Benefit from the fruits of our labor

The digital age has accelerated the pace of change, magnified uncertainty and job instability, and driven the need for more work-personal life integration. In the process, employees have suffered a dramatic rise in emotional health issues. They routinely report change fatigue, a lack of clarity around expectations, insufficient understanding of how to perform their jobs, and an inability to disconnect from work. Employee stress costs U.S. companies alone $1 trillion annually in increased healthcare costs, reduced productivity, and lost opportunities.

Companies have mitigated some of these negative consequences by attempting to protect time away from work, focusing on individual well-being, promoting fun at work, and engaging in planning activities that better define employee expectations. To be clear, these efforts have had some effect. Without them, the harm to employees and the cost to companies would certainly be much greater.

It says something about the size of the problem that, despite our best efforts, employee stress is having a massive impact on both employee well-being and organizations’ bottom lines. The solution is not merely a matter of scale—more wellness initiatives aren’t going to close the gap. Organizations need a new playbook designed for the unique challenges of the digital age.

Companies can improve their results by moving beyond traditional practices and fostering resilient organizations. In particular, they should adopt a team-centric approach, dynamically establish clarity, and leverage stress to address the root causes of organizational challenges. Employees in resilient organizations experience less stress, and their companies deliver higher performance.

Managers typically have focused on engagement as a key characteristic to improve. We recommend they reallocate resources from engagement efforts to fund and staff resilience efforts instead. Given that building resilience has a beneficial effect on engagement, this allows managers to build more resilient organizations while also achieving employee engagement goals. By addressing the root causes of organizational challenges, resilience not only improves corporate performance, but it also drives higher employee engagement while reducing their stress.

High-potential development is a critical talent management priority for many organizations, and doing it well is a practice of high-performance organizations. However many organizations are not getting a return on their efforts to transform high potential into high performance. How can an organization break this pattern and turn high potential into high performance? Download our latest Point of View to learn more.

The modern workplace is having a huge impact on those in There’s only one Marshall Goldsmith. And in this paper, Dr. Goldsmith covers how he helps successful people address their own behavioral challenges in order to improve their performance as leaders, while outlining key lessons from his long history of executive coaching.

This paper defines the key attributes and important functions of mid-level leaders, while also defining their top strategic focal points. It’s a must-read for any senior leader looking to improve the performance of their reports, or for any mid-level leader who wants to take initiative in their own growth as a manager.

Executive leadership is responsible for building a strategic vision, mobilizing their organization to execute on that vision and guiding the organization through the challenges during that execution. To accomplish any of this, you need accountability at all levels, you need to close accountability gaps and maximize engagement.

It stands to reason that first-level leaders need more one-to-one time with their managers to ensure they’re making the transition from “do-ers” to leaders as fast and effectively as possible. This paper tells you the top five strategic focal points and focus areas for first-level leaders, as well as the coaching priorities for their managers.take to develop a more collaborative environment.

A vast majority of leaders cite engagement as a critical component to their organizations’ success. Research confirms their intuition. So how exactly should we define “employee engagement”? And what are the factors contribute to a highly engaged workforce? This paper dives deep into those two questions and provides answers that will help you improve your organization’s engagement.

Not long ago, most