Helping Each Other and Our Teams During Times of Change

Brandon Sullivan, Ph.D.

OHR Employee Engagement Manager

March, 2013

Agenda

• Stressors in today’s workplace• How the workplace is changing• Burnout• Engagement• What you can do to increase engagement

Faster pace of organizational

change

Decreased autonomy, voice,

input into key decisions

Greater demands on your time, energy,

and emotional reserves

Lower support from coworkers,

supervisors, and others

Unclear expectations and

goals

Conflicting expectations and

goals

Decreased fit between you and

your job

Top Workplace Stressors

The Old Workplace•Individuals feel a strong obligation and loyalty to the organization

•Employers feel a strong obligation and loyalty to employeesMutual Loyalty

•Individuals identify with the organization•Allegiance is to the organization and its membersCommon

Identity•Broad trust in institutions and leaders•Employer provides stable career path•Change treated as an infrequent and discreet eventTrust &

Stability

The New Workplace•Individuals stay with an organization until they get a better deal elsewhere

•Employers retain an employee as long as it makes financial sense

Transactional Relationship

•New jobs emerge that didn’t exist before•Current jobs change or become obsolete•Organizational structures always adapting to new challenges

Change is Constant

•Less trust in institutions and leaders•Greater transparency and accountability for results and use of resourcesLess Trust, More

Accountability

So What?

• Weaker identification with the organization as a whole• Stronger identification with occupation, discipline,

personal network• Employee responsible for own career (and more

empowered)• More focus on what you, your immediate team, and your

network can do

Activity

Discuss with a partner 1-2 ways your current work and workplace are changing

How are these changes affecting your stress level?

How Do Individuals React?When work demands consistently exceed the available coping resources, a process called burnout begins…

It Starts with Exhaustion

Feelings of being over-extended, depleted of emotional and physical resources, feeling “drained”

Next: Depersonalization, Cynicism & Detachment

• Human services occupations: depersonalization – ceasing to see one’s students, clients, patients, or customers as individual human beings

• Non human-services occupations: cynicism and detachment

• Under the circumstances, this can be adaptive

Finally: Reduced Efficacy

• Reduced feelings of effectiveness and personal accomplishment

• Can result in less effort and poorer performance

Burnout

… if not addressed, burnout can lead to increased turnover and absenteeism, greater risk for physical and psychological illness, spillover of stress to personal relationships

The Way Forward

Create the opposite of burnout

Employee Engagement!Key Drivers

• Campuses, colleges, units & departments build trust and create a sense of collective purpose

• Consistently effective leaders and managers

• Challenging work that provides a feeling of mastery

Engagement

• Individuals are enthusiastic, passionate, and committed to their work and the University

Has to be a two-way street: Individual Organizationtime, energy, enthusiasm

Taking Ownership

Build and communicate a shared visionSet challenging goals that contribute to the visionProvide clear roles and expectationsEnsure the free flow of timely, high-quality information Remove barriers to success with a sense of urgencyTake every opportunity to recognize and reward good workListen actively and seek to understand others’ viewpoints Demonstrate concern and support for others’ wellbeing Actively help others make progress toward career goals

Key Drivers

• Campuses, colleges, units & departments build trust and create a sense of collective purpose

• Consistently effective leaders and managers

• Challenging work that provides a feeling of mastery

What can we do?

Decades of research show these factors to be foundational for building highly engaged, high performance teams

Activity

With a partner, discuss which drivers of engagement are current pain points for your team or unit

Brainstorm some practical ideas your partner might try to address these pain points

Questions?