Today's post comes to us from Workforce Institute board member China Gorman, who writes and thinks about the challenges of building cultures of strong employee engagement for top performance and innovation. China was formerly CEO of the Great Place to Work Institute, and COO of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Today, many people are dealing with grief over the loss of a loved one. Whether from the pandemic, or any of the host of other causes that are seeming to hypertrophy because of the pandemic, our friends, neighbors, and co-workers are experiencing the loss of loved ones more frequently than usual. As friends and neighbors, we know what to do. We offer food, drop-in visits, babysitting - and every other thing we can think of to support our friends.

But what about our employees? Our co-workers? Is it appropriate to reach out in sympathy? What if we say the wrong thing? What if they cry at work? What if their productivity suffers? What if they are more frequently absent?

Leaders all over the world struggle with organizational responses to personal tragedies. Here's what one leader I know did.

A couple of years ago, after a very brief illness, a friend's husband of 35 years suddenly passed away. He was young, vibrant, and they had many years ahead of them. It was shocking in the extreme. At the time she was a consultant and had long-standing contracts with several organizations. She didn't have one employer, she had four. And of course, all were appropriately sympathetic and caring in the immediate days following his passing. One CEO, however, was an inspiring example for how to handle the personal tragedy of a team member.

He lived in Europe and she in the U.S., so they couldn't see each other in person. But for the first month or so she heard from him EVERY DAY. It might have been a Facebook Messenger message, or a Skype message, or an internal system message. But he reached out every day. He didn't expect a response and she rarely sent one. He just wanted her to know in real-time that he and the team were thinking of her. Words cannot express what that meant to her. In time, the messages became less frequent, but for six months she got a caring and supportive message from him at least once a week.

In my experience, this is a unique example of the power of personal and organizational values in action. During these difficult times for all employers and employees around the world, we could use more of these examples of what I'm starting to call “Organizational Grace”.

The challenge is that organizations are what they are: organized. But there should be some groundwork done so that the organization is prepared for the unthinkable. And it could be as simple as a boss reaching out regularly in a human way to a grieving employee. The power of a human touch (virtual or actual) cannot be under-valued.

Most organizations have bereavement policies that provide a few days off with pay to deal with the death of a family member. And I suspect that most organizations are probably not counting those days too closely right now. But days off to handle the logistics of the passing of a family member, while critical, don't begin to provide the “grace” part of an organization's potential support.

A standing, rotating committee to jump in and support an affected team member is a start. We generally assign “buddies” to new employees for a period of months. Why not make a similar commitment to our colleagues who have lost a spouse or other family member? These volunteers would agree to reach out regularly, offer personal support, and generally put an arm around the affected employee for as long as it is needed. This support could be on-site - if you're working on location - or virtual if you're working from home. A touch is a touch. Humanity is powerful - and we're all learning that in 2020.

The difference between asking “what can I do?” and showing up with a bucket of chicken and a salad is huge. While comfort may be taken from “what can I do?”, real solace is provided when listening for areas of need and then providing the answers. A friend with small children who lost her husband couldn't ever respond to “let me know if I can do anything to help.” She wept with gratitude, however, when a colleague showed up with movie passes to take her kids to the movies while she went to get her hair cut and her nails done - courtesy of her employer.

Identifying the human need and answering it is true grace. And it is heartwarming to know in these challenging days that many organizations are becoming more human in their connections to their employees, and more graceful in their interactions.

Grace Committees, consistent touches, do - don't ask, are the building blocks of contemporary, human organizational responses to personal, employee tragedy. Don't underestimate their power.

Today's post, the final in a 3-part series, comes to us from Workforce Institute board member and HR Bartender Sharlyn Lauby. Here Sharlyn shares her insights about what it takes to create a trusting company culture.

Trust is important. Customers want to trust the businesses from whom they purchase products and services. Employees want to trust the companies where they work. Trust is the top driver of employee engagement. And companies with employee engagement strategies outperform those without by 3 times, according to O.C.Tanner.

But gaining trust isn't easy. The latest reporting from the Edelman Trust Barometer indicates that globally, 75 percent of people trust “my employer” to do what is right. This is significantly more than non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at 57 percent, business (56 percent) and media (47 percent).

So, businesses have some work to do when it comes to building cultures of trust. In this series, we've talked about the “5 Essential Currencies to Your Company's Employee Value Proposition” because employees need to trust that they will receive the currencies (aka employee value proposition or EVP) that they've been promised.

We've also talked about the “4 Steps Toward Building a Recruiting Process that Creates Employee Trust” because the recruiting process is where trust is initially built between employees and companies. It takes place during interviews, orientation, and onboarding.  

During KronosWorks 2018, Malysa O'Connor, senior director of marketing at Kronos, talked about the four qualities that are necessary to build a trusting workplace culture (note that these four things aren't just qualities needed at an organizational level. Employee-to-employee trust is just as important as manager- to-employee trust):

  1. Capability. Organizations and individuals need to have the ability to deliver on their promises. Does the company have the ability to give employees what they promise in the EVP? Employees also need to have both the responsibility and the authority to deliver on their promises as well.
  2. Transparency. Are employees and the company honest about their capabilities? This isn't designed to be a cop-out as in, “Oh me, I'd love to do that but the company won't let me.” Rather, that employees and companies need to be open about what they're able to do. \
  3. Alignment. This is about values. Does the organization have care and respect as a value? Employees should demonstrate care and respect in their interactions with customers and each other. And employees should hold themselves and others accountable for these organizational values.
  4. Past behavior. Ultimately, trust is built on what we say and what we do. We can talk about trust all day long, but we also have to live the qualities of capability, transparency, and alignment. People will look at past behaviors to determine if a person (or organization) is trustworthy.

Trust is essential in today's business world. This isn't just the latest trend du jour. It's also not a generational thing. Every age group wants work with dependable people and in a place they can trust. Companies that focus on building trusting cultures will win the talent wars and the customer wars too.

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