When Montserrat Salvany-Ferrer first moved to the U.S. a few years ago, the native Spaniard realized that her European work habits didn’t exactly align with American norms. For example, she said, “I’m not into night work. To me, when we’re done, we’re done. Tomorrow is another day. I’m not a doctor, so it’s not that someone is going to die under my hands if I don't do something today.”

For Salvany-Ferrer, a VP of human resources for T-Systems, the culture clash opened her eyes in ways that serve her well today, when job flexibility is a prized value among employees. “One of the things that I had to work on was that assumption that everyone would be exactly the same as me,” she said. “I have one employee who enjoys working on a Sunday. At the beginning, I was so pushy, telling her she shouldn’t. And then I told myself, What am I doing? If she wants to work on a Sunday instead of Wednesday, why not? I find it personally very hard, but accepting and not prejudging that the other ones are exactly like I am has been helping in building those relations and bringing that intention into place.”

Salvany-Ferrer made her candid comments during a panel discussion titled “The Great Retention: How Companies Can Intensify Employee Loyalty,” part of From Day One’s December virtual conference on the future of work in a time of rapid change. While much of the discussion about the Great Resignation has portrayed worker unhappiness as a root cause, panel moderator Lydia Dishman, a staff editor at Fast Company, pointed to research showing signs of hope for HR leaders trying to hang on to their workers. In fact, a vast majority of U.S. workers like their jobs, even as a record number quit them, according to data collected by Scott Schieman, professor of sociology at the University of Toronto.

Among workers surveyed, a bit more than 16% said they weren’t satisfied with their jobs, only a small increase from surveys in 2002-18. Even so, the workers saying they were very likely to hunt for a new job reached 29%, up three points from the year before. The paradox of relatively happy workers still keeping their eyes open for a better gig would seem to offer an opportunity for corporate leaders to make a bigger effort to strengthen employee engagement and loyalty. Among the panel’s ideas:

Be More Transparent, Especially at the Middle-manager Level

“Two thirds of executives feel like they're being transparent with their employees, but only 42% [of the employees] agree,” said Sheela Subramanian, VP and co-founder of Future Forum, a Slack-affiliated consortium focused on the future of work. “To phrase that more positively, we see that employees who see employers being transparent are twice as excited about the future of the company.”

Yet to effectively combat attrition, corporate leaders need to pay more attention to a particular employee cohort. “There's a specific target group we need to study more: the middle manager,” said Subramanian. “They've not been trained; they’re struggling across the board. This is an opportunity for us to better understand how our middle managers are doing and reskill them to lead with empathy rather than the traditional management training, which was around gatekeeping and status checks.”

Measure Engagement in Multiple Ways

With the move to remote work over the past two years, employers have resorted to a wide array of methods to gauge where the workforce is standing in terms of engagement, in the belief that it can be measured as a quantifiable metric. But to get a more comprehensive understanding, employers shoud take a three-pronged approach to assessing and promoting engagement, said Gabriela Mauch, VP of the Productivity Lab at ActivTrak, which makes workforce analytics software. An employee survey can take the pulse of overall sentiment, while ongoing dialogue in the forms of one-on-one conversations, team meetings, and forums can provide a snapshot of the current situation in a certain employee cohort and demographic. The third element, Mauch said, is the use of workplace analytics to discover data-driven insights. This can allow HR leaders to get ahead of burnout and disengagement, as they show how employees behave on a consistent basis over a certain period of time.

Define What Flexibility Really Means

Flexibility is more than specifying how many days a week an employee has to be physically present in the office. “It's where people work, when they work, and how they work,” said Paige McInerney, EVP and director of HR at Penguin Random House. That's straightforward, yet the hurdle can be trying to persuade managers to trust that, if a project needs to get from point A to point B, as long as the worker gets to point B effectively, the supervisor doesn’t need to micromanage and tell the worker exactly how to get there. “If they keep that level of control, the other flexibility prongs aren't ever going to work,” McInerney said.

What are some of those flexibility prongs? “Here, within our organization, as well as in the guidance we give to our customers, we really look at flexibility as a trust-autonomy-empowerment triangle,” said Mauch. This can translate to being specific about expectations, while trusting about methods. “Clarity is kindness,” said Sarah Sheehan, president and co-founder of the coaching platform Bravely. “As we coach people through this moment, what we really focus on when we talk to clients is to go back to needs, but there’s also this sense of wellness that has to come into play here: We’ve been very successful but at what cost? It can harm our employees if we don’t set boundaries.”

Flexibility in the workplace can't exist without work-life boundaries, but guardrails for managers are just as important. “Boundaries are something you need employees to set, but in order to do that you need to set guard rails on an executive level,” said Subramanian. “If you're saying you are completely empowered as an employee, but I, as an executive, am going to come into the office five days a week, everybody else is going to follow and this whole experiment is going to fail.”

Make a Connection, Even in Remote Times

Sheehan said she disagreed with an assertion posted by someone in her LinkedIn network that making real, human connection among work colleagues can’t be done remotely. Given everything stated above, that would seem to be a real problem in the struggle over attrition vs. retention. “It was thought-provoking. It keeps me up at night. I have over 50 employees I care deeply about,” she said. “One of the things we had to grapple with is the acceptance that it’s done, it’s over, we’re not going back,” she said in regard to the old way of working. “And one of the myths I am trying to debunk for myself is that you can’t create this connection remotely. What it requires is a level of intention we took for granted. It is possible, but you need a lot of work.”

“It’s never going to look the same,” echoed McInerney, whose workforce now has the opportunity to work from anywhere in the U.S. “But that doesn't mean we can’t have a sense of community. We just need to be super, super intentional and make sure we have systems to enable this. Leaders need to model it.” Salvany-Ferrer offered a personal example: “One of the individuals I have the best relationship with is my peer in Singapore,” she said. “I've seen him literally once.”

Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Milan and Brooklyn.

Where to Start: Making the Workplace Inclusive of Neurodiversity

It’s estimated that 15–20% of the global population is neurodivergent in some way, and growing awareness of diagnoses has people curious. They want to learn more about the term, what it means, and how they can support people who identify that way.Neurodivergence describes so many different experiences, but generally, people who are neurodivergent process information differently than most individuals. This includes people on the autism spectrum, people with learning disabilities, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Tourette’s syndrome.Millette Granville is the VP of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at digital learning platform 2U. She’s seen the appetite in her company and has been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm. “We have over 200 employees that are actively engaged in our abilities resource network. They were really, truly ready to get started building the community. I was not as prepared for the thirst for knowledge from our people, from leaders, as well as our employees about what exactly we need to do to make sure we are supporting our employees.During From Day One’s February virtual conference on getting to the next stage of diversity and belonging, Granville and her industry colleagues gathered for a panel discussion on neurodiversity in the workplace and how they’re changing their organizations to be more inclusive of neurodiverse needs.Neurodivergence can describe so many different diagnoses, experiences, and needs. It can also be invisible. “Neurodiversity is hidden in plain sight all around us,” said Hal Lanier, client engagement leader at accessible tech company TextHelp. So how does a workplace become inclusive if the needs can be hard to identify?An Inclusive Interview ProcessSome leaders begin with the hiring process. Monica Parodi, VP of talent acquisition at The New York Times, said she’s starting at the beginning, using tools to comb their job descriptions for noninclusive language. They’re also adding details about the hiring process to the company’s career pages so candidates can prepare in advance and avoid uncomfortable surprises.The panelists discussed the topic "How Companies Are Embracing Neurodiversity in Innovative Ways" at From Day One's virtual conferenceOnce candidates get to the interview stage, they’ll see other changes. “We know that the first 30 seconds [of an interview] are really uncomfortable for a lot of people who are neurodivergent. So we take that space and say, ‘we’re going to ask very structured questions to everyone, and we’re going to limit small talk,’” Parodi said. “We’re also making sure panelists understand neurodivergent behaviors and don’t penalize candidates if they don’t make eye contact, if they’re writing questions down, if they’re pausing, or if they’re asking you to repeat questions.”Building a reputation as an employer that is supportive of neurodivergent employees doesn’t happen by accident, she said. “There’s not one single place that you focus on; it’s weaved into every single part of your process in business and brand.”Designing Learning Opportunities with Neurodivergence in MindLearning and skill development programs often designed for the neurotypical employee are also getting a revision. Joshua Crafford is the VP of leadership learning and development at financial institution Synchrony. He said that his experience as a person with learning disabilities shapes his work. Crafford uses his personal point of view to design better learning experiences, often asking himself, “how would I have to learn the material?”For instance, Crafford talks to his audience to understand their learning styles, he teaches concepts, not just rote memorization. “It’s designed to be simplified. It’s built for all learners, divergent and neurotypical. We make sure that people can interact with the information through discussions and gain others’ perspectives.”At aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman, VP of talent management Jackie Reisner considers use cases when creating and evaluating skill development and training programs. Who’s going to be using it? Can you involve them in the design? Can you ask them what does and doesn’t work about the programs?Perhaps most importantly, does everyone have to complete the training in exactly the same way? Because neurodivergence represents non-traditional ways of processing information, it represents many different learning styles.“This is something that we have to be more open-minded about: there’s got to be more than one way to get to the goal,” said Reisner. When and how the training is delivered should be flexible and adaptable by the learner. The goal is that everyone learns, not that everyone completes the training in the same way.“I know from a compliance perspective, that feels challenging, because you want to just check ‘yes, everyone in my company took ethics training,’ Reisner said. “But if you can get more models, more ways people can get to that end state, then you’re going to see so much more success.”Don’t Assume, AskThe challenge for many who are neurodivergent is that they will prefer not to disclose their diagnosis at work–and others may not know they’re not neurotypical. That’s why many leaders are making these changes and accommodations available to all employees–not just those who openly identify as neurodivergent. No one should be forced to disclose neurodivergence if they don’t want to. “An individual should not be required to disclose to get assistive technology,” said Lanier of TextHelp. “There are a lot of organizations that make our product available for everyone.”The best practice is to simply ask employees what they need, panelists said, and be open to creativity. “Companies come up with all these accommodations, and it looks like a list to choose from. That can be great, but you have to remember to ask people what they need as well,” said Reisner. “At the end of the day, we have to ask, ‘how can we make your life easier? What are you seeing as challenges in the workplace, and what would be the ideal state to make this workplace a great place for you to work regardless of that neurodiversity status?’”At 2U, Granville leans on the neurodiversity resource networks for ideas and policy review, also considering parents and caregivers who are responsible for neurodivergent family members. “We rely on good communication and connection,” she said. “If leaders have questions, they can lean into our resource groups, myself, or our DEI team and also HR to make sure that we’re guiding people in the right direction, and doing what's best for them, not what we think they need.”To Lanier, it’s a matter of psychological safety, and high-performing teams feel free to be themselves. “Is it safe to take risks and be vulnerable and be fully known?” he said. A workplace that is psychologically safe is welcoming to all, neurodivergent or not.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the BBC, the Economist, the Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

How to Create and Sustain a Growth Mindset to Nurture Talent

When Dr. Mary Murphy was working on her PhD at Stanford, she was mentored by Carol S. Dweck, best-selling author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, a book that covers the potential of individuals. Now a social psychologist, Murphy has taken the mindset concept a step further and for over a decade has studied how the “fixed” or "growth” mindset affects not only individuals, but groups of people. Murphy discussed research from her book, Cultures of Growth: How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations, and how it can help teams during a fireside chat at From Day One’s March Virtual Conference.Those with a fixed mindset, Murphy says, believe in being born with skills that can’t grow any further. While those with a growth mindset believe they can learn and grow into new abilities. When talking about teams, organizations, families—there is a similar mindset culture.In a fixed mindset culture, or a “culture of genius” as Murphy called it, the focus is on the star performers. The opposite is a “culture of growth” where there is a focus on continuous learning so anyone can grow and contribute. And it’s that culture of growth that organizations need.Idea SparkIn 2005 during her PhD program, Murphy clearly recalled when this group application of mindset sparked. She was at a grad student seminar supporting a friend, where a professor voiced his opinion about what the fatal flaw of this student’s work was. Another professor chimed in and disagreed, saying the fatal flaw was something else. In essence, it was a battle of which professor was right.“I saw what it was doing to my friend,” she said. “All of a sudden, he lost focus. He wasn’t able to answer questions.” Unfortunately, the experience was so painful that months later he hadn’t continued his work.Two weeks later, in a different seminar, she witnessed something else. Rather than critiquing the students about what was wrong, the professors offered ideas on how to grow the project. The effect was clear. “The students were able to respond totally differently,” Murphy said. “They were able to actually engage in the brainstorming, answer the questions, and they left motivated to dig in.”Reflecting on those two experiences or environments, she realized how much a group can impact an outcome. The harsh approach was not motivating at all. On the other hand, the mentality of growth and how we can all contribute really turned things around for the better.Dr. Mary Murphy discussed her new book Cultures of Growth: How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations in a fireside chat moderated by From Day One co-founder Steve Koepp (photo by From Day One)Murphy presented the idea to her new mentor, asking what if mindset is more than just internal? What if it’s baked into culture and influences the cultivation of talent? She blinked a few times and said, “No one's ever thought of mindset this way. But we should do it together. And that began 15 years of work on reconceptualizing the mindset, as not just in our head, but also as this cultural feature.”Time to StudyNow with 75 studies in her back pocket, Murphy has seen firsthand just how deep mindset goes. Murphy and Dweck looked at the mindset of teachers and faculty members in K-12 and college and how they practice that in the classroom.“We look at how that impacts student experience. We’ve created apps that actually measure student experience in the moment looking at their sense of belonging, whether they think their teacher has a growth mindset, belief for them or not, their sense of self efficacy, their trust of the teacher.”What they found was that even if a student has a growth mindset, when set into a fixed mindset culture, they won’t have the opportunity to benefit from their growth mindset. The group trumps and stilts their progress. In the National Study of Learning Mindsets, a randomized control trial of more than 12,000 students around the country underwent a growth mindset program to see how it would impact their grades and if they’d be willing to take challenging courses. As expected, it had a positive effect. Their GPA was higher and more of them enrolled in the challenging courses than the control group. They also looked at where the program didn’t work.“The answer was two places,” Murphy said. “It was with teachers that had more fixed mindset beliefs or engaged in fixed mindset practices, then giving students that personal growth mindset. The effect was zero. It had no impact. It wasn't even a small impact – it had no impact.”The other place it didn’t work was when peers didn’t engage in challenge seeking, then students were less likely to want to work hard. But when there were teachers and peers who relished a challenge and supported each other, the growth mindset helped students flourish.Organizational CultureWorking with companies of all shapes and sizes, Murphy saw similar results. The mindset of a team at large has a huge impact on creativity, collaboration, and innovation. In one study in particular, they looked at the difference between a psychologically safe environment and a growth minded environment. They found that psychological safety is the baseline for any other growth to take place.“Psychological safety just means that you're willing to speak up when something’s gone wrong. But growth mindset culture really is being vigilant about how to improve what you’re doing, your interactions with others, the outcomes and the strategies that you’re trying. You’re proactively looking for improvement opportunities.”In fixed mindset cultures, they search for the narrow genius prototype to come up with all the answers. When in reality, a growth culture would open up the spectrum of recruiting, looking more at positive values. As Murphy says, a growth culture helps organizations naturally look for more diversity. “What’s most important is the extent to which people are willing to develop, grow and learn.”Changing Company CultureIn her book, Murphy goes over four common mindset triggers which can help individuals understand where people are on the fixed to growth spectrum. In turn, those who work with those individuals can help them shift. For example, one trigger is praise. If someone else gets praise, how does the person react? Are they happy for them, or are they jealous, thinking they are less than? One way to help foster a growth mindset is how praise is given. Rather than a “good job!” which doesn’t offer helpful feedback, Murphy suggested managers repeat what the person has done so well, so they can replicate that and others can encourage.When Satya Nadella first came to Microsoft as CEO, he described Microsoft as everyone thinking about their own silo. He read Dweck’s book and wanted to help Microsoft become the first growth minded culture and company. Kathleen Hogan, head of talent, asked how things needed to change so they could recruit and onboard people that would help shift the company’s culture. She implemented changes, but success didn’t come right away. Some bragged they had the biggest growth mindset in the room. “She had to really talk to people about what a growth mindset actually looks like. And to bake that in to some of the incentive systems and also some of the mentoring and sponsoring and support systems so that people could take on challenges could make mistakes, and actually get points for the learning and the growth from those mistakes and the communicating of those mistakes across the company, so that the whole company can learn at the same time more rapidly.” That’s when things picked up. Slowly but surely, the culture was changing. It became okay to make mistakes, but putting out ideas and taking risks and being open to failure became the norm. And that’s how they got cloud computing. Was the culture change worth it? No doubt about it.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.

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