I don’t particularly know why, but I came across an article out of Australia last week that caught my eye and got me thinking about working at our “passion” jobs. The reason I headed in that direction mentally was the description of what life is like for these various politicians after they lose an election….
Now, the shortage of people leading to overworked stressed, and burned-out workers is the headline, but if you look at the reasons given in the article below, it’s not “just” that. It’s where that situation leads. When you’re short-staffed and constantly putting out fires, you don’t really take the time to think about showing appreciation, helping employees grow their skills and careers, or creating a diverse workplace.
Yet those are the exact things that employees are looking for elsewhere.
Appreciating and growing your employees is not something that is “nice to have” anymore. It’s a requirement.
So often, I see people sitting and doing the same job, the same way, year after year. Some people are OK with that, and it becomes difficult to help them grow because they are resistant to change. Most people, however, do not want that to be their career, and so they leave to find a place that allows them to grow. If you aren’t the place that supports their growth, you are at risk of losing them to a place that will. It’s really that simple.
Having HR professionals understand this is important. Having them try to influence the business leaders might help too. At the end of the day, though, this only gets better if the entire culture buys into it. Any individual manager who isn’t capable of making reasonable accommodations because they haven’t been trained or because the actual business practices create a roadblock for them only proves that this is all just talk.
People who’ve struggled for years to continue working at the risk of their mental health deserve a lot more than talk.
Whatever you choose to do, though, the next step needs to be doing everything possible to make sure it doesn’t happen again instead of breathing a sigh of relief that you got your data back and continuing business as usual. That would seem to be the common mistake here.
Don’t make that mistake.
Security pros, where do you fall on the debate on paying or not paying, and does this report change your thinking?
I have heard these findings before and am starting to think about how I can implement some of them. I think I’m going to encourage more check-ins that are off-camera and use my phone to walk around instead of my laptop.