaviors. But when employees don’t identify, these pro-social behaviors are much less likely. Organizations seeking to connect their employees to the company culture should not only focus on pinpointing and articulating their values and goals, but they should also be attracting and recruiting employees who align with these values and goals. In effect, organizational identification is about finding the right people on deep level characteristics, not just checking the box in terms of demographics and skills.
Most of the time we talk about surface-level diversity. We need to shift our focus to also include deep-level diversity. There’s an important difference. Deep level diversity is about our psychographics. It’s who we are as people. It’s about our personality, values, strengths – all of those important phenomena that are beneath the surface. Organizations must pay attention to demographics to ensure that they have surface-level diversity. But it is also critical to start highlighting the unique qualities of our colleagues from a deep-level diversity perspective. These differences really matter. People get to know each other better as colleagues and contributors, which in turn, facilitates an inclusive workplace.
So what can we do about increasing and building an inclusive culture? One of the most common inclusion initiatives is through cognitive bias training. This training is helpful and can move the needle to some degree, but actually, it’s not quite enough. Cognitive biases are innate and deeply rooted. To overcome this challenge, organizations really need to focus on mechanisms that regularly and repeatedly reinforce inclusion over long periods of time and at the right time. One-and-done approaches are subject to what we would call cognitive overload. It’s too much information to embrace and put into practice. Organizations should consider supplementing their cognitive bias training with what we call micro-nudges: smaller, specific, aptly timed interventions across a long period of time.
Check out Cloverleaf to see if we can help you with this micro-nudge approach to help make real change on feelings of inclusion. In our view, diversity without inclusion is worthless. Diversity is a starting point. Inclusion is the ultimate goal. You really need to focus on ensuring that you understand these different types of inclusion, as well as the micro-nudge approach, to build upon existing initiatives such as training, assessments, and team-building initiatives. Doing so will make sure that everybody knows each other from at a deeper level so they can work better together and understand who they are as people.
Steve Jobs was the ultimate proponent of job fit.
He’s quoted as saying, “I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
While you might not have the same amount of clout or discretion as the late Steve Jobs, the underlying message is clear. You should regularly take stock of your job and ask yourself—is this really what I want?
Over the last six months, organizations have made all sorts of changes, ranging from compensation reductions, work-from-home policies, and strategic reinventions. These organization-level adjustments will undoubtedly trickle-down to your day-to-day lives at work and at home. The time is right for a job fit reevaluation.
An important first step, however, is acknowledging that work is a multi-faceted creature. To decide the proper next steps, you need a nuanced assessment of your situation. It’s only then that you can properly plan out the next steps.
Continue reading for considerations and recommendations for the most popular dimensions of job-related fit.
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This guide contains:
- A comprehensive list of the assessments that Cloverleaf offers
- Summary of each assessment and what insights you get
- Anticipated time commitments for each assessment
