Your Relationship With Work
The elements of your relationship with work
Update: I’ve been on hiatus for the past two weeks while my wife and I celebrated our honeymoon in Europe. You’ll notice that I sent out a new edition this past Thursday (you can read it here) and to make it up to you I’ll do another bonus edition sometime next week.
As we get to the end of the year, I’m starting to do reflections and planning for 2024. I am going to be making some changes with the newsletter format and will be sending out a more formal survey soon. I would love to get your feedback, and as always, please shoot me a note if you have any thoughts or suggestions.
Your Relationship with Work
There’s no shortage of challenges in the workplace that need fixing. Whether it’s inequitable pay practices, insufficient career development opportunities, outdated work policies or ill-equipped managers, the list of workplace boogeyman problems goes on and on. But one of the ones that doesn't come up as much in the headlines is around our relationship with work.
Typically, in the headlines about the workplace, we tend to see things about the importance of relationships in the workplace, and how they translate into effectiveness in your job, advancement in your career, and overall well-being and engagement. But rarely do they examine a more meta-relationship, in terms of what is your relationship with work.
That’s why the recent HP Work Relationship Index report is interesting. Over the past year, HP went out to find out on the inputs that drive meaningful and productive work experiences. What they found is that across thousands (12k+) of workers across the globe, is that world’s collective relationship with work in their words, is at a breaking point.
Here are some of the headline findings: (Full report is here)
Only 27% of knowledge workers say they have a healthy relationship with work; India is most healthy, Japan least healthy (The US didn’t fare so great)
Knowledge workers say when their relationship with work is not how they want it to be, they struggle with their mental, emotional and physical well-being. 62% eat more unhealthy foods, 55% struggle with mental health and self-esteem
Productivity and worker engagement diminish - When workers have an unhealthy relationship with work, they are less productive, engaged and feel more disconnected
What Does Relationship With Work Even Mean?
When you have workers with unhealthy relationships with work, that leads to disengagement, attrition, and lower productivity. This seems like a pretty reasonable statement - if you don’t like your job, or your manager is crushing your productivity and engagement, it’s going to lead to negative outcomes to both organizations and employees.
But I think there is more that is worth exploring here. Your relationship with work is a pretty deep and meta topic - what does that even mean? Is it meaning? Purpose? Value alignment? That you are advancing in your career? Achievement? Work-Life balance? Work within the context of your life? Your actual relationships with colleagues at work?
Back when I worked in consulting, I was given advice when I got a potential project opportunity, to consider the 3P’s: People, Project, and Place. Depending on the answer to those questions, would determine to me if the project was a fit. I added another P (Purpose) and that was often a barometer for me for both selecting projects and then afterwards, evaluating my own engagement and overall happiness with my work. This was often a barometer with my relationship with work. There were times when my relationship with work was healthy - when I was on a great project, all those elements were strong and in alignment.
When my relationship with work wasn’t healthy, it was because something in there was off. And certain elements of those I think mattered more to me. I could generally get by as long as the People and Purpose were high, and there were times when I was on a really awesome project, but the place or the people weren’t great, and my relationship with work was much lower.
When I work with managers, I often like to use a similar framework to help them better understand the headspace their employees are in when it comes to listening and looking for their engagement, productivity and well-being, and to me it all comes back to relationships. Specifically, how we relate to these five core elements.
Your Relationship with yourself - This is about your own self-awareness and self-belief. Do you feel confident in knowing who you are and feel a sense of self-esteem as it relates to work?
Your Relationship with your job - This is all about the actual tasks and deliverables you do each day. Do you feel connected and engaged in them?
Your Relationship with your career - Beyond your job, how do you see your relationship with your career growth and development? Do you have a career and some ideas about growth, and are you progressing toward it?
Your Relationship with your teammates - The team (and specifically the manager) is the closest unit of interaction an employee has day to day. How important are those relationships? Are they healthy or unhealthy?
Your Relationship with your organization - This is about your connection to the mission and norms of the company. Do you feel a connection to your work and the bigger picture?
For any employee, this is a helpful way to define your relationship with work across key elements, prioritize these by importance to you, and at any given moment, assess the relative healthiness (strong/weak) of each of these relationships.
For managers and leaders, this is a way to recognize that each of your employees has a different definition as well as prioritization of their relationship with work, and by taking the time to understand, observe and coach toward these can help you develop healthy and engaged employees.
So how do you get started?
Tactical Practices For Improving Your Employees’ Relationship With Work
If you’re a leader or manager, and looking to improve your employees’ relationship with work, here are some tactical approaches you can try:
1)Talk To Your Employees About Their Relationship With Work
Think about what you normally ask of your employees. “How are things going” “Anything I can help with?” Consider replacing some of those questions with asking more specific questions around their relationship with work. I will readily admit, some of these are easier to probe on than others, but the most natural ones I usually find are relationship to career, and relationship to organization.
Action: Schedule time to talk to individual team members to understand their relationship with their career, or their relationships with their peers. Help them identify 2-3 people they want to strengthen a relationship with or make a connection with, and help make that connection
2)Proactively and Intentionally Foster Trust
It’s going to be hard for an employee to tell you what they think about their relationship with work, if they don’t trust you or feel a sense of connection, which is why you need to intentionally build trust. Building trust especially when there's a power dynamic is on the onus of the person who holds the power. To build trust, consider the metaphor of a battery (see below) In order for a battery to power something, it needs energy. Each time you build trust, you put energy that gives it a charge. Finding more ways (using the examples on the slide) to “charge” your trust battery is a great start.
Action: Build the trust batter for your employees by using the approaches in the image
3)Remind Your People Why & How Their Work Matters
In my conversation with Dr. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, She and her team at BetterUp conducted research and found that “mattering,” or one’s sense of the difference they make to the world, matters, significantly, to both organizational and employee success. Finding specific moments to remind each employee of the specific things they do and how they impact people and the organization can make a significant difference in their overall well-being and relationship with work.
Action: In a weekly 1:1, tell your employees how their specific projects and workstreams make a difference to the company’s performance as well as to other people (Customers, employees)
The reality is, that all of us have a different relationship with our work. But if we believe the HP data to be true, we have a long way to go in understanding how we can improve our collective relationship with work.
When managers and leaders take the time to listen and understand where their people are with their relationship with work across these elements, they can begin to identify ways to help their people improve relative to their relationship.
If you’re looking for some help for your learning and development, leadership development or professional development for this year, I’d love to work with you: Here is how I might be able to assist:
Team Trainings & Professional Development: Happy to facilitate training or professional development opportunity for your team & organization - common topics include: influence without authority, navigating change, hybrid working, and others.
Support Your Offsites & Meetings: Speak or facilitate at your team’s offsite. Need a guide to facilitate or speak at an upcoming offsite, QBR or all hands? Happy to engage here.
Leadership & Learning Programs: Formal training and leadership development in your company, such as new manager or new leader training, or skill-based programs.
Feel free to contact me directly for more details!
Have a great week!
Al