The Duty of Employers and The Power of Valuing Your People
A month ago, I sat in my home office (where I’ve sat for the last 13 months) and was reflecting on my team. My thoughts were not focused on the amazing work they do alongside and for communities, or their OKRs and progress toward our goals and vision. While that is all important to our work, what really stood out to me in that moment was my team, my people.
Just a few months beforehand, we had shut down for nearly three weeks (as we do at the end of each year) to honor ourselves and our work. Normally, this three-week shutdown rejuvenates us and catapults our work to the summer. Our team also looks forward to Summer Fridays every year, as we only get a few months of beautiful, warm weather in Michigan (live your life, and that doesn’t have to always include work).
However, this year...it was barely March, and I could see and feel the slump. Not only did I recognize it in my staff, but I personally felt it. How do I continue to support my people? How do I support them as humans first, and as employees?
I shared a survey to get additional feedback on all of the support resources that we’d been offering our staff since COVID hit--and I knew that we needed to continue some of these things, yet also do something different. As leaders, we often sit in rooms amongst one another, or even just sit and think to ourselves about what people need. Yet, just as we do with our partners and community, gaining insight from our colleagues about their needs often leads to the most effective results. If you want to know something or do something, ask the person you are trying to do it for/with.
While there are many things I can say I am proud of over the last five-and-a-half years as the Founder & CEO of SCP, I will say--the response to this survey (included below)-- is one that I am very proud of. As soon as I read this survey result, I exclaimed aloud, in my home office, “Yes!!!” I’ve always prided myself in valuing and showing that value with my colleagues and especially with those I am privileged to manage. As the CEO of SCP, I have even more power and opportunity to value my people...so this was a really powerful moment.
Below is a list of some of the new strategies/spaces we offered/created for our team due to the COVID-19 pandemic (in addition to other organizational practices and spaces pre-COVID). These are simply listed in alphabetical order:
Additional individual professional development budget
Collective team self-care session with Monica Marie Jones
Monthly self-care stipend
One-on-one coaching opportunity (self-care, and to really ground us, given a drastically different world, workplace, and even workstreams) with Monica Marie Jones
Various corporate card spends (since we couldn’t be together in-person, we would have staff randomly use their corporate card to order team lunch/dinner and virtually connect or even just treat themselves)
Virtual team happy hours (with no expectation of alcoholic beverages)
Virtual team outings
Working from home (WFH) equipment, resources, and individual budget
Of these strategies, I was really curious to see what were the top three strategies that supported and positively impacted staff.
The top three were:
WFH equipment, resources, and budget
Monthly self-care stipend
Virtual team outing (tie for third)
Additional individual professional development budget (tied for third)
The most successful strategies in supporting our team weren’t necessarily the most expensive. What is clear is that team members want to feel valued, appreciate gestures and intentional planning, and money doesn’t build culture and support (alone). For all managers of teams, senior leaders, and owners of companies, I ask you this question:
What can you do THIS WEEK to show value and support your team?
Let’s stop using the excuse that “it’s not in my budget” or “it will take time to get this approved.” This just simply isn’t the full picture--and it doesn’t require money or approval to support your people.
In addition to continuing the above top-rated (by employees) practices, I also knew that something different was needed to head into month 13+ of quarantine.
[Pause: Take a deep breath in and breathe it out longer. I know, it’s a lot.]
Check this out: The top-rated, by far, request of staff moving forward was a collective, stand in solidarity company week-long shutdown. Not financial compensation, not additional staff, not additional professional development or team spaces, but hard core, legit, straight up time off. I shared the results of our survey during our Monthly Team Huddle, which was on a Thursday. What I also knew was that my team needed collective time to shutdown in solidarity before we shutdown for a week. So on that Thursday team call, I announced that we would be immediately implementing 2021 Fridays. Remember Summer Fridays at the top of this read? Yeah? Well--welcome to the family 2021 Fridays, where SCP shuts down every single Friday. That stated THE FOLLOWING DAY. I told my staff to clear their calendars unless there was truly something that was life changing for a young person, a teacher, a community member, them. Guess what? There wasn’t. Shut. It. Down. If you email me on a Friday, you will politely get this response:
Hello,
Thank you for your email. SCP offices are closed on Fridays to help create space for us to process, heal, and rejuvenate from all that occurred the last year (and beyond).
I look forward to responding to your email upon returning to the office on Monday.
Best,
Dr. Chanel Hampton
The responses I have received, from mostly Black women, have been powerful, utter excitement, and statements of wishing their organization would do the same. Here’s the reality: We are each adults, we are professionals, and as I am being reminded of in Dr. Nedra Taawabs’s book Finding Boundaries,: We must set our own boundaries. Do it. If you need 2021 Fridays, take it y’all! And if you are at your breaking point and your employer won’t honor that day off, you may need to do some deeper reflection and boundary-setting, as well as decision-making.
In addition to 2021, Fridays immediately and the one week-long shutdown my team said they needed, we are committing to:
A collective week-long shutdown each quarter in 2021
Additional mental health/physical health coverage/support
Additional one-on-one coaching and expert connection opportunities
Oh, did I forget to mention that SCP has always had a No Days Model, also? That continues. It is critical that we, as leaders, support our people (and take our own time) to heal, process, and simply not give our all to work (as a coping/denial mechanism). And let me be clear--I am the youth SCP serves, I am a first-generation college student, I am the child of a powerful and resilient single mother, and I was an emancipated minor who has lived on my own since 13. I, too, used to say that “My work is personal,” as a means to justify me not giving an ounce of attention, love, or time to myself. The reality is--I was still in survival mode and over the years, work continued to be an amazing copying tool. Let me remind you, brothers and sisters, of the wise and ever true words of Sister Audre Lorde:
As we continue our 2021 Fridays and approach our first quarterly collective shutdown, the rejuvenation is palpable already. I can see and feel it in the energy of my team on calls. I see it in their social media posts of them taking time on Fridays to spend it with loved ones in their safe bubbles, to be out in nature for an extra day with beautiful weather. I hear about it on quick calls when I’m just checking-in to make sure folks are taking care of them amidst everything and everyone else they are taking on.
Of all that we have endured in the last 13 months, there are some gifts that have come out of this unfathomable time--including clarity of our values. And in this unprecedented moment, companies showed us who they were--allowing us to see if our values aligned. Even with tough decisions, companies still have a choice to operate with integrity and kindness. Over the last year, we’ve seen companies step up and take care of their people (not just financially, but from a people and culture standpoint, with equity in mind, and beyond); and we’ve seen other companies confirm that they couldn’t care less about their people. Given that most of us spend a significant portion of our lives with our work and colleagues, particularly Americans I would venture to say, are realizing that while it may feel good to be associated with a company that “carries weight in their name” and offers excellent salaries, it may not be worth it. I have seen companies that, without a doubt, have the capital/revenue to properly care for their staff and yet they refuse to do so. I have been proud as a small business (with a fraction of the revenue of larger corporations) to truly show up for my people in this time. I have always valued and taken care of my team. Yet during this last year, I stepped up even more--because that is what people needed in this moment. If we don’t step up as leaders in this moment, we will lose our best people.
If you are a manager of a team, senior leader, or owner of a company--I urge you to answer these questions--independently and with your people:
Do you value and support your team? How? Just like you’d look at that report, pull out numbers, facts, tangible evidence
What do your people need right now? If you haven’t asked them, you cannot fully answer this question.
Look at your budget and identify the people priority in it all. This includes salary, compensation, additional supports, every dollar put into team spaces, team members, etc. - or lack of.