Something’s off. People aren’t talking. They’re working in silos. Engagement is falling fast, and miscommunications are on the rise. It’s one of the most challenging situations a manager can encounter: a bad team culture.

Here’s the bad news: it’s not going to fix itself. As the manager, you’re responsible for creating, managing, and recreating the team culture as needed.

The good news? There are so many simple, effective things you can do to get your team’s culture back on track. 

Here are my top 5 tips for building a strong team culture:

Call it out

This might be the last thing you want to do –– after all, having a less-than-great team culture doesn’t really create an atmosphere for sharing and trust. But I promise you that letting things fester is worse. Call a meeting and lay it all out on the table. Talk about how the team culture hasn’t been what anybody wants it to be. And then ask the team to brainstorm ideas about how to fix it. I’m always a fan of doing this together on flip charts if you possibly can, but doing it remotely via a doc works too.

Create consistency

Teams thrive when they know what to expect. Schedule in consistent activities for team culture-building, and make sure they always happen. Think: things like a weekly team meeting, quarterly happy hour, yearly off-site. It’s easy to let these things slide when you get busy, but don’t give into that temptation. These things are just as important as any of the other work you do, because they ensure that you can do that work well.

Give people space to form organic connections

Many people hate traditional icebreakers, so if you try to force your team through those week after week, you may end up doing more harm than good. Instead, use tried and true team builders, and be sure to create lots of space for forming organic connections too. Things like coffee tastings or bagel bars often work well for this. Anything you can do that puts people in a room with each other and gives them the opportunity to chat is a good thing!

You may also want to see how you can encourage mentor-mentee relationships among your team members. You can go for the traditional manager-team member set up, but I’d encourage you to think outside the box and let people form these relationships organically among themselves as well. You never know whose skill sets and needs are going to align!

Revamp your team meetings

Team meetings are usually the worst part of everybody’s week (managers included!), but they can be such a valuable opportunity for culture-building, if you know how to do them right. Instead of going with the traditional meeting structure, make meetings collaborative. Give everybody a job to do in the meeting, or a part of the meeting. You can even do a rotation, or a lottery for who gets what job each week to keep things interesting.

One really effective culture-builder for meetings is the weekly shout-out. It sounds cheesy, but if you end every meeting with a time where people can give shout-outs to their teammates, calling out good behavior and celebrating wins together, it goes such a long way in building culture. Plus it makes meetings way more enjoyable, since everybody leaves on a high note! (Want more training for running great meetings? Check this out.)

When in doubt, bring food.

Bagels, doughnuts, salad bar, coffee or tea flights, cocktails, whatever’s a fit for your team, bring it. Food always brings people together, and the act of eating with each other is an easy way to foster a sense of community. 

Creating a strong team culture is so important, and it really can start with something as simple as a box of bagels and lox. So make sure you’re taking the time to focus on this critical element for engagement and retention! And as always, if you’d like some support while you’re working on it, I’m here to help! Find out how I help managers build great team culture here.

Making generalizations about generations is always going to require painting with some broad brushstrokes –– but I have noticed some trends about managers lately that seem to be holding true across many of the businesses I work with. It’s been especially interesting to see how these trends are impacting (and in some cases forming!) the shifts in the world of work we’re experiencing now.

Here’s what I’m seeing:

Boomers

The good: Managers in this age cohort have a wealth of lived experience, and you just can’t get the same depth and breadth of know-how with any other cohort. They’ve been through multiple recessions, they’ve seen the ups and downs of business, and they can often see things others can’t because they’ve worked through similar situations before.

The bad: While this is certainly not universal, I’ve seen that a number of boomer managers have a hard time relating to their workforce. (This is certainly not a one-way street, I also see that younger cohorts have a hard time relating to their older managers as well.) They have a tendency to be so far up that they forget what it’s like to be down in the weeds, and they can neglect communicating with their workforce, since they forget that not everybody has the same lived experience they do, and may need things spelled out in different ways.

My tip for boomer managers: Lead with empathy. This is good advice for any manager, but I especially recommend it to my managers in this age cohort, because empathy unlocks the key to that relationship with your workforce. While you have lots of experience, the people you work with do too, even if it’s not as deep or broad as yours.

Gen X-ers

The good: Gen X-ers are the sandwich generation, squeezed in between the two larger cohorts of the boomers and the millennials, which means that they have good insight into those around them. They tend to see the strengths and weaknesses of both cohorts, and are able to easily navigate whatever team they happen to be working with. 

The bad: Again, this is far from a universal, but some Gen-X-ers seem to have one foot out the door. We’re all aging, and it can be tempting to stop learning, or to try and ride out those last couple of years. This can also lead them to favor stability over change, which means that they can unintentionally hamper good ideas by naysaying them before really considering whether that’s in the best interests of the team.

My tip for Gen-X managers: Be present, and curious. My favorite quote from Ted Lasso (which actually originated with Walt Whitman) is “Stay curious, not judgmental.” Lean into that strength you have of fitting in with different age cohorts, and be willing to give new ideas a try, even if they seem like they might be impractical on first viewing.

Millennials

The good: Millennials have the widest-spread growth mindset of any of the cohorts I’ve seen. I’ve had many come through my Manager Training Series and they have this burning curiosity and desire to grow that aligns well with where they’re at in their career trajectory. They’ve got a lot of momentum, and they bring that to their workforces as well.

The bad: Yet again, this isn’t true of every millennial manager I see, but I do see that some of them can have a tendency to get into responsibility silos. As in “this and only this is my responsibility, and I will not engage with things beyond my direct responsibility.” While it’s great to know your boundaries, teams and workplaces aren’t perfectly clear-cut in terms of responsibilities, and sometimes you need someone to step up and take responsibility if it’s presented.

My tip for millennial managers: Watch out for a tendency to hyper-individuate. Absolutely respect yourself, and respect your boundaries, and also recognize that the nature of reality in which you are working is that you are part of a team. Marry that momentum you so naturally bring to things with the ability to lead and work as part of a team, and you’ll see so much change.

What does this mean for the world of work overall?

I think the main thing we can all take away from this is that the world of work is becoming more complex, and not just in the way that people talk about when they write about the VUCA world of work. 

We’re now working with an unprecedented mix of generations in the workplace (I didn’t even get to Gen Z, they’re just starting out in their manager journey!) and that means that the core things that always make for good management are more important than ever: curiosity. Good listening. Teamwork. Kindness. And empathy.

The more you’re able to lead with those things in your management, the smaller the generational divides become, and the more you’re able to pull on everybody’s strengths.

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We all know how important it is to work from a set of shared values –– it’s one of the most powerful predictive factors for employee engagement and high performance, plus, it encourages a sense of camaraderie and makes being at work much more enjoyable. People all align around the same sense of purpose, and organizational decisions get much easier, since you have a clear sense of what you’re aiming for.

Of course, we also all know how easy it is to create a “Shared Values” document, stick it up on the wall, and then only remember that it exists when you’re doing a deep clean before Christmas and find that it’s fallen behind your filing cabinet.

The good news is, it’s absolutely possible to create a solid sense of shared values that actually impact the way your organization runs day-to-day. And, even better, organizations that do this hard work have an incredible degree of alignment around their values that can have massive, lasting impact on the organization as a whole. 

Here’s how to create a sense of shared values: 

Quick side note before we dive into the process: you can certainly do this on your own, but if you get stuck anywhere in the process, I highly recommend outsourcing it and working with someone who can come in and help guide you and your company through it. Sometimes just having that pair of outside eyes can make everything so much easier. Message me for resources.

• Start by hosting a brainstorming session for getting shared values on the table.

• Whatever your starting point is, the next step is to bring your staff together and have a brainstorming session where everybody contributes their thoughts about what your org’s shared values are.

• At this point, anything goes, so encourage people to bring whatever thoughts they have. Write them all on a whiteboard or a big sticky note on the wall, and once you hit that point where everybody’s contributed, or you start seeing repeat values, start seeing if any of your values might fold together into one.

• Once you’ve got your list narrowed down, have people vote on which values are most representative of the company. One easy way to do this is with dot stickers –– everybody gets a the same number of stickie dots, and they put their dots next to the values they’re voting for. I call this stickie dot voting. It may surprise you with how quickly this synthsizes your ideas.

• Then wordsmith it.

• Now that you’ve gotten the puzzle pieces on the table, so to speak, take it away and do some wordsmithing. See what you can do to really get to the heart of what these values are about, and phrase them in a simple way, using everyday language. Think about how people actually talk in your organization, and describe the values in those terms. That will be so much more useful and feel more “real” to your people than any kind of fancy, over-the-top language.

• Bring it back to everyone for a final check-in.

• Gather everybody together again and present your wordsmithed draft to them, and invite them to give you any final feedback before you all espouse those values. Once everybody feels like they’re on board with the document, discuss how you’ll actually see those values play out in your day-to-day work. For instance, if humor is a shared value, then how are you going to incorporate humor in your weekly meetings? Talk about how these things show up tactically, and what processes you can put in place to ensure they stay top of mind.

• Finally, make sure you set aside time every six months or so to review your statement and see whether it needs any updating. Are there any values you haven’t really seen at work in the past six months? Do you need to add any new values? Has anything else changed that might mean the document is now out of date? Having regular check-ins ensures that you keep your values current, and you don’t end up with the poster-behind-the-filing-cabinet situation.

And of course, if you’d like more guidance and support with this kind of work, I’m always here for you. Click here to find out more about how I support managers just like you do more great work.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: the hybrid work environment is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. 

That’s got a lot of managers facing challenges they never expected. Many people don’t want to come back into the workplace. People need different accommodations post-pandemic, whether for their health or simply because they’ve gotten used to picking their kid up at the bus stop every day. And the mix of logistical, mental, and emotional juggling required can make even the most seasoned manager want to throw up their hands and lock their office door.

But a hybrid environment really can work –– in fact, with some flexibility, it can benefit you, your staff, and the organization. 

Here’s how you can support a hybrid work environment as a manager:

Listen, listen, listen.

This is the first and most important thing: if you do nothing else, just listen. People have a whole lot of thoughts about coming back to the workplace in any capacity, and a lot of them are scared, anxious, angry, eager ... anything you can imagine in the line of strong emotions. As a manager, your job is to listen to them and really understand where they’re coming from. And that’s it, to start! You don’t have to decide what to do in that moment, just listen. Really ask your people how they feel about hybrid work and why. This will help them understand that you care about what they’re feeling, and it’ll help you both find solutions for a pattern of hybrid work that serves you and your organization.

Offer as many accommodations as you reasonably can, and have a well-defined accommodations process.

One key feature of hybrid work (and post-pandemic work in general) is accommodations. While it’s likely you’ve always offered some accommodations for health conditions, you’re going to have to increase those to include wellness and personal accommodations.

Lots of people need different types of accommodations than you might have previously considered: many companies need to offer mental health accommodations because of trauma from the pandemic or simply have to be more flexible because people have gotten used to different timings in their lives. If somebody has gone to therapy every week from 2 - 3 in the afternoon, they’re not going to want to change that and be back in the office. Similarly, people have gotten used to being with their families in different ways. They like being able to drop the kids off at school, or pick them up from the bus stop, or even run their errands in the middle of the day. Do what you can to work with people, and create a well-defined accommodations process so you can quickly get people the help they need.

Along these lines, remember that you may need to change things up for the “new normal”. You may have team members who can no longer safely come in because they have compromised immune systems, or you may have people who have physically relocated. Ensure that you still have ways to include them by making your conference rooms AV-accessible, so people can work both in-person and at a distance as needed.

Look for core office hours

The old schedule of everyone coming in from 8 - 5 is almost certainly never coming back. So don’t try to force it. Instead, think about how you can offer flexibility while still getting people together for the things they really need to be on-site for. 

For instance, you could agree that every day from 10 - 3 is “at work” time, or core office hours, where people agree to be in the office. If someone wants to come in earlier or make that the start of their day and stay later, that’s all well and good! But at least now you know when you can schedule meetings, and people can know when they can definitely expect their colleagues to be available. If daily hours aren’t a fit for your organization yet, then start with days of the week instead. For instance, Thursdays could be meeting days, and any work that needs to be done in-person gets done then. It takes a little planning, but it actually saves a lot of time and frustration when it comes to time-blocking work and scheduling the things that really matter.

Ease back in

Finally, realize that this is going to be a process. People have strong feelings about coming back to work, and we’re all still dealing with the aftereffects of the societal and work shifts of the past few years. So start slow and very gradually work up to your full hybrid work schedule. Even just having team lunches together for a couple of weeks before your official “start date” can be a great way to start. 

The benefits of having people back in the workplace are so many, and I really do think things will get easier after we go through this period of readjustment. So take your time, lead with empathy, and know that things are just going to be a little bumpy as we transition back into on-site work –– but we’ll get there!

As always, if you like what you read here and want more support in developing as a manager, check out the next Manager Training Series! You can sign up for a free preview here.

Your turn

How is your workplace supporting a hybrid work environment? What tools or tactics are working well for your team? Share in the comments below or on our social feeds on LinkedIn or Instagram.

The last few years have been a lot to handle. 

Many of us have been fueled by sheer adrenaline and, as that adrenaline starts to dissipate, we’re realizing that our mental health maybe isn’t where we’d like it to be.

Of course, logically knowing that mental health issues are on the rise and that at least some of your people are likely to face periods of struggle is one thing — suddenly realizing that one of your employees is in the bathroom crying or having a panic attack is a whole other thing.

Even if it’s something less dramatic, like an employee who seems really disengaged or distracted, or whose work isn’t hitting their usual standard, it can be incredibly hard to know what to do in the moment to help someone experiencing a mental health crisis. 

Maybe it’s a new experience for you. Maybe you’re feeling a little shaky yourself. Maybe you’ve just never thought about how you’d handle something like this.

So think of what I’m about to share as a mental health form of CPR — you hope you never need to use it, but you’re glad to have it in your toolbox, just in case.

What to do in an emergency.

First up, let’s look at what to do if an employee is in crisis and it seems like a true emergency situation.

If it feels like your employee’s life or physical safety is in imminent danger or the safety of other people is in question, you’re going to want to make that 911 call. Another option is to call 988, the new Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (the updated version of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline), and follow the expert advice provided by the call handler.

What to do in a non-emergency situation.

If your employee is clearly experiencing a mental health crisis (or even if you just suspect they might be) but it doesn’t feel like they’re in imminent danger, you have a few different options.

Primarily, you’ll want to conduct a welfare check with your employee — a meaningful conversation that helps you gauge their well-being.

You wouldn’t want to wade in here with a “hey, you look depressed, what’s up?” This is most definitely a time to tread carefully. 

Think leading with curiosity rather than accusations. 

Try something like, “I’m concerned about you, you don’t seem as engaged in our team meetings. How’s everything going?” You’ll also want to reassure them that you’re there to listen without judgment and that you’ll do whatever you can to help.

Of course, those are not easy conversations to instigate or navigate, so it’s okay if you need a little guidance. That would be a great time to call your Employee Assistance Program for help, talk to your HR director, or even seek the support of an HR consultant.

The most important thing, though, is that you’re willing and able to listen to what your employee has to say. If it turns out that they’re feeling overwhelmed about their workload, if they’re struggling because of an issue in their personal life, or if they’re navigating a physical or mental health issue, you’ll want to be ready to brainstorm possible accommodations that would be reasonable for your workplace that will help them through this difficult period.

For example, maybe they need to leave an hour early every Thursday to attend a therapy appointment. Or you might consider an alternative workload distribution if someone has been taking on more tasks than they should.

Preventing mental health crises.

Naturally, many of the potential drivers of an employee’s mental health crisis will be far beyond your control.

However, for those experiencing ill health or personal problems, working in a nurturing environment can help prevent them from reaching that crisis tipping point. So what can you do to play a part in helping your team members avoid a crisis?

Two words:  choice and connectedness.

Giving your employees choices, versus telling them what to do, gives them more control over their situation. That might look like letting employees choose remote working a few days a week, offering alternative start and finish times, and providing more opportunities for career development and progression. It might even be the best choice you can offer is the choice to leave if someone is very unhappy in their position but doesn’t have the tools or ability to communicate their need to leave. Helping people transition to a new position or even a new company can be a great relief for those employees.

And connectedness…

Employees who feel like they’re just an unappreciated cog in a machine that would happily spit them out is a huge issue in many organizations. But when teams feel a real sense of connection, people feel more valued, more motivated, and happier both in and out of the workplace.

So don’t dismiss the importance of things like regular team meetings, team lunches, and even (non-cringey) team-building sessions. All too often managers claim they don’t have time for these things — but fail to think about how many hours they might lose to employees who are burnt out, stressed, and calling in sick.

Another great tip for building connection within your teams is a specific team check-in, devised by Brené Brown, where you start each meeting by inviting everyone present to name two emotions they’re currently feeling. Not only does this help people feel like you view them as actual humans and not just machine cogs, but it also allows you to assess where your team members are emotionally so you can figure out who is struggling and might need a little extra help.

Admittedly, times are hard for many people right now and as a leader, there’s only so much you can do to shore up your employees’ mental health. That said, work is such as huge part of our lives, that anything you can do to help your people feel valued and connected in the workplace will definitely go a long way to mitigating at least some of the challenges they’re experiencing.

If you found this helpful, you’ll love my Manager Training Series where I teach leaders like you how to develop a strong foundation of leadership skills. Click here for the details.

Many of us work in a hurried, reactive environment. We tactically respond to what's coming at us each week, each day, even by the hour, like the game of Whack-a-Mole. The pace is not sustainable. This approach is causing exhaustion for managers and even for our most engaged team members. 

I hear from managers about the disorder that happens in the workplaces. They are tired, bewildered, and don’t know how to fix the system that they created or in some cases inherited. While doing the great work of delivering client projects, helping earn new business we sometimes forget the critical work of developing a team and sustainable systems to make the work and workplace thrive. So, we live in this place of antiquated systems, tools, processes and wonder how to unravel this ball of yarn, but then another client deliverable is due and the job of working on the team is set aside.

I know the place that you’re in, and the feeling of overwhelm. 

You might be managing from a reactive stance if some of these situations sound familiar;

• News among the team, and the company, often travels through the grapevine and rarely comes from management.

• Some people are in the know about important company info, while others, who are equally qualified, remain unaware. This causes discontent but let me point out that it also causes equity and proximity issues. 

• The team is not aligned on priorities.

• Team members may struggle with loneliness or lack of connection individually or with each other.

• The work feels transactional, and employees feel like a cog in the wheel of a big production with little personal benefit.

In an impulsive environment, we can fail to communicate important details with our team. This leaves employees, managers, directors, and even senior leaders occasionally in a confused dark space and often leads to frustration at its best, and active employee disengagement at its worst. If you’re familiar with the eNPS score, actively disengaged team members are considered “detractors”. They are actively not promoting your workplace. In fact, usually, they are actively complaining about it to their friends, neighbors, in line at the coffee shop, and those complaints are like poison to coworkers. Very few companies can withstand a trend of actively disengaged employees.

Here’s the bad news: the outside world might not get any less chaotic any time soon.

But the good news is that you can create a calm, stable work environment anyway by proactively leading your team. Sounds great ... but who has the time for that?

I get it, making this kind of change to move away from chaos can feel like one more overwhelming thing in a long list of overwhelming things. And I’m not going to lie, this kind of change does take a lot of effort upfront. But it pays off in stability, consistency, innovation, and performance.

(And just in case that’s not convincing enough for you, if you don’t make these changes, you’re creating an unsustainable future for your team and risk employee dissatisfaction, productivity, and regrettable turnover.)

The key to success? Consistency.

I’ve noticed in two decades as an HR professional that the teams and leaders who harness a methodical, intentional approach to communicating and leading a team have stability in their workforce. Consistency is the key. Identify how you want to lead and manage your team and stick with it.

And if you do nothing else, host a regular team meeting.

It’s not that this will magically solve your problems overnight, but you have to start somewhere, and I recommend implementing an effective team meeting. If you're not already hosting a team meeting, start with a consistent and dependable one. Or, if you have one but it feels stale or fruitless, reinvent it.

The benefits of a healthy, transparent, and dependable team meeting are palpable, here are a few from my experience working with mid-sized businesses:

• Connections thrive among the whole team  

• Team members develop a strong level of trust in their manager that they are knowledgeable about the happenings in the business

• Together, teams can solve problems, it’s not just for the manager and the individual who has the problem

• Brainstorming power multiplies in team meetings   

• Employees report feeling a sense of belonging

• Crosstraining and employee development thrive  

Above all: do not cancel your team meeting! 

The meeting can only work if you actually have the meeting!

Even if your agenda feels light, and you simply come together to bond, and follow through on your promise of hosting a team meeting, that’s a win. Don’t be the manager who cancels the meeting at the last very last second, or shows up and says, “Well, we don’t really have anything on the agenda this week, so...” Set a proactive agenda to effectively communicate important information with your team. It’s a simple, wide-reaching, and effective way to infuse stability and tip your culture in a positive direction.

Not sure whether your team meetings are worth the time? (Or maybe you’re pretty sure they are not?)

I’m here to help.

Check out my on-demand course, Building Blocks to an Effective Team Meeting. It’ll set you up for success with a downloadable course agenda and the exact components to include in your regular team meeting agenda.

Running the Manager Training Series is one of my very favorite things to do ... but I’m not going to lie, this cohort last year had me at the brink.

We were talking about department meetings in general, and they had sooooo many questions.

• ​What would I include and not include?

• Who should run the meeting?

• Should they have a prepared agenda?

• Should the manager hosting the meeting be the only one talking?

• Is a team builder or icebreaker even necessary for an established team?

• What about notes or minutes, if yes, who should take them?

• And, on and on...

This line of questioning went on into delirium. But it did make me ponder their dilemma. Learning about the higher-level stuff was great. But they also wanted to know precisely how I would structure a departmental meeting if I were hosting one.

By the end of the line of questions, it was clear that they wanted my EXACT FORMULA for an effective team meeting. And, friends, this is how The Ideal Team Meeting​ formula was incubated. 

Later that day, I scratched out my ideas and added them to our private LinkedIn group. You know what? It worked! 

The next week a participant said, ​"​Hey Amy​,​ I tried your ideal team meeting format and it worked! Starting with that team builder that you recommended the format worked for my team.​"​ 

Thanks to this cohort, I’ve been deliberating on making more guides like this for SIX MONTHS. Over winter break, I recorded an on-demand that answers the question of exactly what you should include, how, and why. This also led me to plan a series of related classes that will support your curiosity in taking a deeper dive into some management tactics that we talk about at a high level during the ​M​anager ​T​raining ​S​eries.

And now, I’m very pleased to announce that Building Blocks to an Effective Team Meeting is ready and available for you to make your meetings that much better.

I’ve tested this with a few clients, and here is what one of them had to say:

"The Building Blocks to an Effective Team Meeting course hit the spot in terms of giving both conceptual and actionable guidance to address my current needs. I'm adopting The Ideal Team Meeting Agenda and adapting it to meet the needs of my senior leader meeting."

— David Weiner, CEO, Social Studies School Service

So if you’ve ever been in a meeting that’s less than great (or run one yourself!) check it out!

A practical guide to more empathetic management

McGeachy Consulting, LLC

Have you noticed that people are a bit more ... edgy in the workplace these days? From your direct report being moved to tears by well-meaning constructive feedback or that one person everyone tip toes around because they never know what might set them off, the world of work has definitely changed.

Organizational Development leaders have been talking about empathy and connection as qualities of inspiring leaders for some time but now, in this post-COVID era, when people are returning to the office, working hybrid, feeling overwhelmed, possibly even burnt out, pulled in many directions, empathy and connection seem vital to positive relationships at work.

But does it really make a difference? And how do you make it happen?

Short answer: yes, and practice.

The Center for Creative Leadership has found that “Empathy in the Workplace is positively related to job performance.” That's relevant to everyone, managers and individual contributors. Also they noted that managers experience two boosts to their performance by practicing empathy. First, they were viewed as a better supervisor to their direct reports. And, "Managers who practiced empathetic leadership toward direct reports were viewed as better performers by their bosses."

How to be empathetic in the workplace:

A lot of it comes down to how you interact in conversation with the people around you. Something as simple as using empathetic statements can really make a difference. For instance, when someone...

• shares bad news with you

• expresses a complaint (even if it's about you!)

• discloses their feelings or fears

...consider saying something like,

• I’m so sorry, I don't even know what to say right now, but I'm glad you shared this with me

• It makes sense that you feel ___________.

• It sounds like you've done everything you could

• I'm sorry you're experiencing this right now

• I understand how you feel

Empathy vs. sympathy

It’s also important to note that we’re talking about empathetic here, not sympathetic.

Empathy is digging into your painful past, pulling up your own feelings similar to what the person just shared with you, and responding. I know I'm in empathy with someone when I physically feel it in my chest. When someone shares that their family dog has passed, my body immediately pulls up those aching feelings, and I goes straight to empathy. “I'm so sorry to hear that. I don't even know what to say, but I'm glad you told me.” And then I usually say something like, “Let the ugly tears flow”, because I know from my own experience that it's healthier to let them out than hold them in. 

By noteworthy contrast, a sympathetic response would be something like; “At least it was only your dog and not a family member” (Ouch!”, or worse, “That will save you a bunch of money on dog food and vet appointments (double ouch)”. You know you have defaulted to using sympathy when the words at least are included in your response. 

Here are a couple of real-life examples to help you really integrate the difference:

Empathy in the Workplace, McGeachy Consulting, LLC

If you take away one thing from this blog, put a sticky note on your desk, reminding you not to use the words "at least" if you intend to be empathetic. And, watch yourself when you try and one-up someone’s situation when a dose of empathy would be beneficial instead.

I'm practicing using empathy to build better connections with people, I hope you will too. Our workplaces, and the world, need it.  

And, of course, if you’d like help in developing your managerial skills for this new world of work, I’m here to help. See how we can work together here.

Imagine you’re an employee who doesn’t fit within the traditional binary restroom designations. Imagine also that you want to do what’s right, use the ‘correct’ restroom, but there is no right designation for you. You are a respectful and conscientious employee. What should you do if you need to use the restroom in a workplace that only has binary bathrooms available? 

It’s a dilemma.

Most workplaces were configured with a women’s restroom and a men’s restroom and if you’re lucky those are single-stall facilities. In that case, you have the option to make them all gender-neutral and equally available to all, regardless of gender. 

Unfortunately, it’s often much more complicated than that. Workplaces that have a men's restroom and a separate women's restroom with many stalls make it difficult to transition to a more accommodating facility. 

It’s worth making the change though –– and here’s why.
It might surprise you that OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) has something to say about workplace restrooms. OSHA requires workplaces to provide adequate restrooms for the number of employees onsite. In their best practice document, they go further to say that, “All employees, including transgender employees, should have access to restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.”

That leaves entrepreneurs with a chance to get creative, and yes, invest some cash into facility reconfiguration. Each workplace will have its own challenges, space, and existing facilities making the approach to solving your dilemma purely custom. One example of a creative solution is at the Moxy Hotel, in Portland, Oregon. They have one restroom for all, with floor-to-ceiling walls for each stall, and a communal handwashing station, making the entire facility gender-neutral. They have vibrant music pumping into the restroom creating a hip vibe, for a restroom.

Given the makeup of your facilities, you will need to engage your creative thinking brain.

Do note that 12% of Millennials identify as nonbinary and Millennials make up 35% of the US workforce. You should assume that there are nonbinary or transgender people that make up your workforce, or customer/client base, even if you are not aware.

The All-Gender Restroom sign at the Moxy Hotel in Portland, Oregon.

When should you prepare your workplace for people who are trans and nonbinary? Yesterday.
It should be done before your workplace returns to the office. Imagine how it feels to be in an office that does not have a proper facility for you. This puts undue stress on individuals, impacts performance, and impacts relationships at work. What is an employee to do if there are only gender binary restrooms available?

Keep in mind that a transgender or nonbinary employee who does not have access to a restroom that matches their gender identity does have a valid complaint. That is likely a capital D complaint, Discrimination.

How to create a more inclusive restroom at your facility
Put your creative brain to work. Don't do this work alone. Reconfiguring restrooms at your workplace is a challenge for creative problem solvers, those who are willing and able to collaborate with a team, and yes, cash will be needed. A proactive approach is most certainly more inclusive, more humane, less frustrating, and more cost-effective than a discrimination lawsuit. 
 

Comment Below

Join me in making workplaces more inclusive by sharing your experience about a workplace that has reconfigured restrooms to meet this need. What great solutions have you experienced? Please share in the comments below.