Letters of the month
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The best leaders will be leaders who are closest to their teams: Francine Katsoudas
The emerging hybrid working construct indeed demands and requires new types of leaders who put empathy, proximity, and flexibility at the forefront. How leaders navigated the intertwined business and people challenges through March 2020 is instrumental in their top talent choosing to walk away or stay put. Leaders are in a position to play both enablers for well-being as well as stress and burnout. There are no two ways about how difficult the position of a leader is in a crisis, but this crisis has truly brought out what factors differentiate a good leader from a great leader. The circumstances might vary from business to business, but putting people first and thinking out of the box to balance both business and people sustainability without letting either suffer requires the traits of empathy and flexibility — the two most crucial traits of a great leader, as the last twelve months have proven. - Raveesh Jaiswal
Designing for well-being
Workplace design sure impacts elements such as employee productivity and engagement. As hybrid becomes the probable working model moving forward, organizations will need to be conscious of not just the architecture at the office, but will also need to accommodate that conscious outlook towards workplace design across satellite offices as well as work from home infrastructure that they can assist employees with. While their ability to influence the design at satellite offices and employees' homes would be fairly limited; they will have to look into offering personalized work elements that meet their needs, enhance their ability to work effectively, and boost engagement. - Aman Thakker
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| July 2021
june 2021 issue
COVID-19 has allowed us to adjust our view of employees and reinvent our talent landscape COVID-19 has most certainly enabled a shift in the employeemanager relationship. In most cases, how managers responded to employee needs determined the nature of this equation. Several managers did exercise empathy and with the support of timely organizational policies were able to extend needed flexibility and time-off to employees. However, this wasn’t true for all. It is no news that empathy was a critical managerial capability that needed careful consideration in the last twelve months, yet not all were able to deploy this much-needed support from their supervisors. In fact, the lack of it triggered severe stress among employees, especially women. - Nikhil Singh
