Have your team’s values changed during the pandemic?
How do you know if your values—or those of your team—have changed during the pandemic?
Perhaps they haven’t. But the effects of the past 18 months have profoundly impacted many of us and afforded different perspectives on all aspects of our lives. This in turn has spurred systemic shifts in what motivates people from within.
According to Attuned data, the overall needs for Rationality, Security, Feedback, Autonomy, and Altruism all saw marked increases when comparing pre-Covid employee responses with current ones, while Innovation, Social Relationships, Status and Competition needs have decreased.
But while this data reveals changes in general trends, it doesn’t mean that this necessarily applies for every country, organization or team. So how do shifting priorities look on an individual level? To understand the ways in which people’s values are changing, I’ve been digging deeper into every work-related conversation recently, and I’ve uncovered some useful insights. Let me share two specific examples of close contacts (sorry!) of mine:
#1: Bruno
Bruno is a staff software engineer at a global e-commerce company. Progressing through the organisation was fundamental to his overall well-being. Since the extensive periods of lockdown, he’s taken up indoor cycling in his garage. During these 1-2 hours of exercise each day, he’s immersed himself in finance and wealth management podcasts, something he believed he did not have time for previously. He has learned strategies for debt management, compound savings, and wealth creation, and this has seeped into his hierarchy of needs.
While Progress still drives Bruno, becoming an engineering manager is not his biggest goal now. Financial Needs have become a primary motivator and he is looking for a new role that can meet this. Rather than prioritizing a high base salary and title, Bruno is looking for stronger equity options from his next employer. If it’s a start-up, he would be looking at 0.5-1% ownership of the company or at least 600% of base compensation as stock options at the time of joining, which could vest in four years. If it’s a public company, he’d expect at least 100% of base compensation as stock options at the time of joining, which again could vest in four years.
#2: Ciana
Ciana is managing director of a boutique consulting business, and in the past she has operated in an “always-connected” fashion. Pre-Covid, Competition was a major motivation in building a highly profitable business, leading from the front in revenue generation for the company.
During lockdown, however, it became noticeably clear how important Social Relationships were to Ciana’s well-being. With offices being closed and her team working from home, Ciana turned this into an opportunity to travel to the Middle East to stay with a friend for a few months while working remotely. Warmer weather and more lenient restrictions allowed her to thrive in a social setting, fuelling her to develop new innovative strategies for her business, such as rebranding and opening new markets. She even managed to grow the business headcount by over 30% during this time! This has given Ciana a new perspective on how she wants to run her business, which is now remote-first with a choice to use the office. She intends on continuing to spend a few months abroad each year.
The Importance of Psychological Safety
Given the lack of facetime with remote working, it has become significantly harder for leaders to identify value shifts within their team. Looking at Bruno, for example, how will his manager know that his newly realized Financial Needs are not being met and that he’s thinking of leaving?
Similarly, how can Ciana ensure that each member of her team will be comfortable and aligned with the new way of working?
Ultimately, this is determined by the level of authentic communication—and thus the psychological safety—in each environment.
And this is where Attuned really earns its spurs.
By making people’s unseen values not only visible but measurable and trackable, Attuned allows managers to identify any motivational gaps within their team, as well as highlighting potential managerial blindspots. This allows managers to start having more authentic dialogues with their team and helps to create the deeper level of understanding necessary to foster a psychologically safe environment.
Coupled with specific recommended actions that can be easily incorporated into day-to-day management and longer-term strategies, this helps leaders ensure that their team members are equipped and motivated to perform—and to intervene should this cease to be the case.
Retention Is Key
You don’t have to be involved in recruitment to know that the upswing in the labour market has been so great that in some industries the salaries being offered are now higher than they were in 2019. Coupled with the fact that, in many places, immigration numbers are the lowest since the 2008 financial crisis, retention is now high on the agenda for most executives.
If you’re an engineering manager, for example, and you lose a team member to a competitor today, not only do you have to budget for a higher salary package to attract someone with a similar skillset, but you also need to factor in time to hire, which is approximately eight weeks. In Bruno’s case, that’s at least 200 development hours you’ll need to find from somewhere to meet your product release targets. And imagine you lost two team members!
Conclusion
To return to my original question (How do you know if your team’s values have changed during the pandemic?), the answer is that, unless you’re taking regular steps to measure and track these values, you probably won’t, in which case it’s likely that you’ll be blissfully unaware of any significant value shifts—until it becomes a problem.
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