Ep 24: 2024 Workplace Trends

Guest Bio:

Lisa Sharapata is a Global Marketing Leader focused on Revenue Growth in the B2B tech sector. In the past 20+ years, she has led teams across Demand Gen, Brand, Digital, Growth Marketing, and more.

Currently serving as the Chief Marketing Officer at The Arbinger Institute, she leads efforts to help more organizations create people-centric cultures and strengthen organizational excellence. 

Follow Lisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisasharapata/

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Episode Highlights

What are the top 5 themes from The Arbinger Institute’s 2024 Workplace Trends Report?

1. Redefining the employee experience

Lisa Sharapata: Our survey found that more important than salary to employees was a life balance And not far behind that was the feeling of doing meaningful work. I think it just comes back to taking a look at the whole person again and being more people-centric and saying what does this person need to thrive in this role? What does this department need to really be successful? Do we need everyone in the office all the time? Does it work if people want to be remote? How flexible can we be? Then within reason let's look at creating the structure of the department and people's hours and when they are together based on real tangible things.

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2. Bridging the divide between leaders and employees

Lisa Sharapata: One of the things that we found that I think is mind boggling really- that there's still a huge disconnect [between] the higher level leaders versus individual contributors. [They] are not on the same page as far as how they think things are going with things like job satisfaction and communication. So that was a clear trend and I think it is really telling about where some of the breakdowns are and the kind of basic things that need to get worked on.

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3. Turning the performance review on its head

Lisa Sharapata: One of things our survey uncovered and one of the things that we do here again at The Arbinger Institute with our tools and our process is much more regular feedback. It's an ongoing dialogue and it's the employee who takes responsibility and ownership for that. You're getting a feedback loop consistently in your owning it. You understand how you affect other people and the company's goals. I also think it creates a culture with more gratitude too where we show up feeling like I want to know how I'm doing and how I'm impacting other people and when you're constantly getting that kind of feedback and talking to your leadership team about that too it gives them a chance to say not just the bad things. You're not waiting until you do something wrong for someone to say “now it's time to have a performance review” because we need to intervene.

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4. Catalyzing communication to improve collaboration

Lisa Sharapata: It can't be one way communication. We let everybody know what our objectives were for the year and we're telling you everything you need to know. That does not create an environment where people feel safe to speak up- where you really truly get the best out of people where you're innovating and solving problems together. 

Psychological safety is the number one factor in high performing teams. When people are afraid to speak up, they're afraid of retribution. They're afraid of negative consequences. they're afraid to even think out loud or ask bold questions or challenge the status quo. [This is] not a collaborative environment where you're really thriving as an organization.

I encourage people to challenge their own thinking on this. Do people feel comfortable coming to me with a problem and they don't know the answer to it? I know I've had bosses who don't come to me with a problem without a solution. Somebody said this to me a while ago and it's really stuck with me. What I want is people to feel comfortable coming to me [with] a problem to brainstorm a solution together. 

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5. Prioritizing training and development to boost performance

Lisa Sharapata: What we found in our survey was those with the most job satisfaction were five times more likely to work for companies who provided opportunities to enhance their skills or develop their career.  There's lots of different ways you can take that. It can be all the way from a leadership development piece to more of a technical tactical thing. I think it gets back to us as human beings wanting to feel like people are investing in us. That we have a chance to grow and to learn and that someone cares enough to help me in my career and in my journey.

I think that's the catalyst for all of it. And everyone needs something different. This is really [about] getting to know what they're really interested in. So it might not be giving them more training on this thing. It might be helping them do [something else]. What I found over time is, when you really get to know someone and understand what their goals and objectives are and where they want to go and you invest in them- it doesn't even have to be financially. It could be your time. It could be finding them a mentor. It could be, pairing them up on a special project giving them opportunities. That's when people really get engaged. That's when people really show up and bring their best self.

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Get the full 2024 Workplace Trends report directly from The Arbinger Institute here: https://arbinger.com/blog/5-workplace-trends-to-prepare-for-in-2024/

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