You Haven’t Changed a Bit!

As fully vaccinated late baby boomers, my wife and I have begun slowly widening our circles and reengaging in social activities. During trips to local restaurants, we’ve heard the phrase “you haven’t changed a bit” from acquaintances we haven’t seen for at least 15 months. While this phrase is a polite lie we tell each other during uncomfortable light social banter, the underlying truth is that many of us have been deeply affected by the events of the last year.

During a sleepless night after our last excursion into the wilderness of social interaction, it dawned on me that HR executives around the world have a real challenge on their hands.

The media is filled with reports of companies that are beginning to reopen their physical office spaces and calling employees back from their home office cocoons. There is wide disparity in the preparations that have been made to accommodate return-to-work efforts—everything from “do nothing” to complete redesigns of HVAC systems for improved airflow and physical office space to accommodate distancing and more effective foot traffic flow.

In addition to redesigning physical spaces, we must also take into account how our team members’ mental states may have changed. The point to be made is that leaders and managers are likely in the midst of reexamining their own stance across a number of social issues, which may affect their post-pandemic approach and perspective. On top of that, they must spot changes in individual contributors and the teams they lead. In my experience, managers with finely tuned emotional quotients are the exception and not the norm. Many will be expecting their teams to function as they did before we went on lockdown.

To assume that a team member will be the “same” post-pandemic is reckless and irresponsible at best. COVID-19, social unrest, racial awakening, climate change, and deep political and societal polarization are all ingredients to be considered drivers of change in the human condition. All or most of the above issues have deeply impacted each of us. We’ve all changed in one way or another. Maybe your colleague has become more enlightened and his or her mind has been awakened to new ways of thinking. Alternatively, this person may have walked deeper into the darkness of a fixed, polarized mindset.

Recommendations to Move Forward

Here are several recommendations for HR executives to ensure both the physical and the mental workspace is ready for the upcoming return to work. Note that the order of operations that follows is similar to putting your own oxygen mask on first when the plane loses compression at 30,000 feet.

1. Take care of yourself. As a senior HR leader, you are undoubtedly at the forefront of numerous change initiatives within your organization. You have also been impacted by the events of the last year. Before you can give more to others, it’s important that you take care of yourself. I recommend you reconnect with a mentor or two from your past to discuss the issues that may be draining you.
2. Ensure your team is OK and equipped to serve. Once you’ve invested in yourself (put your own oxygen mask on), ensure that your direct team members have access to tools and resources to help take stock of their personal mindset and energy levels. They are going to need to be performing at peak capacity over the coming months to support leaders, managers, and individual contributors across the organization. I recommend you do two things, in addition to investing in tools and training, to prepare for a return to the office. First, ensure there is proper backup and bandwidth available, and encourage team members to use vacation days to decompress and check in with themselves. Second, employ an HR-specific coach(es) to provide additional support to the team. The addition of third-party coaches will help alleviate some of your own bandwidth issues and will certainly help your team see what will assuredly be a wide range of challenges through a different lens.
3. Provide leaders and managers at all levels with empathy, resiliency, and self-awareness tools. Like your own team, leaders and managers throughout the organization are grappling with their own change management curves. At the same time, they must engage in the difficult work of reassessing their team dynamic based on the change that is occurring within individual team members. They are also likely optimizing remote versus physical work environments, resetting goal structures, and fighting off poachers. Therefore, ensuring leaders are healthy both mentally and physically should be an organizational imperative. Similar to the coaching recommendation for your own team, I recommend investment in building an external coaching network that all managers can tap into, not just the high potentials on the senior leadership team.

Conclusion

Your most difficult job as an HR executive may be to convince senior leadership to invest in the additional resources outlined above. If you get pushback from the C-suite, all you should need to do is remind them that an organization is nothing without its people and that people represent the company’s most valuable asset.

Adopting a keen focus on the mental and physical health of teams and team members is a key ingredient to avoiding the self-inflicted organizational wounds that will come from carelessly inviting employees back to the office like nothing has happened.

“Welcome back, Sally! There’s your desk, just as you left it. You haven’t changed a bit!”

Andrew Temte, PhD, CFA, is President and Global Head of Corporate Learning at Kaplan North America. A thought leader on issues related to workforce reskilling and upskilling, he is the author of Balancing Act: Teach Coach Mentor Inspire. His 30+-year career includes teaching and executive leadership roles in both professional education and higher education institutions. An accomplished musician and leader of the rock band The Remainders, he is active in numerous fundraising events and committees in the La Crosse, Wisconsin, community.