Ukraine: humanity in the workplace during tough times
The last few years with a global pandemic and now a war in Ukraine have been amongst the most difficult and unpredictable challenges to manage a workforce through. At Space Your Place we want to talk about how this is an opportunity in the workplace not only to prove your leadership skills, but to help bring a new level of humanity, humility and sense of connection to your organization.
Step 1: Acknowledge what is happening
The pandemic brought us into a completely different routine of life, working from home and siloed off. Leaders and managers were forced to figure out how to improve communication amongst teams, as the accessibility of working in an office was taken away from us. The situation in Ukraine right now is so real, with daily updates more horrific than the day before. In this case, employers choose how and what they do in response, especially if they aren’t directly affected.
Acknowledging that something is happening is so important, because the reality is we don’t know to what extent members of our team are affected. From relatives or extended family and friends in Ukraine, to those in our teams that understand what it is like to be a refugee, to those of us with severe anxiety and trauma responses. It can be as simple as taking the first 5-10 minutes of a weekly meeting to address the reality happening, to take a moment to take a breath together and to talk about fear. As research has shown this kind of practice of conscious compassion creates a sense of coherence within teams and results in increased commitment and reduced burnout.
Step 2: Embrace strategies for a new era of work
Just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t make it right, that’s the attitude we should be moving forward with. As a leader or a manager at your organization, you are in a position of influence. Recognize first and foremost that neutrality is a position. If you don’t know what to do, share that with your team. Have a conversation about it and welcome different perspectives to the table. Ask questions about how people have been engaging with the situation in Ukraine, what networks they have found supportive, what organizations they want to support. Consider matching every employee donation to the Ukrainian cause. There is no right or wrong way, there is only the human way, which means not always having the answers, modeling honesty and transparency and doing the right thing even if it feels difficult.
Step 3: Reform the way we used to work
You’ve come up with strategies and implemented new processes (a weekly mental health check-in perhaps), now it’s time to make this a part of your culture. Maybe you have given more leeway to employees and not required that they explain if they need a mental health day off. When do you stop that? Research has shown that the more we give space for people to be human through intentional wellbeing strategies, to take a pause when they intuit that they need it, the more likely they are to impact the bottom line in a positive way.
Consider collaborating with a local Ukrainian community centre, donation drive or other community project decided on together with your team in an ongoing way. Create a WhatsApp group, Slack Channel or other form of online (or offline!) community or meet-up dedicated solely to mental health, wellbeing and supporting causes that matter to your team members such as the situation in Ukraine. It’s about developing mental health assistance programs, giving employees spaces to feel heard and getting specific on what your employees need (maybe they have children and need support relaying what is happening in the world to them).
Step 4: Create an emerging issues team
Consider how managing your team successfully through what is going on with Ukraine now is an opportunity for a better society and better communication in the long run. By creating an emerging issues team, you’re giving space to identify and study issues that have not been influential in the past, but that may be in the future. What is going on is terrible, and it also has shown us how incredibly people can come together. The reaction in our base in Berlin has been astounding, with over half a million attending the recent demonstration, and many observing and participating in offering accommodation and every type of support to organizational groups growing at exponential rates on Telegram, dedicated to assembling help, resources, food and much more. Creating a task force dedicated to reacting in real time to not just as serious an event as a war, but ongoing internal and external challenges affecting your organization specifically can be transformational. We don’t need to wait for another force majeure to be better now, today, and everyday in a systematized way.
If you are an executive and you are interested in support with managing workspace optimization during a crisis at your organization, please get in touch. Space Your Place offers highly customized consultation services and programs designed to fast-track integration of wellbeing, connection, productivity and efficiency in both virtual and physical spaces.
