Building a Culture of Sustainable Engagement
Productivity. Time management. Work-life balance. No matter what you call it, having control over your own calendar is good for both individuals and companies.
The World Happiness Report, which analyzes happiness and its causes around the world, found that work-life balance is by far “the strongest workplace driver of an individual’s subjective wellbeing.”
Employees who feel a sense of balance are not only more engaged and productive at work, they also take fewer sick days and are less likely to burn out or leave. For employers, losing good talent is costly. Research shows that on average, replacing an employee costs 21% of their annual salary.
So what can you as a leader do to make sure the members of your team stay engaged and consistently show up at their best? I sat down with Sabrina Clark, managing principal at SYPartners, to learn how the company made sustainable engagement a cornerstone of its culture.
Why sustainable engagement?
SYPartners is dedicated to helping leaders transform their company culture, but being in a fast-paced industry and working alongside other high-achievers puts a lot of pressure on its team. “We have ‘greatness’ on our door,” Clark explains. “Being in service-oriented company means you tend to be driven by your clients’ demands and expectations.”
This, coupled with the fact that technology allows people to work anytime (or all the time), meant SYPartners had to be proactive about establishing its perspective on work-life balance.
“We did a lot of research, looking at the best practices of other organizations, talking to our own people, and looking at the science,” says Clark. “Professional athletes, for example, stagger their workouts for the best outcome: periods of intensity are followed by periods of rest to allow the body to recover.”
Instead of focusing on productivity (trying to pack as much as possible into the workday), SYPartners aimed for sustainable engagement. When people feel engaged in their work in a way that can be sustained over time, they share a commitment to the company’s values and goals, actively seek ways to help their team succeed, approach challenges with more passion and creativity, and help drive business and innovation forward.
Valuing the whole human
A Hay Group study shows that more than 25% of employees whose jobs lacked work-life balance planned to leave within two years. The message is clear: To retain their best talent, companies need to value employees as whole people. That means respecting the things that make people feel complete, whether it’s their family, their pet rabbit, or their vintage motorcycle.
When it came to teasing out what individuals valued beyond work, SYPartners looked for creative ways to group people instead of relying on traditional metrics of age or having children. “People need different things,” Clark says. “You might assume that as human beings we all need X, Y, and Z, but when it comes to what keeps people engaged over a sustained period of time, it just depends.
“People’s tolerance levels are different, what stage of life they’re in, what they’re looking for in their work versus other aspects of their life — all of those things contribute to what they need to be successful.” Instead of establishing a policy that would work for some and not others, the company wanted to let people decide for themselves what they need to thrive in all areas of their life.
What does it look like?
As a leader, how do you empower individuals to take control of their own time? At SYPartners, this involves three elements: First, teams dedicate time to plan and set priorities together, while individuals take stock of their own goals and personal commitments for the week.
Next, people set aside “Open Time” to devote to their work and goals. Leaders avoid scheduling meetings during these blocks, while team members decide where, when, and how they work, collaborating with others as needed.
Finally, creating a shared language for talking about personal time means individuals feel less pressure to have to justify their personal commitments. Whether someone is training for a marathon, picking up their kids, or observing a religious holiday, in a culture of mutual respect, personal time (or “Golden Time” as it’s called at SYPartners) is sacred, no matter what it’s for.
Where do you start?
Building a culture of sustainable engagement is hard. “This can be a really sensitive topic for people who are caught in cycle of work they can’t see a way out of,” says Clark. “When this rolled out at SYPartners, some people were instantly able to adapt, while others didn’t really believe that they really could put in certain controls.”
If you’re struggling with this challenge as a leader, these strategies can help:
Model, and talk about it.
“Leaders can talk the talk but they really have to model the behaviors that make sense for them and encourage others to behave in a way that makes sense for those people.” The leader’s behavior shapes the team’s: If a leader answers emails in the wee hours of the night without explanation, that will become the implicit expectation for everyone. Instead, Clark says, “We need to make sure we’re really communicating with our team about what works best for the individual and what works best for the collective.
“I should feel fine about sending an email at night — I’ve just spent time with my kids and had dinner and now I’m logging back on. This is fine for me, but I have to make sure that I’m explaining to my team that that’s not what I’m expecting from them. Together as a team, we can create a rhythm that works.”
Bring the outside in.
Show your team that their unique qualities are truly valued. “We try to encourage people to bring the outside in so we can celebrate all the things that make them who they are,” Clark explains.
At SYPartners, this means having an open-host policy of welcoming outside groups in to use the space, and at company-wide meetings, spotlighting people who have interests or talents others may not know about.
Rethink face time.
There are still benefits to in-person meetings, and some workers have responsibilities that require their physical presence, but for many, technology has makes it possible to do more work outside of the office.
Keep in mind that it’s important to be clear about what’s changing and why. Some companies that have implemented limitless vacation policies have found that their workers actually end up taking fewer vacation days because they’re afraid of being stigmatized. Merely allowing people to work more flexibly isn’t enough; clearly articulating reasons and applauding those who adopt the practice is what changes people’s patterns over time.
Embrace nuance.
Every Thursday afternoon, employees at SYPartners grab a glass of wine and toast the victories of the past week. This event used to be called “Blood, Sweat, and Cheers,” Clark explained. “We were celebrating teams or humans that went above and beyond to deliver something — heroic acts, people who stayed up all night, working five days straight. Then we realized this was completely counter to the whole idea of sustainable engagement.”
To shift the focus of this weekly happy hour, the company held a competition to rename it. It’s now called “UnWined,” and while it still celebrates greatness, more of an emphasis is placed on teams that are efficient with their time while still delivering great work. Behaviors evolve over time, and embracing subtleties and nuances in tone helps foster sustainable engagement in all pockets of company life.
Share with your clients.
Even if you’re part of a service-oriented industry, remember that your clients are humans too and may be struggling with the same issues. Sharing your strategies with them can help establish a more productive partnership. They want you to show up at your best, and you want them to as well. Clark suggests, “If you’re trying not to take meetings on Monday and Friday, don’t offer up Monday and Friday. It’s simple things like instead of asking, ‘When are you free?’ suggest a few concrete times.
“I think about the journey that we’re on in phases,” says Clark. “We’ve moved the needle a lot in terms of raising people’s awareness that this is a conversation you can really have internally. The next step is realizing it’s a conversation you can also start to have externally.”
This article was originally published on Leadfully.com