<p>Maya Angelou famously said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”, and this rings especially true in the workplace. In this episode of Honest HR, host Wendy Fong speaks with Liz Fosslien about emotions as your workplace super power to create rewarding workplace experiences for both you and your employees.</p><p>Honest HR is supported by <a href="https://www.namely.com/">Namely</a>.</p>
Maya Angelou famously said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”, and this rings especially true in the workplace. In this episode of Honest HR, host Wendy Fong speaks with Liz Fosslien about emotions as your workplace super power to create rewarding workplace experiences for both you and your employees.
Honest HR is supported by Namely.
Speaker 1:
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Gloria Sinclair Miller:
Welcome to Honest HR, the podcast for all of us, HR professionals, people, managers, and team leads, intent on growing and developing our companies for the better.
Amber Clayton:
We bring you honest, forward thinking conversations, and relatable stories from the workplace that challenge the way it's always been done, because after all, you have to push back to move forward.
Wendy Fong:
Honest HR is a podcast from SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. And by listening, you're helping create better workplaces and a better world. I'm Wendy Fong.
Amber Clayton:
I'm Amber Clayton.
Gloria Sinclair Miller:
And I am Gloria Sinclair Miller.
All hosts:
Now, let's get honest!
Wendy Fong:
Hello everyone and welcome back listeners and welcome to anyone who is listening for the very first time. I'm your host, Wendy Fong, Manager of Virtual Event Innovation at SHRM. Today, I'm excited to introduce our guest, Liz Fosslien is the co-author and illustrator of No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work. She leads content for Humu, where she helps leaders and their teams take small steps towards profound improvement. Prior to joining Humu, Liz designed and led workshops for executives at Google, Facebook, and Nike on how to create inclusive cultures. Her writing and data visualization projects have appeared in CNN, The Economist, The Financial Times, and NPR. Welcome to Honesty HR, Liz. How are you?
Liz Fosslien:
Good. Thanks so much for having me. Really excited to be here.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah, no, absolutely. So, Liz and I met during a SHRM Northern California event. We had you and Mollie West Duffy come to speak at our event about the future of work. And that was really interesting and exciting. So, I wanted to bring you on the show to talk about that, as well.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. Awesome. It was all... I think, people were just starting to talk about hybrid work.
Wendy Fong:
Yes. And then now we're semi experts as we're learning about how to navigate the hybrid workplace. But before we get started, I'd love for you to share your own personal story about how you came to where you are. And I did read your most recent book. It's really great. Really fun. And share your story. What inspired you most about to get content for this book? And I did want to say, I love the pictures and you're the main illustrator, correct? Or you are the illustrator.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah, I do all the illustration. That's so nice to hear. So, Mollie, my co-author and I actually have similar maybe origin stories, you could call them. So, we both got jobs out of college that sort of checked all the boxes. We bore suits and went into tall buildings and, it was just... This is a real job, we're out in the workforce. And we both were operating under this assumption that to be a professional, you shouldn't fuss, you never fail and you certainly don't feel. So, you just do the work and that's it. And unsurprisingly, we both just completely burnt out. So, I burnt out after about two years in consulting and just quit the job. I didn't know what I wanted to do next. And that was really when I started to explore, just emotions, because I had kind of hit rock bottom and I didn't know why that had happened. And it was very scary to me to think about what job do I want next when I had absolutely no idea what had gone wrong in the previous job cause I thought that was my dream job.
And so, I started to look at both. Why was that work maybe not as meaningful to me? But then, also, what could I have done to improve the situation? And so, for me, a revelation was that, you could go to your manager and say something like, "I really enjoyed this kind of work. Could I get staffed on more projects where I can grow that skill?" I had no idea that was even something you could do. And so, then, Mollie and I became friends and started. We had these similar interests, similar experiences, started really researching just how emotions crop up, and really are now trying to help other people give themselves permission to feel at work, but without becoming like a feelings fire hose. So, there is this line between sharing which builds trust and then oversharing, which undermines your credibility and leadership skills. And so, we're trying to help people figure out the right balance there, but just be like more humans at work in a way that's not completely disruptive to everyone around them.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I definitely relate to your story because we all grow up thinking, this is what success looks like, right? You go to school, you go to college, you get a degree, you have a nice office, a nice job in this city like I worked in San Francisco, and this is the life. And then once you're there, it was hard to find just meaning out of my work. I worked in a sales job and I felt like, okay, is that it? This is what having it all means? I definitely relate to that.
Talk more about emotions. When was the moment when that light bulb turned on for you in terms of why emotions, why explore that in terms of incorporating that more into the workplace?
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. So, for me, it was... So, after I left this consulting job, I needed to do something. I didn't have health insurance. And so, while I was a consultant, I had been going down to this Starbucks around the corner twice a day, just to escape from the office. And I also had read that if you work part-time at Starbucks, they'll give you full benefits. So, the day I quit, I went into that Starbucks and was like, can I be a barista? I need a job.
Wendy Fong:
Very practical.
Liz Fosslien:
And so I started working there. Very practical. I am a huge fan of Starbucks. I still drink their coffee to this day. And everything in the store is so designed and it's really designed to create an emotional experience for people. So, Starbucks wants to be your third place. So, you have work, you have home, and then Starbucks is kind of like the in between, where you can work, you can meet friends. And so the lighting, the music, the way the pastries are arranged, I found that fascinating.
And it was really the first time I'd been directly exposed to the idea that you can create an emotional experience for someone and that it actually has a huge impact on sales and building a brand, that kind of thing. And so, I started to explore and I was just like, they think a lot about onboarding and just feelings are a big part of that. And I think that was my first window into, oh, this is actually something that might be more broadly applicable and I should be very conscious of because I just had this like big, emotional experience that I didn't even really tie to emotions consciously.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. That totally makes sense because having emotions is part of the human experience. Whether we like it or not, it's there. And I know you talk about in your book two different ways that culturally we interpret emotions. It could be that, or we have the little emotions in our head controlling our day to day responses like anger, sadness, happiness, or there's that the second way you had talked about or second interpretation of emotions that is shaped based on our culture experiences. Can you talk more about that?
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. So, emotional experiences at work. So, within every organization and even within every team, there's an emotional culture and that is formed based on the seemingly small gestures and habits and signals that we send to each other. So, you can imagine if I sneeze and someone says, bless you, if I ask a question and someone says, thanks so much for asking that, those are all these very small indicators that actually have a big impact on us feeling compassionate, feeling like we belong in a place, feeling safe to ask questions, throw out ideas.
And so I've always been fascinated by... I think a lot of people when they first hear about emotions at work or creating a good culture, they think about this big top down initiative that requires planning and lots of calm strategies, and those things definitely help. It's great to have leadership buy in, but there is actually great power, even in the small micro actions that you take day to day over email, on slack, in a meeting. How you make other people feel can really radically change the culture, even if it's only within your own team.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. That definitely makes sense. Because sometimes strategy is important to see the bigger picture and also to measure return on investment too, if there's any progress being made or not being made. But yeah, the everyday gestures do matter because you go through each day and if you have a negative interaction with a coworker, for example, that can just ruin your whole day if you let it.
Liz Fosslien:
Yes, absolutely. I think, especially, managers it should be mindful of this because if you're a manager and you email someone on your team, Hey, can we chat tomorrow? That email is so stressful to receive because there's no context and we have something called a negativity bias. So, if there's no context or we don't really know what the emotion is, we assume it's negative. And so if I get an email from my manager saying, let's talk tomorrow, I think I'm getting fired. It goes to the worst possible place.
Wendy Fong:
What else are you supposed to think?
Liz Fosslien:
I know, it's terrifying. And so, as a manager, just taking that extra split second to emotionally proofread that email and instead write, got your draft, overall looks good, I have a few comments, let's chat tomorrow, is just like, you're going to make my whole evening incredibly less anxious or anxiety filled than the first email, which was very short and didn't contain that extra information.
Wendy Fong:
So, being more specific about your comments instead of just being out of brevity, I'm sure a manager is very busy and just wants to type really fast... "Let's chat tomorrow." But then, to think about the other person in the other side... "Okay, I don't want to freak them out if I were in their shoes." Having that empathy and compassion, but just taking a few extra moments to provide more specific details of what you're going to talk about makes total sense.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah, it is. It is often, it just comes down to putting yourself in the other person's shoes and then being really thoughtful about what kind of message are you trying to send? What kind of culture are you trying to build? And then, I think, through that lens, it's a little easier to quote. And again, it's just a couple extra seconds of evaluate... How do I want to go into this interaction? How will this person feel when they get this email? That kind of thing.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. That makes sense. And so, as an employee though, how can I embrace emotions at work without being seen as this overly emotional person that can't stop talking about emotions all the time? How do you have that balance?
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. We get this question a lot, which is people... Just like that say, I'm on a team I'm so bought into this, but I don't know if other people are just going to jump on board with me. And so, I think it comes down to really starting to lead by example. So, when you have a one on one with someone, not immediately diving into the agenda, just even saying something as simple, Hey, how's it going? What's one thing you're excited about? And then going into the agenda saying, thank you, researchers have found that these little gestures of kindness actually kickstart virtuous cycles. So, when you do something, the other person feels good, they're more likely to do something for someone else, then it kind of ripples throughout the team. So, Mollie and I, my co-author, give workshops and we often say to people, you can frame things as an experiment.
So, if you're on a team with people and you think maybe they would be open to this kind of thing, saying something like, I read this book and it's got cartoons in it and it's kind of goofy, but there's interesting idea that we create together and it's okay to list where we write down all the norms that we want to follow as a team, how we want to treat each other, and maybe we just try that on a Friday afternoon as a team building exercise.
If you don't want to share that with the team, you can bring that to your manager and have them kind of take the lead on it. But I think it's starting to take these little steps to push the culture and the direction that you want. And then also, going to your manager, talking, framing things as experiments. And the last thing I'll say is, if you are just met with complete resistance on every single one of those attempts, that's when you might want to start thinking about transferring to a different team or a different company that has values that are more aligned with yours.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. I was thinking that too. What if you're in a culture where they don't allow for open honest feedback or you get reprimanded for that? So, that definitely makes sense depending on where your organization, what they value, and how it aligns with that type of mentality. Because you do want to have that psychological safety as almost a foundation before you take those risks to have those conversations. I feel like as an employee, especially if you're entry level and just starting out, it might be really scary or intimidating to approach your manager and say, "Hey, can we talk about this about..." And have that open, honest communication.
Liz Fosslien:
Totally. One thing I'll add to what I said before, it can be very scary to talk about emotions, especially if you're new or you're just not comfortable around your team. And so, often, it can be useful to talk about the need behind your emotion. So, if you're feeling really anxious and you sit down and sit with that and think, "Okay, I'm feeling anxious because I'm nervous about this deadline that I have on Friday. And I'm scared I'm not going to be able to complete my work by Friday." You can actually go to your manager and talk about that need.
So, you never mention that you're anxious, you don't talk about emotions, but you say, "Hey, I have a lot to do ahead of Friday. Can you help me prioritize my tasks?" "Or can we walk through the plan to make sure that there's something that isn't crucial to getting this done and then that would free up some time for me?" And so, that's also a way if you're in a more buttoned up traditional environment, is to do kind of the emotional processing on your own and then come in with tying it to, what do you need? What will boost your productivity? Putting it in words that they might be a little more receptive to hearing and discussing.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. So, it definitely seems like at the foundation, you have to acknowledge your feelings, whether it's on your own or you can express it to some extent to your manager or colleague or whoever you're working with, but acknowledging your feelings and not trying to suppress it or deny it, I think is a really important point. And then, also, expressing it, communicating it, and coming up with a solution like, okay, I'm feeling this way. This is why I'm feeling this way, but to take it to the next level, like how can we address that? How can we make this work? It seems like it's this three step process that totally makes sense, especially in the workplace.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah, definitely. It's so much easier said than done to say like...
Wendy Fong:
Yes.
Liz Fosslien:
Acknowledge your emotions, understand them, express the need. But I do think it's just even just having that in your head, like giving yourself permission to have those feelings, that doesn't necessarily mean having the feelings in the meeting, you excuse yourself and go to the bathroom. But like if you're crying, we get a lot of questions about crying at work and people feel so self-conscious and so guilty, it's really undermining how people view them at work. And with that, it's just like the permission thing is so big like...
One, lots of people cry at work. We've heard from so many people, men and women. And then, two, again, the best way to make sure that you're not in that situation again is not to just shove it aside and be like, I never want to talk about this again. But really go home that night and think, what was it that made me cry? And often it's not, you're sad, it's that you're really frustrated or you're really angry. And then, starting to think through what steps can I take to not be so frustrated or to have a discussion about the trigger. And it's that really, really important work that will actually set you up not to cry again the next day in the same bathroom and like turn that into a habit. So, it's so much of it is just giving yourself permission to... We all have feelings, it's normal and there's sometimes really useful information contained within them.
Wendy Fong:
And it also sounds like that it will take practice. You won't always get it every single time. I found that too with having difficult conversations. And I would say, earlier in my career, it was not something I even ventured to do. Oh, there's a difficult conversation that I have to have like an issue with a manager or a colleague. I'm just going to avoid that conversation all together and be really passive aggressive about how I act towards them and avoid them. But as I slowly started to practice more, it actually gets easier. And so, I kind of find that it's similar to this process of acknowledging your emotions and processing, why did you feel that way, and then how to move forward to take action.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah, totally. It is so hard to have the hard conversations, but I think all of these things are just muscles and habits where we need to do them a couple times to start building that positive reinforcement loop. So, I took the time, I sat with my emotions, that felt bad. I had this conversation that felt really hard, but then it did lead to something good. And then that sort of helps me feel more courageous to do it the next time. So, these things are all difficult and it takes, like you said, practice, to just force yourself to do it the first couple times and then hopefully, it leads to some positive change and then that helps you keep doing it.
Wendy Fong:
I feel like the piece about embracing your emotions is so important too. Because before I even realized how important it is to acknowledge your emotions in some way, shape, or form, I'm the type to just try to find a solution like right away. Okay, don't think about how it made you feel. Let's just try to solve this and go on and move to the next thing. But then, subconsciously, those emotions come up to the surface later on. Later on, you might be really grumpy, I might lash out at my friend or my family, or I don't know why I feel like so stressed or like, why can't I go to sleep at night because so many thoughts are in my mind. It'll come up in some other way if those emotions aren't acknowledged and at least you're listening to yourself and recognizing that it's there, not that it's like good or bad, but just acknowledging that it's there and that you feel that way.
Liz Fosslien:
Yes. I think one of the biggest pieces here too is, we tend to overestimate our ability to hide what we're feeling, both from ourselves and from other people. So, if I'm really upset about something and I walk into a meeting, even if I'm pretending like everything's fine, everyone in that meeting is probably going to feel like something's off. And if I don't address that, then they're going to immediately think, well, what did I do to offend Liz? Especially if I'm a leader, they might start to think, is there something wrong with the business? Is she upset about the project? What information is missing here? And so, one of the people Mollie and I interviewed for a book was Kim Malone Scott, who worked at Google and then wrote Radical Candor, which is a wonderful book.
And she said what she learned to do... So, she thought she was so good at hiding her feelings and she would go into work and just think she was kind of like a calm, placid lake, and no one knew what was really going on with her. And then one day, one of her reports came up to her and said, I just want to let you know that I know what kind of day I'm going to have based on your mood, the moment you walk in the door in the morning. And she was like, oh wow. He can really tell what's going on with me.
So, she learned to flag her feelings. So if she was upset, if she had a bad morning, she would get to a one on one. And she would just say like, Hey, just want to let you know, I'm having a really hectic morning. It has nothing to do with you, but I just need a moment. Or today has been a day, it has nothing to do with the team or the project we're working on. Just wanted to flag that for you. And so, again, it's this acknowledging both for yourself and for the people around you. Don't have to go into any detail, but it still helps everyone feel more calm and then move on in a more productive way.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. Because automatically back to the negative, self bias. If you saw someone with that type of energy, you can't think, but take it personally like, oh, did I do something to offend them? Because a lot can be interpreted from the non-verbal communication. I think, I remember there's a study by Dr. Mehrabian saying that most communication happens through like your body language more than what you actually say.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. I think it's like upwards of 70%, which is wild. But it's also important to keep that in mind when you're remote or even in an email, you're missing the majority of the communication because you're only looking at words. And so, keeping in mind that there's like 70% or more that you're not getting, and so you're only getting a window into this world. And so, not to like lean in too heavily if you have a negative reaction. We're humans. We jump to conclusions very easily. And so reminding yourself, there's a lot that's going on with this person. I don't have full context. Let me get curious as opposed to immediately assume the worst.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. Let's dive into that. So, now that more people are working remotely, or at least, now, we're slowly more people are returning in the office. So, there might be a more of a hybrid workplace. We have relied heavily on email or Slack or some sort of Skype to communicate with each other. How about calling on the phone or picking up on the phone or video meetings? Can you talk about those different types of communication?
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. So, the general best practice is to use the richest form of communication possible, especially when you're first getting to know each other. So, video, you don't have full body language, but you have some. Phone, you can hear kind of a tone of someone's voice. It's easier to understand if they're really excited, I'm going to start speaking faster and my voice will go up and down. If I'm upset with you, I'll be very cur. There's just a lot more signal in that. And then the least rich, is email because it's just text. One caveat to that though, is what I've noticed. So, my big thing in the past couple months, has been to just bring back the phone call because I think we've gotten so used to being on video call and video call is a rich form of communication, but it's also exhausting if you're doing that all day, because it's unnatural, right?
You and I are looking at each other on a camera. If we were in person, what we're doing now would be, I would stand three feet away from you and just look at you for 60 minutes straight. And we both would just find that highly weird and uncomfortable and that's what we're doing all day. So, just keeping in mind, like if you know someone, if you have a good relationship with them, if you're going to be looking at a screen or like sharing a document and you don't really need to see each other's faces, turning the camera off, suggesting a phone call, I think we've just like talked about zoom so much, we're on zoom so much that now we automatically default to everything needs to be a video meeting and it doesn't.
So, if you don't know each other that well, that's when it's useful to get that additional context with facial cues, body language. But if you feel like it could be a phone call, let's bring back the phone call. It's also a totally valid form of communication and can save you that additional energy of needing to look at yourself, needing to make sure your hair looks good, whatever's going on with you. That sort of just takes additional energy.
Wendy Fong:
Well, one thing that I started doing is I hide my own view. So, I don't look at myself. I read a statistic that people end up looking at their own camera more than other people's faces. Which totally makes sense because you want your hair look okay. So, I am like, oh it's too distracting....
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah.
Wendy Fong:
I try to hide my camera view. Also, I've read that being so close to each other ignites your flight or fight response because, back in our ancestral days, when you're that close to someone, it's because you're going to fight them or they're a danger and you want to run away. So, there's some subconscious activation going on there too, which contribute to the zoom fatigue, I think.
Liz Fosslien:
There's also... I think, when you're on one of these big calls, which I've had, where there's like 50 little boxes, that's also unnatural because normally in an auditorium or in a big meeting room, there's just one environment. And now we're taking in 50 people's homes. So, there's a cat in one, the doorbell rings in another, a partner walks by, there's a child, and there's so much going on that also requires a lot of mental discipline to stay focused on the primary square and not be distracted all the time.
Wendy Fong:
Or if you're in person in a meeting, someone could be taking notes and not looking up or looking at their phone or looking out the window, but in a video meeting, you might take that personally. Oh, they're not paying attention to me or they're looking somewhere else. There's a lot of ways to misinterpret those type of cues.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah, definitely. So, video... Good if you don't know each other that well, it is nice to see people's faces, but also good to turn the camera off when you can.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. That makes sense. Have little breaks. I know I've heard of some organizations where they have a no video Friday. On Fridays, no one is allowed to turn on their video, which is kind of nice to take a break every now and then.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. I think, those are really useful. We have those at Humu. I've also heard which we tried to do at Humu too, which was the... Because we're back to back, we don't have these built in go to the bathroom, walk from one meeting room to the next room. And so, a lot of companies are now trying to do 25 and 55 minute meetings instead of 30 and 60. So, you have a little break in between, but what I've heard from, essentially everyone I've talked to, is that no one actually ends the meeting at 10 25.
It's like, Okay, yes, I know that we're supposed to end it now, but there's still more stuff to talk about. Let's just go until the very end. And so, what has been more effective is starting the meeting five minutes later because we are so ingrained to just go to the top of the hour that then actually starting the meeting at 10 05, as opposed to 10, you build it in on the front end. And then that is actually a small tip or trick that does allow you for the break than if you kind of are forced to stop it as opposed to starting later.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I need to make sure I'm hydrated and have little bio breaks or get a snack. Sometimes, there's so many back to back meetings. How do I have time to eat lunch? I need to put this in my calendar. I'm not going to have time to eat lunch.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. And then we're also just... I mean I'm guilty of this too, where lunch, we treat it as kind of an expendable time. So, if I need just cram a meeting in, I'll just be like, whatever, just do it over lunch. It's fine. So, it's also important to remember, you need the break. The break is going to make you better in your afternoon meetings. It's not just time that you could spend in another meeting. You should actually take the break.
Wendy Fong:
And also, figuring out is it okay to eat in front of the camera? I know some company cultures are different or do you turn off the camera while you're eating if you're doing a working lunch or eating a snack. I personally don't want people to watch me eating. So, I'll turn off the camera.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. I think, this is where... So, Mollie and I, we often have teams come together to create something called an "It's okay to" list, which is where you actually try to write down all of these unwritten rules. And these can be different. There's not like a one size fits all. Every team should come up with their own. But for example, you and I could agree. If we're on a lunch call, we want the cameras off because we don't want to be seen eating. And then that would just be something on the it's okay to list.
And then we don't have this anxiety around. Is Liz going to be offended that I turn the camera off? Do I need to have the camera on? But sort of sneaking bites on the side, it's just like reduces anxiety for both of us because we talked about it. We've agreed on something. And then, if a third person joins our team, we can give them that list. And then they immediately know that's okay. So, those, I think, writing down norms that you want to agree on ways you want to treat each other and just making those explicit can reduce a lot of these anxious moments that we feel, because we're just unsure of what we should do.
Wendy Fong:
I love that. The "It's okay" list. And you can do that with just the individual colleague or maybe with your department or your team. It sounds like, or even within the whole organization have an it's okay list.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. It really depends on just whatever group you feel comfortable. I know at IBM, some employees started doing this, it was more of a grassroots. They just did it like you said with a couple of them. And then it kind of took on a life of its own and culminated. And the CEO of IBM actually created like an "I pledge to" list, and then he posted that on LinkedIn for everyone to see. And so it said, I pledge to be kind, I pledge to remember that if I'm on video, it's actually the first time that I'm showing up in someone's home, and so I pledged to be a good guest. I pledge, if it's a early morning call and they're in a different time zone, they don't need to have their camera on. So, you can just roll out of bed and be on the call. So, it is, I think, again, that speaks to this idea of a few individuals taking action to try and create a better culture can ripple throughout the organization and end up in leadership, supporting that, and it becoming this bottoms up and top down movement.
Wendy Fong:
Oh, that's really inspiring to hear. Okay, I'm going to start my it's okay list today with my team members. It can also work for remote employees or in person. You could have a subsection it off. This is when you're remote, this is where you're in person, and then hybrid too.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah, definitely. And that's, I think, really kind of the core of what Mollie and I try to do is give people these flexible frameworks because we talked about earlier, there's different emotional cultures that form everywhere. So, when you're in person, that's going to feel very different than when you're all on a zoom video call together. And so yeah, I love the idea of having like a "It's okay to" list even in the same team, but just for different experiences, because there's going to be new situations that come up that you might just want to talk through.
Wendy Fong:
Definitely. And now that it's been almost a year and a half since the pandemic and working from home, what lessons do you think we've learned so far about how work is going to be the... Well, what is now normalized and what will the future of work look like?
Liz Fosslien:
I think we actually don't yet know. So, I'm so curious to see, because I think a lot of teams are just starting to go back into the office. So, I'm really curious to see how that sort of where that all falls over the next year. But, I've been really pleased to see two things. One is just a more embracing of emotions at work. So, I think the pandemic forced conversations around burnout around work life balance, taking care of our families, a lot of like structural inequality. I think that's been really positive. And so I hope that continues even when we are in an office again and come to sort of have more of a clear boundary between work and life maybe some days, and then also just the openness to flexibility. So, I think it's kind of across the board.
I've heard from employees that, just being able to work from home even a couple days a week, it just allows them to better fit in some of their personal things like going grocery shopping, going to the post office, running all those errands. It gives them focused heads down time. So, pre pandemic at Humu, we did a study of employees in a call center, where they have like very clear productivity metrics. So, it's like number of calls, fulfilled, customer problems that are wrapped up, that they are able to solve. And we found that two days working from home was actually optimal. So, that was when people had the highest levels of productivity and when they were the most satisfied with their work, cause it gave them time to still go in, have that social element, observe each other, learn a lot.
Because you just learn a lot by watching someone else do their job well, but then, they still had time at home to get everything done to, again, work their personal lives in a little more easily. So, just the openness to that. I think there's some more traditional like Morgan Stanley. Now, some of the big banks they're allowing a couple days working from home, and I think that would've been not even anything someone discussed two years ago. So, I'm glad to see a movement towards that as well.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah, definitely. And it offers a lot of flexibility for working parents. Since the pandemic, we have seen a drop off of women in the workforce for childcare reasons or caregiving for aging parents or a whatnot. So, I think those flexible work environments can support working women to be able to balance both as well.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. I've also heard a lot from both from my friends, and then just from speaking to people that, people who are in a minority group actually really loved working from home because they felt... So, I have a friend who's black and he said, when he had to go into the office, he always felt like he stood out and he always had to do surface acting or trying to figure out like how he should fit in. And working remotely, he just doesn't have that stress as much because he feels safer in his home. It's not something that he constantly has to think about when he's eating food or going to the bathroom and then that's been in surveys.
Also, something that's come up is yeah, not for everyone, but some people feel actually more belonging at home because they can fully be themselves as opposed to trying to become someone else as they walk through the doors of their office. So, I think that's something for leaders too, to keep in mind when we do go back, how can you create a space, especially you have this kind of once in a lifetime opportunity to reset norms as people come back. What can you do to not make people feel like so alienated or so uncomfortable in the office? How can you make it feel just as good as like being yourself at home?
Wendy Fong:
Yeah, no, that's a really good point. What is it about working from home that you can try to replicate in the in person experience. Having that safe space, more flexibility, how can we encourage productivity? I think those are important things to think about when setting up the in person environment as we slowly start going back into the office.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah, definitely. And I think too, just focusing on, when you're in person, making the most of that time, so, how do you help people form more better connections? It's just easier to do that when we're in an office together, again, because you have all the full body language, you have those cues, it's a little easier to open up. And so how can you just use that time to really ensure that you're building the right culture, that people are getting to know each other on a deeper level, finding stories that they can connect over, that kind of thing.
Wendy Fong:
How about if you have employees that are just 100% remote? Actually, myself, I am a hundred percent remote employee, where the majority of our employees are headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.
Liz Fosslien:
So, what I've heard... I heard this one CHRO saying that she has... This was pre pandemic. She had a team, that's 10 people, seven of them were all in the office with her and three were fully remote. And she said, she found during the pandemic, when everyone was fully remote, she actually got to know those remote colleagues a lot better because suddenly the playing field was even, and so she hadn't realized how often she was turning to someone in a meeting to have a side conversation, to ask them a question, to offer them an opportunity and how she was inadvertently then excluding all the people on the video call or who weren't sitting next to her. So, one thing that I've heard leaders say is, trying for really important meetings to have like a, if one person is remote, we're all remote, mentality.
So, for really important calls, if you all are home one day, having it on that day, so, you're all still calling in. That also builds this muscle of, if you are going into the office sometimes, you still have empathy for your remote colleagues because you remember what it's like to have to log in, to have technical issues, to kind of be on a video call.
And then I think, just still investing in just personal connections. So, if you're remote and I'm in the office, making sure that we're still finding time to just socialize, having lunch together with the cameras off, even if we're both on a video call. Because I think a big thing is, as humans, unfortunately, again, our bias is like out of sight out of mind. And so the more that you establish a relationship with someone, the more likely you are to remember them to be like, oh yeah, we should include them. So, I think there's not a perfect solution to this, but I'm much more hopeful that it'll be a better situation for remote workers after the past year and a half.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah, absolutely. Now that we've all kind of been in those shoes of having that remote experience. Well, on the flip side though, there are countless essential workers who never had the opportunity to work remote. What lessons can we learn from their experience?
Liz Fosslien:
I think, as someone who was able to work remotely, I think, for me, the biggest lesson is just gratitude and it was a hard year, but reminding myself like, well, it is amazing that I can do my job from home and that I'm not facing the stress of going into a place and risking my health in that way. I think... So, this is from a different CHRO that I spoke with, and she was saying.... So, she works in manufacturing. So, most of her people had been going into the office every single day for the past year and a half. So, they had not been remote, and she was really thinking through, she was like, they're so burnt out. They've really been stressed. What can we, as an organization, do to thank them and to show appreciation for the fact of you have been taking on this additional emotional and mental toll.?
So, she was thinking about maybe bonuses or some kind of other benefit. And then, the other thing I would say is, even around this conversation with hybrid work, it does exclude those workers too, right? There's just some, if you're going onto a manufacturing floor, you cannot adopt a hybrid model. You're still going to be full time on the manufacturing floor. And so, I think, as leaders, it's important to provide transparency into your policy decisions.
So, if you do say, our engineering team is going to be able to work at home, two days a week, and we're affording them that because it's actually like the type of work they do, they need that focused downtime. Here's how it's... I think just like providing visibility into why you've created that policy can be helpful, so that it's not just doesn't seem like a random, these people just get all this preferential treatment. Sorry, we just didn't even think about you. I think, communicating that you've thought about every employee's perspective that you kind of understand why it might seem unfair. Here's your reasoning. I think that it's not a perfect solution, but it's much better than just saying nothing and not acknowledging what some people have been doing for the past year and a half.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. That makes sense. And HR policy is very important, just so everyone is on the same page and if there's any disagreements or hurt feelings, at least there's that policy to go back to references the foundation. Okay, this is what we agreed upon. And if it needs to be changed too, do we need to revisit the policy to update it based on what our employees need or given the situation of the current times? I think that's great. That communication is very important.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah, definitely.
Wendy Fong:
I want to navigate different work styles. We had talked about how being remote or in person, there are some differences, and also with race as well. How about for example, different personality types like introverts versus extroverts?
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. So, I'm an introvert and I definitely have to be mindful of that because my dream day is like, no meetings. That doesn't really work in the modern workplace. So, I think the first step there is just actually self-awareness. So, one thing Mollie and I also talk about often is just your emotional expression tendency. So, under emoters have a hard time communicating their feelings and then over emoters are on the opposite end of the spectrum, and they're like, they feel it. You can tell immediately. And then an even emoter is somewhere in the middle. And so, if you know, for example, that you're an under emoter, especially as a leader, you might want to lean in a little more to excitement or to praise. You might want to try some small steps towards being more vulnerable, to build connection, to build trust within your team.
And if you're an over emoter, you might need to work a little harder on your poker face or just like not letting it spill out all the time, especially if you're upset about something. And so I think same goes for introvert extrovert, being aware of... I'm an introvert. My tendency is not to want to meet. My colleague is an extrovert. So, it is actually useful for us to have some time to chat about something. So, we really recommend similar to the "it's okay to" list coming up with your team, getting together, and having each person fill out a guide to working with me. So, that's where you say, like I'm an introvert, this is the best way to communicate with me. I tend to be less emotionally expressive. It doesn't mean I don't like you. That's just kind of my baseline.
And then once have everyone share, and once you have those conversations, then start to figure out what's the best way to compromise and work together. So, one example is, I love heads down time in the afternoon and the designer that I work with loves heads downtime in the morning. And so, knowing that about ourselves and about each other, we now schedule meetings at 11:00 AM or 1:00 PM. So, it's never interrupting his early morning time and it's never interrupting my late afternoon time. And so, that was just one where a simple conversation self-awareness helped us reach this place. That feels good to both of us.
Wendy Fong:
And that would be a great way to onboard someone. I can just envision, as you onboard someone new into the company, having them fill out some sort of questionnaire, I know sometimes you haven't fill out those personality questionnaires that you share with the team, but you could also share how you communicate in your preferences as well.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. I think that it's funny, I just heard from someone with a personality assessments, which I think are great starting points, but his question was, he said, when he answers a question within an assessment, he always thinks there's one answer. That's my true self. And then there's one answer. That's my aspirational self. And so he was like, which answer should I give? Who am I actually in the workplace? And so, one thing that I would love to test or love to see organizations start doing is having people take the same personality assessment and take it once as like, this is you on your worst day. And then take it again as like, this is who you want to be. And then see the gap between those two. And then talk about that as a team.
Because I think... One thing with the assessments is like, we are not fixed. Who we are depends so much on the context on the team on if we feel comfortable and if we're having a bad day and we just haven't slept well. So, I think the 'how to work with me' guides might capture more of that nuance, but I'm really into this. I'm really into this idea of taking personality assessments with both of your personalities cause I think we all have just the grumpy person within us and then the really wonderful coworker that we want to be.
Wendy Fong:
That's a great idea. I love that. I'm taking it twice cause then you could see, you have a clear distinction between the two, like point A and point B, and then you can try to map out like how do I get to point B if that's who I aspire to be every day.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah, totally.
Wendy Fong:
And also on your website, lizandmollie.com, you have some free assessments on there that I thought were really fun to take, like few questions and kind of determine your working style. There's a bunch of little quizzes on there, your emotional style...
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. So, you can figure out if you're, like I said, an under emoter, over emoter. I think we talk about your conflict style. So, that's also useful to know, do you tend to shy away from conflict? Do you tend to just dig in a little too hard. And again, these are all in the interest of surfacing your tendencies so that you can start to better shift depending on the context or just communicate with other people. I just think it's so useful to know that someone's an under emoter because then it's like, okay, that's just you, it's not that you're not excited. You don't like me. You just have like a lower baseline of emotional expression. That's fine.
Wendy Fong:
Yep. That totally makes sense. And it could be applied also to our personal lives. All of these things that we've talked about can work, not just in work, but also in our personal relationships with family and loved ones.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. It's funny. That's been one of the biggest responses to the book has been, I'm using this in my relationship. So, people say like coming home and flagging to their spouse, like I had a really bad day at work. It has nothing to do with you. I just need to kind of binge out and watch Netflix for an hour. It's just such a good way of not letting all your stress cause a fight. And then you just get more stressed and it turns into this horrible sticky situation.
Wendy Fong:
So, it's like a work/self-help book all in one!
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. I think, our work and personal lives are much more related than we'd like to admit. You know, if you're having a bad time at work, you usually don't go home and have the best dinner of your life. You usually go home and you're just upset at home too. Or if you're going through a personal, like a divorce or losing a loved one, that has massive implications for how you are able to show up at work. So, that's kind of also Mollie and I working on a second book and that's really the thesis of our second book is like big feelings. It's not like you have your emotions at work and your emotions at home. They're very interconnected and they play off of each other.
Wendy Fong:
Oh, great. Oh, I'm really excited to read that new book. Well, cause I mean, we'd always talk about work life balance, but like you said, we spend so much time at work that you can't help, but integrate the two. It's just so such an integral part of our lives that even on the weekends, I can't help thinking about work sometimes even though I'm trying to shut it off. It's hard to shut off at like five o'clock.
Liz Fosslien:
It's so hard. And also when you're working at home, it's like, well, I'm in my living room, it's work and it's home. And then, if you have your email on your personal phone, you're checking it out of habit. I think the modern world, and then the shift to remote work during the pandemic has really just destroyed any lines that we at once had between the two.
Wendy Fong:
Absolutely. So, I think it's important to set up those boundaries. And I think you also talk about this in your work, having those boundaries for yourself of when to shut things off and create that distinction, otherwise you'll get burnt out of always being on for work, whether it's like turning off the computer or not looking at your phone past nine o'clock. For me... So, I was working at my dining table when I'm working and I was sitting in a very specific chair and I told myself at dinner time or anytime I'm not working, I don't want to sit in that chair because that chair reminds me of work. So, I would tell my partner or my daughter, "Okay, you sit in that chair. I'm not going to sit in that chair because that's my work chair." And somehow, it helped me like separate, okay, that's my work chair, and, when I'm not sitting there, I'm not working.
Liz Fosslien:
I love that. I think it's really whatever works for you. A similar story that I found funny is Cal Newport. He's a professor and he wrote Deep Work. He's written a lot about focusing in the workplace. He says... And he's an engineer. So, this is a very engineer version of it. But he says, when he's done for the day, he closes his laptop and he actually says to himself what he calls a termination phrase and he says, "Schedule shut down complete." And that is, for him, this routine of like, I'm not going to work anymore. And so, that does not work for me. But I think it's a good push to say, I'm never going to sit in that chair. I'm going to say this thing to myself every night. It is good to have some kind of habit around letting go.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah, absolutely. All right. Another thing I wanted to touch on is, I've heard of this phrase, the great resignation, that is happening right now. I read that Prudential sent out a latest pulse survey and it showed that, slightly more than half of American workers would change their industry, given an opportunity to retrain. And we're seeing this shift of people like changing jobs, changing their careers, completely, cause I think the pandemic gave us time to self reflect. Is this something I want to do? And now people are feeling, I guess, more safer to take that risk and change careers. What insight do you have on that?
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah, I think there's definitely this, this push around or this trend around reflecting on what is actually important to me, what is also meaningful work, and how do I want to impact the world? I think the last year, in the US, obviously COVID was big, but there've also been a lot of conversations in the wake of George Floyd, with the Trump election, with the storming the capital. I've seen actually a lot of people go into public policy sectors and start to make the move more towards public service. And then, it's been a hard year. There was a lot going on for all kinds of reasons. And I think what's happening as well is, that people are feeling extremely burnt out and in some sense, sometimes, it's accurate. Sometimes, it's not as accurate, conflating that with their current job.
And so, I think what we're also seeing is people just being like, I want to fresh start. This was so hard, there was so much change and pressure and I just want to go somewhere else and start new. That feels really good. And so, I think that's also driving. It is just this, new year new me, new job.
And then, the other one is, there's been a lot of the big tech companies... I'm in San Francisco. So, that's kind of what I have insight into most directly. A lot of the big tech companies froze pay raises, performance reviews, promotions. There were a lot of layoffs. And so, I think people also are thinking that the best growth opportunity is just to go to a new company as opposed to wait it out and maybe... So, I know I have a friend who had headcount and then during COVID, lost that headcount. And so, now she's like, well, I could go to a different company where I'll immediately get that back, or I just have to stay at my current job and wait another year to get it. So, I think the three things are, what's meaningful work to me. It's just a hard year that I want to fresh start. And actually, I think the best growth is jumping and switching. So, that's what I've kind of seen.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. I definitely sense that. And even for me, personally, I've been with SHRM for two and a half years, but I started off overseeing the SHRM Northern California events. And I have that same mentality too. I need to do something new and have a fresh start. You just hit the nail on the head, then I took another position. Now, I oversee the SHRM national conferences and all the virtual components of it. So, I'm still within SHRM, which is great, and that they're able to allow this other opportunity, but in a completely different department. So, I feel like it's almost like a new job.
Liz Fosslien:
I think that's such a good example for people too. It is stressful to start at a new organization. So, also if that's what you're feeling, starting to look at different opportunities within your existing company, especially if you're like relatively happy there.
Wendy Fong:
Great. This has really been a really great time, Liz. I really enjoyed you and Mollie's book and would love to read the next book. And when is the next book coming out? What is that one called as well? So, our listeners know.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah, so that one's called Big Feelings: How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay. So, it goes into like burnout, perfectionism, comparison induced envy. So, some of these like really thorny issues that we feel at work and at home. Doesn't come out 'til May 2022. So, it's going to be a while, but put it on your calendars, Mar 2022
Wendy Fong:
It'll come sooner than later. It'll come quick.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. That's true that it goes faster than you think.
Wendy Fong:
Well, and then how can our listeners find you and connect with you? Oh, I follow you on LinkedIn and you post a lot of different illustrations regularly. So, those are kind of fun to see too.
Liz Fosslien:
Yeah. So, LinkedIn, I'm Liz Fossline on LinkedIn and then Mollie and I, you can find us at lizandmollie.com and then we're on Instagram, @lizandmollie. So, lots of resources, everything links to the other thing. So, you can start wherever you want.
Wendy Fong:
And then you also have a Ted talk too. So, check out, Liz's Ted talk. It's a quick 10 minute on embracing emotions at work too, that I thought was cool.
Well, thanks Liz so much for being here and taking the time out of your busy schedule and thank you listeners for listening. If you haven't already, please subscribe, so you'll never miss an episode. And be sure to rate and review the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Who knows, we might even read your review on a future episode and feel free to reach out to me on Twitter, @SHRMwendy, or on LinkedIn. And if you want to learn more about honest HR podcast or the hosts, you could go to shrm.org/honesthr, and you can check out our other SHRM podcast on shrm.org/podcast. So, until next time, happy summer, everyone, and talk to you later. Bye!
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