员工期望正在改变。雇主需要注意。

员工期望正在改变。雇主需要注意。
大多数工人从事的是复杂、互联和基于知识的工作。彼得·德鲁克预言，在20世纪50年代，这种用头脑而不是肌肉完成的工作的兴起，现在这已经变成了强调工作，不仅需要知识，还需要适应能力。这种工作场所转型已经深深地影响了员工的期望，因为从软件开发人员到 CTO，从客户支持助理到销售经理，现在每个角色都需要更大的心理资源和软技能。
大多数大学在商业领导力研究生课程之前，不会明确教授学生情感或社交智能技能，因此员工必须寻找唯一可以获得这些技能的地方：在工作上。毫不奇怪，当他们在那里找不到技能培训时，员工会在其他地方寻找一个角色，让他们能够保持竞争力和满足。
技能发展解决了做好工作的问题，但这个问题绝不是现代劳动力面临的唯一问题。员工应于数小时后和周末回复电子邮件，并可拨打早晚电话，尤其是在他们的团队和业务全球化时。低级员工经常被要求制定符合雇主不断变化的需求的时间表，这意味着他们必须”立即”“就叫”。大多数员工认为一贯的例行公事是一种奢侈。这些要求导致员工期望得到雇主的工作与生活平衡支持，如在家工作、现场日托、帮助偿还学生贷款、获得心理健康咨询以及鼓励健康和健康。
随着现代工作场所变得越来越复杂，并深深依赖于人网络，雇主必须培养一支才华横溢、敬业的员工队伍。这意味着，不仅为员工增加了风险，还提高了员工的赌注。雇主在努力寻找和留住优秀人才时也会感到转变。根据《2018年Compdata调查与咨询2018年营业额报告》，自2013年以来，美国就业更替率以年之长增长，在过去五年中增长了近23%。但流动只是人才问题的一部分;另一种是寻找具有适当技能的工人。
Korn Ferry最近的一份报告显示，到2030年，全球人才短缺可能导致GDP损失，而德国和日本的经济规模加起来。不难看出，雇主和员工之间可能会谈论这些问题：雇主感到没有合适的人来工作，而员工则要求发展机会、有意义的工作和他们信任的领导才能。
2017年，德勤的年度全球人力资本趋势调查显示，与上一年以来，德勤提高参与度和文化问题的平均能力下降了14%。这可能是为什么许多公司难以利用员工来推动他们的业务：敬业的工人对他们的工作和公司有情感上的承诺。当他们看到问题时，他们会主动修复它。他们熬夜，以确保交付成果是及时的。他们尽其所能确保客户满意，因为他们认为自己是公司的延伸。
但根据2018年盖洛普民意测验，只有34%的劳动力会把自己归为”敬业”。这是一个令人沮丧的情况，特别是考虑到13%的员工认为自己”主动脱离”。经济学家们对为什么生产率增长如此急速放缓，尽管技术普遍进步。经济学家们对此十分关注。但这些指标告诉我们的一个总体情况是这样的：员工希望获得的工作经历类型与实际拥有的经验之间仍有很大差距。当这么小比例的劳动力从事他们的工作时，生产力正在遭受损失，这应该不足为奇。
德勤2017年《全球人力资本趋势》报告的结论是，员工经验是所有人力资源趋势的核心主题。麦肯锡也认识到这个问题的重要性，并表明他们正在投入大量资源来解决这个问题。但是，这两家全球咨询公司采取的方法就大不相同了。
在德勤的报告中，专家们指出了技术（摩尔定律）与人类生产力增长之间的鸿沟。他们的结论是，人类必须学会更快地改变。他们宣称，为了让企业保持竞争力，我们必须采用更好的人力资本战略，推动人类像我们生产的计算机芯片一样具有生产力。虽然德勤的专家清楚地注意到，员工要求更好的工作经验，但他们要求员工做更多工作，似乎与更高的员工敬业度分数相左。他们描述了为员工创造更好工作经验的整体因素，但他们提供的解决方案几乎都是基于技术的修复。虽然人力资本战略对成功的企业至关重要，但我们必须摆脱这样一种观念，即人类生产力的增长应该走与技术相同的道路。
令人耳目一新的是，麦肯锡以人为中心的方法使人们与目标保持一致;这是朝着正确方向迈出的一步。麦肯锡专家建议将商业文化与目的感和归属感保持一致，并指出，这一战略对员工体验至关重要（而且它也有积极的底线影响）。越来越多的，我们似乎正在意识到这样一个真理：如果我们以符合人类需求的方式调整我们的工作环境，工人们就会感到投入。更妙的是，这些解决方案与公司的底线并不冲突。它们只需要通过不同的镜头进行查找。
应用程序经常被提出来作为创造更好的公司文化或更多员工参与的解决方案。技术在解决公司文化问题上绝对有一席之地，但它的能力是有限的。例如，Slack可以是一个很好的工具，可以帮助团队更有效地沟通，但如果团队领导在定义角色方面做得很差，或者如果一个成员在兔子洞里做着完全不在范围内的事情，它就不能对提高生产力起到任何作用。绩效管理工具和流程是至关重要的，但如果管理者在绩效考核中只关注员工过去六个月的工作细节，而对员工未来在公司的成长只字不提，那么这些工具和流程就显得不重要了。
健身房会员制和学费报销可以是很棒的福利，但它们就像蛋糕上的糖衣，而不是蛋糕本身。如果你的日常工作环境让人感觉像在穿越地雷，因为不允许犯错，或者因为奖励激励措施让团队成员相互对立，那么健身会籍对提高员工的参与度并没有多大帮助。
所有这些都是说，技术在提高工作效率、允许更好的沟通流动以及以人类无法做到的方式理解数据方面确实有一定的作用。但是，技术无法填补员工和他们的领导者需要学习的软技能的空白，如果他们想成功驾驭第四次工业革命的话。
从另一个角度来看，让我们来探讨一下根据盖洛普的一项调查发现，经理人占了员工敬业度分数的70%的差异。为了理解这种巨大的影响，我们需要承认，我们的大脑被敏感地连接起来，以注意到社会威胁并建立彼此之间的联系。这种感知威胁和寻求回报的能力被描述为大脑的基本组织原则，研究表明，这些社会威胁的感知方式与物理威胁相同。例如，在工作场所被排挤，在大脑中引起的反应与饥饿相同。鉴于此，我们的大脑首先将工作场所体验为一个社会系统，而不是纯粹的经济交易，这是有道理的。如果一个员工被分配到一个似乎与他们的技能不相称的任务，或者被训斥，他们可能会感到被背叛或不被认可，然后限制他们的参与程度。
当然，管理者通常不会有意让员工感到威胁，但大多数人并不知道这种情况是多么容易发生。请考虑以下场景。你来到一个工作场合，你的目标是与在场的高层领导进行交流，因为你已经盯着升职好几个月了。你走到一位同事身边，与公司的CEO进行友好的交谈。当你走上前时，他们停止了谈话，你感觉到一种不舒服和尴尬的气氛。首席执行官几乎没有与你进行眼神交流，很快就走开了。作为回应，你的身体会自动释放出一连串的压力荷尔蒙，这可能会让你的胸口感到紧绷或胃痛。在情绪上，你可能会感到羞愧、尴尬或愤怒。你可以用你的前额叶皮层–你大脑中有意识、有思想的部分–来抚慰你大脑的自动假设，即你是他们被忽悠的原因。但这种互动会给你未来与CEO的关系带来色彩，如果CEO没有情商去理解这种情况对你的影响，很可能会在很长一段时间内影响你与他们的关系。
像我上面所说的情况，是创造公司文化、建立或撕毁员工参与度的原因。领导者有独特的力量来塑造和改变公司的文化，因为我们头脑中的这个基本组织原理。任何比你地位高的人都会在你的大脑中占有优先权 因此，威胁反应可以从一些看似温和的事情中引起，比如从经理那里得到指示或建议。作为一个有效的领导者的工作，意味着要懂得如何以一种不会不断破坏自己努力的方式来培养人类。从本质上讲，公司领导需要的是一张可以遵循的地图。
人不是天生的领导者，必须培养成领导者。同样，公司也不会自发地产生一种确保创造力、敏捷性和参与度的文化。它需要技术，意识和关注。
在这张图上，有意思。领导者必须审视自己的框架，并且必须能够教导其他人都这样做。我会给你一个提示，告诉你如何在任何情况下获得更深的感觉。挑战你的假设。我们在这个世界上的经验是由我们的大脑高度编辑的，因为每天处理我们感知到的所有东西会太累了。这种模式识别能力使我们在数万年的时间里得以生存，因为我们学会了如何注意到掠食者的移动。
Employee expectations are changing. Employers need to pay attention.
Most workers are engaged in complex, interconnected and knowledge-based work. Peter Drucker predicted the rise of this kind of work done with minds rather than muscles in the 1950s, but now this has become an emphasis on work that requires not only knowledge, but also adaptability. This workplace transformation has profoundly affected employee expectations as each role, from software developer to CTO, customer support assistant to sales manager, now requires greater mental resources and soft skills.
Most universities don’t explicitly teach students emotional or social intelligence skills prior to graduate business leadership programs, so employees must look for the only place they can acquire these skills: on the job. Not surprisingly, when they can’t find skills training there, employees look elsewhere for a role that allows them to stay competitive and satisfied.
Skills development solves the problem of doing a good job, but it’s by no means the only problem facing the modern workforce. Employees are expected to respond to emails after hours and on weekends and can make morning and evening calls, especially as their teams and businesses become global. Lower-level employees are often asked to create schedules that meet the changing needs of their employers, which means they must be “on call” and “on the clock”. Most employees perceive consistent routines as a luxury. These demands lead employees to expect work-life balance support from their employer, such as working from home, on-site daycare, help with student loan repayment, access to mental health counseling, and encouragement of health and wellness.
As the modern workplace becomes more complex and deeply dependent on networks of people, employers must develop a talented and dedicated workforce. This means not only increasing the risk for employees, but also raising the stakes. Employers are also feeling the shift as they struggle to find and retain top talent. According to the Compdata Survey & Consulting 2018 Turnover Report, U.S. employment turnover has grown at an annual rate since 2013, increasing by nearly 23% over the past five years. But turnover is only part of the talent problem; the other is finding workers with the right skills.
A recent report by Korn Ferry shows that a global talent shortage could lead to a loss of GDP by 2030, and the size of the German and Japanese economies combined. It’s not hard to see how these issues might be talked about between employers and employees: employers who feel they don’t have the right people to work with, and employees who demand development opportunities, meaningful work and leadership they trust.
In 2017, Deloitte’s annual Global Human Capital Trends Survey showed a 14% decrease in the average ability to raise engagement and cultural issues compared to the previous year. This may be why many companies struggle to leverage their employees to drive their business: dedicated workers are emotionally committed to their work and their company. When they see a problem, they take the initiative to fix it. They stay up late to make sure the deliverables are timely. They do everything they can to make sure their customers are happy because they consider themselves an extension of the company.
But according to a 2018 Gallup poll, only 34% of the workforce would classify themselves as “dedicated.” That’s a depressing situation, especially considering that 13 percent of employees consider themselves “actively disengaged.” Economists wonder why productivity growth has slowed so sharply, despite widespread technological advances. Economists are very concerned about this. But the overall picture these indicators tell us is this: there is still a big gap between the type of work experience employees want and the experience they actually have. It should come as no surprise that productivity is suffering when such a small percentage of the workforce is engaged in their jobs.
Deloitte’s 2017 Global Human Capital Trends report concludes that employee experience is a central theme of all HR trends. McKinsey also recognizes the importance of this issue and has shown that they are devoting significant resources to addressing it. However, the two global consulting firms are taking very different approaches.
In Deloitte’s report, the experts point out the gulf between technology (Moore’s Law) and human productivity growth. They conclude that humans must learn to change faster. They claim that in order for businesses to remain competitive, we must adopt better human capital strategies that push humans to be as productive as the computer chips we produce. While Deloitte’s experts clearly note that employees demand better work experience, they ask employees to do more work, seemingly at odds with higher employee dedication scores. They describe the overall factors that create a better work experience for employees, but the solutions they offer are almost always based on technology fixes. While human capital strategies are critical to successful businesses, we must move away from the notion that human productivity growth should follow the same path as technology.
Refreshingly, McKinsey’s people-centric approach keeps people aligned with their goals; it’s a step in the right direction. McKinsey experts recommend aligning business culture with a sense of purpose and belonging, noting that this strategy is critical to the employee experience (and it has a positive bottom-line impact as well). Increasingly, we seem to be realizing the truth that if we align our work environments in ways that align with human needs, workers will feel engaged. Better yet, these solutions don’t conflict with a company’s bottom line. They simply need to be looked at through a different lens.
Apps are often presented as a solution to creating a better company culture or more engaged employees. Technology definitely has a place in solving company culture problems, but it is limited in its ability to do so. For example, Slack can be a great tool to help teams communicate more effectively, but it won’t do anything to improve productivity if the team leader does a poor job of defining roles, or if a member is down a rabbit hole doing something completely out of scope. Performance management tools and processes are critical, but they’re not important if a manager’s performance appraisal focuses on the details of an employee’s past six months of work and says nothing about their future growth in the company.
Gym memberships and tuition reimbursement can be great perks, but they’re like the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. Gym memberships don’t do much to improve employee engagement if your daily work environment feels like you’re walking through a land mine because mistakes aren’t allowed, or because incentives pit team members against each other.
All of this is to say that technology does have a role to play in increasing productivity, allowing for better communication flow, and understanding data in a way that humans cannot. But technology can’t fill the gaps in the soft skills that employees and their leaders need to learn if they’re going to successfully navigate the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
From another perspective, let’s explore the discrepancy in managers accounting for 70% of employee dedication scores according to a Gallup survey. To understand this dramatic impact, we need to acknowledge that our brains are sensitively wired to notice social threats and make connections between them. This ability to perceive threats and seek rewards has been described as a fundamental organizing principle of the brain, and research has shown that these social threats are perceived in the same way as physical threats. For example, being ostracized in the workplace elicits the same response in the brain as hunger. Given this, it makes sense that our brains experience the workplace as a social system in the first place, rather than as a purely economic transaction. If an employee is assigned a task that seems disproportionate to their skills, or reprimanded, they may feel betrayed or unrecognized, and then limit their level of engagement.
Of course, managers don’t usually intend for employees to feel threatened, but most people don’t realize how easily this can happen. Consider the following scenario. You arrive at a workplace where your goal is to engage with the senior leaders in the room because you’ve been staring at a promotion for months. You walk up to a co-worker and have a friendly conversation with the CEO of the company. As you walk up to them, they stop talking and you sense an uncomfortable and awkward vibe. The CEO barely makes eye contact with you and quickly walks away. In response, your body automatically releases a cascade of stress hormones, which may cause your chest to feel tight or your stomach to hurt. Emotionally, you may feel shame, embarrassment or anger. You can use your prefrontal cortex - the conscious, thinking part of your brain - to soothe your brain’s automatic assumption that you’re the reason they’re being blindsided. But this interaction will color your future relationship with the CEO, and if the CEO doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to understand how this situation affects you, it will likely affect your relationship with them for a long time.
Situations like the one I described above are what create company culture and build or tear down employee engagement. Leaders have the unique power to shape and change the culture of their company because of this basic organizing principle in our heads. Anyone in a higher position than you will take precedence in your head Therefore, threat reactions can be elicited from something seemingly mild, like getting instructions or advice from a manager. Working as an effective leader means knowing how to nurture human beings in a way that doesn’t constantly sabotage your efforts. Essentially, what a company leader needs is a map to follow.
Humans are not born leaders, they must be nurtured into them. Likewise, companies do not spontaneously produce a culture that ensures creativity, agility and engagement. It requires skill, awareness and attention.
On this map, interesting. Leaders must look at their own framework and must be able to teach others to do the same. I’ll give you a tip on how to get a deeper sense of what you’re doing in any situation. Challenge your assumptions. Our experience in the world is highly edited by our brains because processing everything we perceive on a daily basis would be too exhausting. This ability to recognize patterns has allowed us to survive for tens of thousands of years because we learned how to notice the movement of predators.