Layoffs, Anxiety and Trust
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Layoffs, Anxiety and Trust

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

Ultimately this is what will define your culture and your employee engagement. Do your actions match your words? It’s not enough to say you care about mental health, diversity, or developing the people who work for you. You had better put something behind that. If you’ve had layoffs recently, don’t expect anyone to believe that you care about these things on your words alone. Those layoffs told everyone in the organization that they were expendable. They could be next, and the only thing that truly matters is how much they make for you. If you care about their growth, wellbeing and being a diverse company, you had better show up with something other than words.

Who Can Work for You? The Answer to that Question Might Say Everything About Diversity

Who Can Work for You? The Answer to that Question Might Say Everything About Diversity

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 3 minutes

There’s a lot of talk coming from organizations about their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Too many of them create opportunities that don’t match those words. Office jobs that require workers to be in one place, at the same time, all the time, are inhernetly not as diverse as they could be. Companies that require all of their employees to travel for team events are not as inclusive as they could be. Companies that only hire consultants who will travel to them in peron are not as inclusive as they could be.

Certain jobs require some of these things, but many jobs where the organization requires it can just as easily be done without those requirements. When they do that, they’re not matching what they say about DE&I. They are clearly emphasizing their preferences over their commitment.

Trust is Easily Broken

Trust is Easily Broken

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

Consider the message this sends to employees. This decision was made at a level above the person who is left to explain it to you. No one from that level wants to explain it or answer your questions. That’s not a trustworthy organization. That’s a leader hiding from people being impacted by their decisions.

That’s not a leader I’d want to work for. Some might even argue that they aren’t a leader at all.

When you lose that trust, you’ll lose the retention battle.

Linked – Resignations Can Become Contagious

Linked – Resignations Can Become Contagious

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

Humans don’t handle uncertainty well. They will seek out the path that has more certainty. You’re either providing that, or you’re not. If you’re not, you’re losing one of the important factors that impact retention. There’s a reason resignations are contagious. There’s a reason they go up right after layoffs or significant managerial change. We don’t like feeling uncertain.