Challenge: Parent employees at Company X were feeling the pressure of balancing work and home life during the COVID-19 pandemic. With school soon returning, and traumatic memories from trying to get through school in the spring, parents were already feeling hopeless, stressed, and burned-out.

Solution: In effort to identify solutions that would be the most beneficial to address the key challenges that the parents are facing, we suggested reaching out to the parents via a survey email to better understand what they are facing, as well as what they thought would be most helpful to them. Responses were tracked and analyzed, and four common themes were distilled from the feedback. After reviewing the common themes, as well as the one-off suggestions, impactful action items were suggested to the organization for discussion and consideration for implementation. We then partnered with leadership to create and rollout a Family Balance Package that addressed the individual needs. Note: the recognition that each person’s situation is different was highlighted, and the promise of continued touchpoints was a key point to parents feeling supported.

Result: So far, response to the offerings have been positive, and feedback has been very centered on appreciating the time and effort that the company put forth to help its parents.

Challenge: According to the manager, an employee at Company X was not performing to the expectation of someone in that role. The manager felt strongly that the employee should be terminated immediately, and that the separation “should not” be a surprise to that person because of the previous conversations they had around performance. After further probing, the communication with the employee did not directly address the discrepancies in role expectation and there was no conversation around coaching for improvement (especially centered on goal setting and sustained improved result). Furthermore, others in the department and/or workgroups of the employee did not share similar feelings of underperformance.

Solution: The manager was coached to provide more detail around expectations and the perceived discrepancies between the expectations and performance directly to the employee. The manager was also coached on the process of progressive discipline that was outlined in the company handbook, and the manager was held accountable to this unbiased, compliant process, developed for performance improvement and sustained success.

Result: After the more detailed, direct communication of where the employee was falling short of the manager’s expectations, the employee was able to step up, meet expectations, and sustained the improved performance. This employee is still employed in good standing at the Company.

Challenge: Company X went through the process of defining their culture. The leadership on the operating committee attended seminars of other companies with notoriously strong cultures, and made office, policy, and culture decisions based on what worked for the externally examined companies. At this stage in the game, the team was excited, but frustrated that they were not seeing what they had hoped in the daily actions of those within the organization.

Solution: We entered this group of type-A leaders, and encouraged them to peel back the onion to understand that the “why” behind action and policy, and the importance of having them tie to the values. This led to conversations around current culture vs desired culture, and the importance of buy-in at all levels within the organization for success. As a result, each person in the organization was solicited for their thoughts around the organization’s values, and this filtered up through the management team to leadership.

Result: This feedback was used to define cultural values for the company. The values became part of the company’s regular vernacular, and served as a guidepost for decisions and action throughout the organization.