Originally published in Forbes, February 2022

By Chris “Mitch” Mitchell

Many business sectors face complex workforce challenges that will persist long after the Great Resignation officially wanes.

In areas like healthcare, older workers have long been retiring faster than organizations, and even universities, can educate and train their replacements. And the rise of remote work will make hiring increasingly difficult for companies and industries that require their people to be physically on-the-job. Even employers that do allow work-from-home and/or flexible arrangements will face increased competition for talent as more of the world’s best companies eliminate geographic criteria from their hiring practices, exponentially expanding their talent pools.

What’s more, pandemic-driven reconsiderations, from work-life balance to a sense of meaning and purpose, will continue siphoning talented people away from various kinds of demanding and/or thankless jobs. Individuals will have far less tolerance for overwork, burnout, detachment and the frustration top employees often feel when they don’t have the opportunity to contribute their best. They will be less inclined to accept compensation as a substitute for engagement and other motivators, especially in organizations that perpetually rank profits and productivity well above the wholeness of their people.

Many leaders are finding themselves at a critical juncture, struggling to recruit and retain the people they need to deliver on their business plans and investment theses. Specifically, leaders must recognize the senselessness of choosing between their people’s high performance and humanity; they both matter. Achieving their business goals requires leaders to prioritize both.

Focus On Getting Focused

From a big-picture perspective, executives should think deeply about what is truly required for their organizations to meet their financial objectives. While it might be tempting to assign teams more and more work as a means of solving growth and profitability issues, it is wiser to first reexamine overall strategy.

One leader I have the pleasure of knowing emphasizes the importance of enhancing strategic focus rather than piling work on teams operating at or near capacity. He says many of the companies with which his firm has partnered benefit from narrowing their objectives, as prioritizing too much prevents organizations from succeeding in the areas that are most crucial.

By enhancing focus at the top and then diligently and purposefully channeling that focus across all areas of their organizations, leaders set their teams up for greater success, making it possible for the hours they put in to have a far greater overall impact.

Humanity, Not Machinery

Additionally, leaders should take a clear-eyed view of how their organizations view and treat their workforce, specifically whether they account for their people’s humanity alongside their ability to drive profits and achieve scale. While most leaders today understand such thinking can benefit the well-being of individuals, too few recognize its importance for corporate health and profitability.

Overworked employees are simply less valuable to an organization. They’re more error-prone, less able to tackle complex projects and find it more difficult to manage subordinates effectively. Agitated and unable to focus, they lose sight of which areas are most crucial, making poor decisions as they seek to prioritize their assignments. Reactivity reigns over thoughtfulness.

Leaders would be wise to view their workforce the way coaches view elite athletes — individuals capable of extraordinary feats provided they have time to rest their bodies and minds. Coaches learn that even the strongest athletic performers have limits; pushing individuals past this point only serves to inhibit their success. Even the best NASCAR drivers need pit stops.

Today’s workforce is chock full of stories of individuals who were pushed or pushed themselves past their limits, ultimately burning out on the job — even hospitalized due to stress and exhaustion. Many battle work-induced anxiety and depression and are coping with professional challenges in harmful ways.

Employees experiencing such distress are not well-equipped to further the goals of their employers who are arguably responsible for helping preserve — not compromise — their people’s well-being.

Bring Change To Workplace Cultures

Of course, recognition represents only one aspect of the issue, as leaders looking to bring more humanity to their workplaces have to then go about transforming their organizations’ cultures. To accomplish this, they must be prepared to model desired behaviors. For example, mid-level managers will not accept that their company is, say, promoting a no-work-on-the-weekends policy if they receive emails from their bosses on a Sunday. Instead, they will see the policy for what it is — lip service — and continue requiring weekend work from their subordinates if that’s how they were operating before.

Leaders should also assess their employees to best determine what would likely hinder versus help an organization’s ability to change. Such data can yield important insights that can help point organizations down the right paths. To illustrate, overscheduled workers might share the need for less frequent, more focused meetings. Everybody wins with this kind of improved efficiency.

Integration And Balance

Finally, leaders must not let the pendulum swing too far in one direction. Many companies require much of their people — the result of high-stakes situations, short windows for growth opportunities and other scenarios. Popular new policies, like shorter work weeks, might have lasting, negative repercussions.

A plethora of tools and practices, from compensation to engagement strategies, can help such organizations best encourage their people to meet big-picture goals, but it is also necessary for them to adopt an approach in which they prioritize their people’s humanity alongside their productivity. If they need their workforce to put in long hours for designated periods of time, it is essential they grant them sufficient time away and normalize the practice of individuals talking about the realities of overwork and proactively taking time for themselves when they need it.

Too many aspects of business and life are falsely presented to us as zero-sum, a fool's choice. The high performance versus humanity debate is another example. Leaders who value wholeness in people can also drive organizational success if they embrace meaningful and lasting change.

About the Author:

Mitch leads the coaching practice at FMG Leading, a human capital strategy and advisory firm. A seasoned and motivating leader, coach, and speaker with over 25 years of experience, his expertise lies in his ability to successfully guide executives through times of upheaval and transformative change.

Mitch’s coaching philosophy brings a holistic approach to leader development. He focuses on the tension and gaps in leadership, while engaging the individual as a complete and integrated system. Through his unique background and expertise, Mitch excels at helping executive leaders thrive by managing essential habits and skills, such as the ability to compartmentalize personal and business issues, manage priorities, and overcome fear in performance, productivity and presence.

Mitch earned a Bachelor of Arts in Finance and Insurance from the University of Rhode Island, and his Masters in Divinity from the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts.