Year In Review 2021: The Great Reckoning

The great resignation has taken the main stage for big news for professionals and career path navigation in 2021. With the pandemic still raging, there has been a widespread re-evaluation with “what really matters?” being the theme for professional women and men alike. The great reckoning of “does this work, and work for me?” has emerged from a combination of elements that have brought people to a point where they want to look more deeply at their values and how those values align with their workplace and firm culture, beyond the paycheck alone.

Realities such as exhaustion or burnout effect are much higher in 2021 than 2020 due to the ongoing slog of Covid and the effects it has on all aspects of life and work. McKinsey/Lean In’s most recent report on Women in the Workplace 2021 states 42% of women feel burned out regularly in 2021 as opposed to a reported 32% in 2020 and more than men in both years.

Conversely, in the same report, progress is shown at between 6-24% for the pipeline of future female senior managers and leaders, with the most progress being at SVP and C-suite levels but still not surpassing a third of all leaders in these positions. However, as someone who has covered this topic deeply for the best part of fifteen years, I want to underline that 6% may not seem big, but it can be considered as progress finally after many stalled years. This is at least a trend in the right direction of progress and you can see the numbers and insights and analysis on them from theglasshammer.com from 2011 here in all Year in Reviews.

Active Listening- Feeling Heard is Important

Is the world changing for the better? As it pertains to not tolerating overt sexism and racism, yes clearly it is, as everyone is quicker to pour light on things that just don’t fly anymore.

In fact, men are starting to behaviorally show up as allies when they should and interestingly a new Catalyst study suggests this can be dependent on whether they feel they will be heard as humans, on many topics as well as this specific one. Manager openness to hearing inputs and suggestions, from how the job should be done to elements regarding culture such as inclusion, increases the chance of men speaking up against sexism from 35% to 62%.

Feeling heard is a human trait, no one likes to think they are talking to a brick wall or invisible, yet 80% of my leadership development assignment as an executive coach to senior Wall Street women and men involves delivering the bad news that peers and direct reports feel that managers don’t listen to them. Kate Murphy’s book You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters is a compelling journalistic exploration of what happens when people listen to each other, which can apply to any relationship, spouse, friend or child as well as to being a better executive or manager. Surely, now is the time for managers to listen?

Opportunity in Disruption

‘The Great Resignation’ doesn’t have to threaten diversity efforts, but rather isn’t it time to do things better and in some cases, differently?

Some people might want to go back to the office some or even all of the time, while others might want to stay working from home some, most or all of the time- and with most landing on the same preference of being given the choice to make their own decisions. What leaders seem to be missing is that it is about empowering people with choices to control their time, not mandating face time in the building.

In fact, this topic is very much about leadership development and mindset shift. Susan Ashford, Professor in the Management and Organizations group at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, explores the concept of flexing as a growth mindset for leaders. She discusses empowering people to know their needs and to be radical in their own “self management” in her new book about leadership learning called The Power of Flexing. This concept of letting employees get on with it on their terms in this Covid era world is backed up by research by Peter Capelli, Director of the Center for Human Resources at Wharton University, who suggests that in fact, many people are finding that they are thriving in a remote or a hybrid version of work. This study reveals that people are motivated when they are achieving their goals along with two very important things: feeling valued, which is the biggest driver, and being within a supported and inclusive environment. Capelli’s research also shows that getting tasks done to create a sense of purpose alone comes in last as a motivation driver, so endless piles of work in the wrong isolating conditions can lead to disengagement and quitting.

Adam Grant, Professor of Psychology at Wharton, researched back in 2007 how employee performance is increased when there is a feeling of helping an actual human by meeting with them to know about their issue and having the ability to try and help. Putting a face to a name seems to matter, and as face to face human contact has been reduced in the past eighteen months, it will be interesting when we see future research into videoconferencing (as a close second or even as a replacement?). It does seem like some major Fortune 500 companies are taking the leap of faith that remote work is the future with PwC announcing that it will allow all 40,000 of its US client services employees to work virtually and remotely, with the UK office following suit with an additional 22,000 people allowed to work remotely.

Aligning People and Technology

Getting leaders to understand the importance of aligning the human side with the operational and technological side is key to engage and retain talent – it’s futurism and that requires a lot of mental complexity as systems thinking will need to be applied. Are leaders up for the challenge?

To create the workplace of the future, it is key to start with the workforce of the future. Meryl Rosenthal, CEO of Flexpaths, has been pioneering remote and flex work for all since 2005. She sees the trend as here to stay and knows the role of leaders is crucial to success.

She comments, 
“As hybrid work increasingly becomes a reality across organizations, ensuring that alignment at the top doesn’t wane is key. At FlexPaths we are seeing more and more companies ill-prepared for the downstream impacts of poorly implemented hybrid work. With plummeting engagement, uncertain executives and ineffective communication, now is the time to focus on leaders on why it is important to get a plan as the future is now”.

People Want Acts not Ads

Finally, evolved employers must realize that employees want to see real acts, not just lip service and advertising around issues that are value-driven. Whether it is working remotely or responding to social or environmental issues, it is crucial that corporations understand that walking the talk and closing the identity gap between espoused and lived values happens. Data of both quantitative and qualitative nature is required to understand what people expect from their employer. If your company was a person, would you want to hang out with them?

We believe diversity and gender issues can be solved when companies finally understand that organizational development is important and that diversity is not about a Noah’s Ark approach but rather about lived experience. Behaviors matter as they all add up to create culture.

We wish everyone a happy, safe, peaceful and joyful festive season. See you in 2022.

By Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of theglasshammer.com

Nicki founded theglasshammer in 2007 to inspire, inform and empower professional women in their careers. We have been the leading and longest running career advice online and in person media company in the USA for professional women in financial services.

We also provide executive coaching services and organizational coaching under our sister brand evolvedpeople.com

Thank you to all readers, sponsors, supporters and contributors over the past 15 years. We couldn’t do it without you!

For the women by the women.

If you want to coached by Nicki in 2022, write to her nicki@theglasshammer – to find out more about the process. She works with VP level and above.