A few months back, Emily Goodson started a series”Dear CEO” to provide the employee perspective to ongoing injustice and suffering in our country. For the next installment in this series, Goodson wants to share a perspective she co-authored with Metaclusive CEO Tristan Higgins on the concept psychological safety when returning to work.
How can CEOs create psychological safety for employees returning to work?
Returning to a physical workplace. The subject on the mind of every C-suite leader in 2021. Emails are being sent with lists of the things being done to provide this actual or perceived safety. Checklists are being made. Waivers are being signed. Knobs are being sanitized.
But, perhaps the most vital piece of this discussion is noticeably absent. What is being done to ensure all of our employees feel emotional and psychological safety in the return to work process?
Psychological Safety
When we think about creating an inclusive environment, we must recognize that not everyone enters our workplaces on the same foot. This is fundamental to the definition of equity – Emily needs something different to be successful than Tristan does. And Andy needs something different than Hansford. And nowhere is this concept of equity more fully on display than when we consider the subject of going back into offices.
The majority of our workers have been at home for more than a year (minus our essential healthcare, biotech, security, and other colleagues). We have been isolated from friends and coworkers. Some of us have been embedded with our families. Some of us have been single and struggled to make it through the winter holidays alone. And some of us were stuck in physically or emotionally abusive situations with our partners.
Some of us have been surrounded by our pets, Funko collectibles, calming fountains, and aromatherapy. Some of us have worked in sweats and pjs, even if only on the bottom. We have been able to graze freely in the kitchen. We have not had to budget for lengthy travel time, leave early to deal with kids, sports, doctors, or pets. No one had to listen to metal or country music in the office when they really preferred classical or needed quiet to work.
And now, what’s next for us?
Beyond a vaccine policy and protective equipment, are you as an employer prepared to deal with the additional stress and emotional burdens a new parent will experience coming into the office and leaving their newborn for the first time? Do you have the facilities to support a nursing mother? What about the parent or parents who are sending their kids off to school for the first time?
You might have a new employee who has a disability that they have not disclosed and you have not seen on camera. What are you doing to assuage their concerns about being ridiculed, not having the access that they might need, and fearing their new colleagues might react poorly to learning something so fundamental to their identity? There is a tremendous emotional weight for those who are different and are now thinking about “coming out” as it were, to a whole fleet of employees.
Do you know if any of your employees are suffering from depression or anxiety that might make returning to an office particularly challenging? Though you cannot ask directly, are you prepared to provide options for folks who are simply not ready to return?
Create a Return to Work Plan
In addition to being at home surrounded by family and familiar comforting things, many of us have pets that we loathe to leave for 9-12 hours a day. The shelters are almost empty which means record numbers of people have adopted pets. “Covid pets,” as they have been dubbed, do not know what it is to be left alone all day. Might you now allow pets into the office all or part of the time?
These questions and uncertainties are the future of work. It is here. Our workplaces experienced a revolution this past year, whether we were ready or not, and there’s no going back. And while some of these questions may sound odd, if you are an employer who wants to retain talent after the pandemic, you need to be intentional about creating an inclusive workplace that thinks through the needs of employees who haven’t had the same quarantine experience as you.
These post-quarantine life questions will probably be an ongoing discussion for many of us in 2021 and 2022, but if you need a place to start, here are three suggestions to guide you in creating your return to work (RTW) plan.
Three Concrete Steps
Spend time with your leadership teams talking through the expectations that you used to have, what is essential for the efficient running of your business, and what is just leftover from a pre-pandemic era?
Are you changing policies? Pets? Remote working? Flexible hours?
How are you supporting parents or caregivers differently? Are you requiring vaccines to attend events or interview onsite? How are you handling accommodations?
Establish a “Welcome Back” communication plan and cadence with your employees
Who is in charge of communicating the RTW plan? Are you sharing that expectations will change and people will not be judged for enjoying the new expectations?
How are you encouraging people to come forward to ask for any help they need? Who is the point person for accommodations versus who can help coach you through anxiety concerns?
Be willing to be wrong, overlook something, and accept feedback
We need to do our best to be intentional in planning this transition, but we also need to recognize we may need to change our approach in four months. How can you model that vulnerability and agility now?
How can you bring in as many perspectives as possible when crafting your return to work plan?
We all know psychological safety is fundamental to team performance. Many of us missed the boat on that pre-2020, but let’s not miss our opportunity to ensure and build it now by considering and acknowledging the diversity of emotional needs returning to our workplaces.
Bios
Emily Goodson is a leadership coach and the CEO of CultureSmart, a consultancy that helps startups create high-performing, inclusive workplaces. Follow CultureSmart on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Tristan E.H. Higgins is the CEO and Founder of Metaclusive LLC. We help companies and nonprofits create workplaces where employees feel they belong. Follow Metaclusive on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
Is the language you use in everyday conversation and your writing sexist? Is it possible that you are using phrases that reinforce gender stereotypes? If the answer to either question is yes, click on the guide to read a fairly comprehensive list of every day language that you can start to avoid – or to use more conscientiously.
On June 15, 2020, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in three separate, but related, cases. This is the first time that there has been Federal protection for members of the LGBTQ+ community nationwide from workplace discrimination. Before this ruling there were some interpreted protections regarding anti-discrimination of LGBTQ+ employees by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and even though almost half of the US states had passed protections at the state level, it was still legal to be fired for being LGBTQ+ in the remainder of the US. This has now changed.
As the LGBTQ+ community celebrates, it should do so with the knowledge that there is still much to be done. Just ask any Black American. Race was protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and yet racism is still systemic and rampant. It is absolutely essential that you become an antiracist. Educate yourself and then Do Something. [Look here and here for a start.] No discussion of LGBTQ+ rights would be complete without a reminder that one of the people credited for starting the Stonewall Riot, thus beginning the gay civil rights movement, is Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman. In many ways, the LGBTQ+ movement owes a debt of gratitude to Black Americans.
What does today’s ruling mean if you are an employer? It means that if you have not yet taken action to protect your LGBTQ+ employees, you need to do so. Here are 12 concrete things that can be done immediately.
1. Issue a statement to all employees that LGBTQ+ harassment or discrimination will not be tolerated – no matter what state you are in – and such actions will be treated the same as those based on race or gender (etc.).
2. Accept that being LGBTQ+ is not political and talking about being so is not sexual.
3. Revise your anti-discrimination policy to include “sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.” Review all other policies and procedures for inclusivity and eliminate terms like “husband,” “wife,” “male,” and “female” and replace with a more gender-neutral term like “spouse.”
4. Review all paper and digital forms to make sure check boxes include more than “M” and “F”. Simply adding “Other” is not acceptable. Contact Metaclusive if you would like to know what is.
5. Allow employees to self-identity as LGBTQ+ to you. If you already collect racial, gender, disability, and veteran statistics, include sexual orientation as well as gender identity and expression.
6. Review marketing materials for inclusiveness. Companies are increasingly under pressure to be supportive and to show support publicly in ads and social media posts.
7. Schedule a training to educate the workforce on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Include definitions, historical facts, and best practices. Metaclusive is available for your training needs.
8. Hold a Pride celebration event this summer – even if it is virtual.
9. Start an LGBTQ+ employee affinity group if one hasn’t already been created.
10. Encourage the use of gender-neutral language.
11. Contact your employment lawyer. Though from an attorney, the advice given here is from the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (“DE&I”) perspective. There may be things you need to address from the legal perspective.
12. Add pronouns to email signatures, name tags, door plates, etc. Like below.
And of course, if you need help, contact Metaclusive (email: tristan@metaclusive.com and on the web: https://metaclusive.com).
Tonight, we finished watching the last three episodes of Netflix’ original series, Hollywood, and I was in tears several times. That wasn’t really anything new, as I am a light touch when it comes to tearing up. I’ve been known to cry at commercials – and not just the holiday variety. But tonight was different. I sat watching the credits and the tears streamed down my face. I tried to understand why, and the best I can gather is that the possibility of representation and inclusion, and how it might change society, affected me tremendously.
I think I can write this without spoilers . . . but just in case, if you want to avoid some insight that isn’t immediately apparent in the show, save this article for later. The show envisions what Hollywood would have looked like if people consistently shoved out of the spotlight were instead pushed into it – and, given the chance to succeed there. The story follows several struggling artists on their hopeful rise to the top, and the studio that can launch them or bury them. We have a black, gay writer trying to prove he can write any story – not just Black stories; a Black starlet on contract with the studio who can only get parts as a domestic, despite her leading-lady talent; a promising director who is half-Filipino but passes as white and is not content with pulling up the ladder behind him as he reaches new heights; a white, gay actor being taken advantage of because he is in the closet; and finally, we have a white, straight, farm-raised, dimpled, leading man type who turns tricks to get by. An integral part of the story is that the studio is run by a Jewish woman and a closeted gay man and it is not clear whether the newcomers change them, or they change the newcomers.
Though they are not young, struggling artists, we also have a Chinese-American actress who loses an Oscar-winning role to a white actress who “puts on yellow face,” a Black woman who actually won an Academy Award but was not able to sit in the theater to receive it, and several mature white woman who are – of all things – sexual. Reading this again, I am frankly shocked that we have this kind of cast in a mainstream show. These characters are not playing the mysterious, menacing villains or laughable caricatures of thug, gay best friend, single mother not making it, nerdy Asian kid, or matronly woman. They are the center of the series and they are integral to the story.
Here, we have a vision of Hollywood where powerful white people take a stand to support Black artists. We have brave Black women fighting to walk into the theater – through the front door – where they might receive an award that same evening. There are men coming out despite the bombshell that it might drop on their careers. Yet, the story isn’t a coming-out story. I don’t think it is a race story, either. To me, it feels like the most hopeful longing of how American history might have been different. And then, the possibility creeps in. If it had been different, where would we be now?
Just imagine if a movie had been penned by a Black, gay writer and starred a Black woman in 1947 – before schools were ordered to be desegregated and before Blacks and whites were allowed to marry. It wasn’t until 2009 that Geoffrey Fletcher became the first Black writer to receive an Oscar for adapted screenplay (Precious), and not until 2018 did a Black writer win in the original screenplay category – Jordan Peele for Get Out. No Black woman won an Oscar for best actress until 2001 when Halle Berry took home the much-delayed honor for Monster’s Ball (Hattie McDaniel won for best supporting actress in 1939 for her portrayal of Mammy in Gone with the Wind).
Imagine if one of the major studios had been run by a woman in the 40s or 50s, something that wouldn’t be accomplished until 1980 by Sherry Lansing. Would we still have had decades of women relegated to the kitchen and being excited by new appliances? What if men and women were able to be their true selves – to hold hands with the one they loved in public? I tried to track down the first major Hollywood studio to feature a love story between two men, and have inconclusively landed on Brokeback Mountain, released in 2005. If these milestones had been accomplished in 1947 (or possibly not have been needed at all), there would have been no Hays Code , no McCarthyism.
Perhaps there would have been no need for that walk over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma (1965), no Stonewall riots in New York City (1969), no Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56), no bra-burning at the Miss America pageant (the burning didn’t happen but the protest did, in 1968). We would be so much closer to the America that I want to see today if the history portrayed in Hollywood here was real. I would have been able to be myself in high school, maybe even middle school. I would not have had to stop several classes short of a minor in Queer Literature for fear that it would out me on my college transcript. I won’t even get into the lost souls who took their own lives in desperation, the racial murders, and the terror of cross-burning, or the millions of teens kicked out of their homes and families. If we had gotten started on civil rights almost 20 years earlier, how much further along the road to equity and equality would we be now? Would we still see police officers with their knees on George Floyd’s neck?
The promise of this America, one where I can be myself, where my bravery is rewarded rather than punished, where Black men and women feel protected by the justice system and can pursue any dream they have, where women are allowed to be powerful and in control, moved me to tears. I know that my tears do not produce action; they do not promote change. I am devoted to creating the America that I have to believe can and will exist, and maybe that is why Hollywood made me cry. Knowing that others share my vision gives me hope – hope that someday my tears will be tears of joy.
What is life like during the pandemic? I am privileged enough to have a home, food and essentials, the ability to wash and dry our clothes, plenty of space for social distancing, and my family all in one place. The experience of single parents, high-risk people, and those without housing and food stability is drastically different than mine. With respect for the experience of others, I share these 20 thoughts about mine.
We stayed home before it was ordered because we could. It is important to remember that we are all part of the same herd, and we all need to protect the herd.
I like being at home “stuck” with my wife and kids during the pandemic.
Will working from home help men see how hard it is for women to balance priorities between work and family? For heterosexual couples, here they are sitting side by side at the dining room table or in the home office working. When they are sitting at the same table and the woman in the partnership is constantly interrupted to take care of their children, it has to be harder for the man in that partnership to sit there and keep working. Right? If this changes, it would go a long way towards gender equality.
Cooking without being rushed is fun! Yesterday, I made a fancy pasta lunch and created a recipe for a teriyaki pineapple pork tenderloin for dinner. Both meals were delicious.
I am teaching my kids how to clean, not just tidy. We are fortunate enough to have people who clean our house, but they need to stay home, too. This means that in addition to the kids’ usual routine of doing the dishes, wiping down the table and sweeping after meals, they are tasked with cleaning their bathroom and bedrooms. I created a checklist for each room and talked them through what to use and how to do it. I should have done this much earlier, but like I said, we are privileged not to have to do these things ourselves. They need to know how to scrub the shower and clean a toilet as they join the world. It took me years of working and doing these things myself before I could afford to hire someone to do them for me. I consider this a positive of the crisis – even if they do not. And, even though I have to clean my own toilet.
Following a schedule is really important to keep the kids and myself moving throughout the day.
Will men and women share the domestic work more evenly since they are all home? Again, both partners are home. The man must see that the woman is cleaning their house, washing their clothes, sweeping their floors, cooking and doing the dishes for their meals. They are both at home together – no work functions, extended hours, or business travel to mask the imbalance – he must notice. Hopefully, he will take action. What a wonderful outcome this would be.
Being inside these four walls, I have noticed they all need to be painted.
If this is hard for families with two parents, just imagine how hard it is for single parents.
No matter how many Oreos and Pringles we stock, we keep running out!
It is wonderful to not be constantly rushing to a sporting event, birthday party, work function, or running endless errands. Not that I don’t enjoy all those things, I do. But just being home is way more fun than I realized. Why do we overschedule ourselves and our kids so much?
I bought a compost bin many months ago but never took the time to start composting until now. I read a book about it but got overwhelmed and then there were so many excuses not to start. Luckily, a friend broke it down for me and last week, removed from my ignorance and all those excuses, I dug the kitchen compost pail out from the depths of the cabinet it was stuffed into unopened and started collecting kitchen materials. At the end of the week, I grabbed my full kitchen pail and a bag of shredded paper and headed for the bin outside. Only time will tell if I did it right.
Please consider helping a neighbor who is elderly or immune-compromised with a grocery or pharmacy run.
Our Nespresso machine and Soda Stream were great investments, as were the hair clippers and super shaver.
All that money you are saving on daily Starbucks, 7-11, and dining out can be put to fantastic use if you donate even a little of it to your local food bank, homeless shelter, red cross or a local charity helping provide PPE (personal protective equipment) and medical supplies.
I need a green screen and a better webcam.
Life during the pandemic is hard. So, it is more important than ever to be kind to yourself and others. This crisis is taking a huge emotional toll on all of us (to say nothing of the grief and loss, and the economic costs and fears). As a society, and more locally, as companies and families, we need to remember this. People react to this toll in different ways, and there is no one right way. That is why kindness is absolutely essential. You don’t know if the person you are on a Zoom call with just finished crying or is just barely holding it together until the call is over.
We have more books to read, games to play, puzzles to do, and movies to watch than I realized.
I don’t think the world will ever return to business as usual. Life during the pandemic has changed us forever. All of the supervisors and managers who thought their teams could never work remotely are experiencing remote work. For many of those teams it will be a relatively smooth transition. I think this will cause companies to rethink expensive headquarters and restrictive attendance policies. This crisis will help Gen Xers and Boomers realize what Millennials and beyond already know: freedom to work from anywhere is something to be prized – and it can be good for business.
You can never have enough patience or kindness. Or Pringles.
I am certain there are more learnings to come as we move further into life with the pandemic. Have you experienced any of these same things? What would you put on your list?
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