In my last blog I talked about the formation of ‘in groups’ and ‘out groups’ as one of the emotional legacies organisations will need to address as they come out of lockdown.
As companies start to think about how to reset, remobilise and reimagine their organisation for future success it is clear that one of the key ‘in group/out group’ issues they will need to resolve is the significantly different experiences between employees who have been furloughed and those who have continued to work.
… one of the key ‘in group/out group’ issues organisations will need to resolve is the significantly different experiences between employees who have been furloughed and those who have continued to work.
In a recent conversation, an ex-colleague of mine was talking about how their organisation was looking to reward the employees who had continued to work rather than “being on a 12-week holiday with full pay”. Whether it is 80% pay or 100% the take away from this comment is the perception that being furloughed was similar to being on annual leave.
Another example of how rewards may reinforce the difference between the two groups is a company that is looking to reward individuals that have been working in their factory but not recognise the efforts of those who have continued in their roles from home. Inadvertently, this company is introducing a new divisive silo within the group of employees who have worked throughout the crisis.
Being able to work during lockdown has provided employees with a sense of purpose and a degree of social interaction with their colleagues that perhaps hasn’t been available to their furloughed colleagues. However, if this also had to be balanced with home schooling and caring responsibilities then it is easy to see how being furloughed would look like the more attractive situation.
The furloughed employees I have spoken to acknowledged that they have had the time to home school their children, support vulnerable people or get around to that big project they have been putting off. However, the positive language is soon followed by concern about lack of contact with their peers, a lack of purpose and insecurity. They are dealing with questions about why they were selected for furlough and whether this is indicative of reduced job security.
Re-integrating furloughed staff into the workforce
“In the end, reconciliation is a spiritual process, which requires more than just a legal framework. It has to happen in the hearts and minds of people”. (Nelson Mandela)
I am in no-way comparing the experience of being furloughed with that of the victims of South African apartheid, but the above quote from Nelson Mandela does offer an insight into what organisations need to do in order to bring the two groups together, without leaving any residual misunderstanding or bad feeling.
Believing that teams of furloughed and non-furloughed workers will simply come back together and work as effectively as they did before could leave the organisation open to performance problems. If not addressed, the legacy will inevitably result in longer-term problems with staff turnover as unresolved unconscious biases continue to erode the social cohesion of the team.
On the assumption that the objective of reintegration is to re-establish team effectiveness as quickly as possible, it is worth going back to basics and understand what makes a group of people become a high-performing team…
Re-establishing team effectiveness: back to basics
‘Project Aristotle’, the well published research led by Julia Rozovsky, looked for the key factors that defined high performance and team effectiveness in Google (1). Their research concluded that one of the key differentiators was psychological safety, a concept developed by Amy Edmondson (2) which she defined as a “shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk‐taking”.
The behaviours that create psychological safety — conversational turn‐taking and empathy — are part of the same unwritten rules we often turn to, as individuals, when we need to establish a bond. We are social creatures so the need for human bonds matters as much in our work environment as anywhere else.
Empathy enables people to suspend judgement and as a result creates a more interactive and cooperative environment. To re-establish that will require teams to overcome the furlough legacy.
Leaders will have multiple roles in dealing with the emotional fallout from the furlough scheme. They will need to:
- Create an environment where employees can share and acknowledge their experience as well as any residual negative emotions that will need to be addressed
- Act as a role model for inclusive behaviour – take care not to use any language that indicates a difference between the two groups
- Help re-build empathy and team cohesion.
Addressing the furlough fallout: empathy and psychological safety
Evidence suggests that the stereotypes and biases an individual holds about someone else is significantly reduced if they get a better understanding of the other person’s experience – at least in part walking in their shoes.
Such empathy will take time to re-establish, but can be helped by:
- Giving employees time to experience a ‘day in the life’ of their colleagues – allowing them to share their stories of lockdown – the good and the bad
- Creating open communication – providing a safe place where people can talk about their feelings, issues – possibly through a mentor or counselling programme
- Communicating success stories about how teams have come back together to work effectively
- Encouraging team members to spend time together out of the normal work environment to re-establish social contacts
- Providing training to help colleagues understand and start addressing the residual biases that they have formed during the crisis.
Conclusion
The furlough scheme has enabled organisations to reduce their operating costs during the period of lockdown while retaining employees who might have otherwise lost their jobs.
However, as the scheme is reduced, and furloughed staff return to the workforce the legacy issues and unconscious biases that affect team effectiveness must not be left as ‘the elephant in the room’. The organisation may put in place the organisational factors that will enable furloughed staff to return to work, but this is only half the story. As Mandela suggests it is also about the hearts and minds of all team members.
Addressing issues so that colleagues who have had different experiences during the crisis can feel empathy for each other will start to re-establish social cohesion and performance in teams which will help the organisation survive in the long term.
If you would like to continue the conversation about the issues raised in this article or are looking for support to address furlough legacy issues please contact me at Julie.Brophy@oecam.com
References
1. Project Aristotle, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html?_r=0
2. Amy Edmondson – Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly: Jun 1999, 44. 2 pg 350 – 383