by Ilze Lansdell-Zandvoort
Many leaders are currently grappling with encouraging office attendance vs maintaining engagement, says Ilze Lansdell-Zandvoort – but pushing too far one way could cause problems
Creating a ‘burning platform’ is often seen as a good way to motivate people to change their workplace behaviour. Dramatic actions and announcements can shake up an organisation and push employees to act quickly. However, how people react can vary greatly, and leaders don’t always get the response they are expecting when they strike the match.
Consider, for example, the current dilemma faced by leaders striving to integrate the demand for flexible and remote working practices with a desire for staff to return to the office to boost performance The list of big-name employers issuing RTO mandates is growing daily, as is the equally fervent backlash from employees who are loath to lose the fluidity and freedom that hybrid working brings.
Leaders often communicate a call for action from their top-down perspective; ie, positioning the why and the what from an organisational and often fiscal standpoint. This is not a criticism; those at the top of the organisation are often in the privileged position to see more clearly what is going on within a wider context, noticing external and internal trends that harbour threats and opportunities for the business. However, leaders who fail to recognise that employees will make sense of the call to action by first and foremost asking themselves ‘what’s in it for me?’ are often left exposed to some of the unintended consequences of their well-intended directives.
Employees who are unable to reconcile themselves mentally and emotionally to the benefits of the change will check out either physically or psychologically from work. Talented and able employees may jump ship completely, while those unable to cut and run might become demotivated and potentially slow down or sabotage the change. Both outcomes will likely impact the key performance metrics that leaders regard as essential for lasting success.
Does this mean leaders should not require bold changes from their employees when they sense a need for urgency? Not at all. It does, however, mean that leaders need to plan their communication process specifically with the intention of capturing the heads and hearts of their talented employees as they embark on the change journey. This requires leaders to know exactly which people are key to success, and to put themselves into the shoes of these employees to really understand what the change will mean for them, before lighting the fire.
Once you know who to engage, the next step in connecting with people during contentious change is to ensure individuals are able to reframe the benefits as real and relevant to them personally, not only to the organisation. For example, in the current market, mandating employees to commute daily will have a knock-on effect on how they have structured their lives around previous remote working policies, which were often brought in during the Covid pandemic. If employees cannot see the benefit to them personally of travelling into an office, they will not be able to commit wholeheartedly to their job. This doesn’t mean they should be labelled as resisting the change and subtly performance managed out of the organisation – what it does signal is the need for a new change management process.
Leaders need to anticipate and plan a sense-making process that will uncover a range of expressed and hidden emotions, as part of the reframing journey. Failing to safely uncover and process the negative emotions triggered by a change process is likely to impact both the individual and the organisation. Employees may feel the psychological contract they have with their employer has been broken, making them less loyal and less willing to give that extra mile of discretionary effort. Organisations in turn may experience a pervasive culture of negativity, low morale and fear, which will erode performance over time.
It requires effort from both leaders and followers to tackle change rooted in dilemmas that are viewed from different perspectives – the return-to-work topic currently making headlines being a case in point.
To lead change effectively, senior executives need to balance self awareness with situational awareness. How leaders see employees, for example, will affect how they plan and carry out changes. Treating employees as replaceable commodities is only useful when it truly applies. When employees have real value, it’s essential to have a change process that considers both the organisation’s and the employees’ needs.
This can be hard for many leaders who work under extreme pressure and don’t necessarily have the resilience to balance business needs with caring for people. This is where trusted employees can play an important role – helping leaders navigate the way they instigate and manage change under pressure. This calls for courage, often from employees with more to lose than most, to speak up when they fear a burning platform might turn into a raging inferno or an ash heap. Planning for complex change happens in conversation with others who think and feel differently and requires leaders to be curious, capable of communicating boundaries, and open to hearing and delivering difficult truths.
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