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We ask questions all the time. When is the presentation? Did you get my notes from the meeting? These are straightforward, fact-finding questions, and they get straight-forward, fact-based answers. (It’s at 3. Yes.) It shouldn’t be surprising that my company, JotForm, sees more than two million user questions per hour.

But a thoughtful, well-posed question has tremendous power; opening the doors to innovation, building cohesion among team members and shining light on the dark corners of misunderstanding. 

Even so, many of us still shy away from asking questions, despite how invaluable they can be. Experts offer several explanations for why this is: Some people are egocentric and more interested in sharing their own points of view. Others are overconfident, assuming they already know the answers. Then there’s the other end of the spectrum: Those who worry that they’ll ask the wrong question and be perceived as incompetent. 

“There are so many vulnerabilities surrounding this,” Warren Berger, author of A More Beautiful Question and The Book of Beautiful Questions, tells Forge. “It can really feel like questions are a dangerous thing.”

In fact, the opposite is true — the most successful people in the world ask questions constantly. If you’re not a natural question-asker, learning how can seem daunting. As the mathematician Georg Cantor points out in the quote above, asking good questions is an art. And with practice, it can be mastered. Here’s how to get started. 

Be specific 

Before you ask a question to someone else, it’s important to first figure out what you’re trying to learn. If you’re not sure, it’s unlikely that the person you’re asking will either. 

Most questions can be divided into three types: Factual, opinion or request. Each carries its own message. Asking a factual question shows that the other person has information we don’t; asking an opinion indicates we value their perspective; and making a request implies that we need help. Once you’ve gotten to the heart of what question you’re asking, consider who you’re asking, and whether they’re in the right position to answer it or not. 

As a leader, asking questions can feel like a giveaway that you don’t have all the answers. Which, obviously, you don’t. But far from projecting weakness, asking questions is actually not only a great way to gather valuable information; it shows your team that you respect and trust them. 

Don’t be afraid to clarify 

It’s often the case that asking a single question isn’t enough. Maybe the answer was overly technical; maybe you realized that you didn’t ask the precise right question after all. It happens! 

If the answer you receive leaves room for ambiguity, you’ll need to clarify. Usually, these questions are either open, in which you ask the speaker to elaborate on part of their point; or closed, in which you repeat the ambiguous part of the message back and ask for confirmation that you understood it correctly. 

When asking for clarification, make it clear you’re simply trying to understand, rather than blame the answerer for answering poorly. After all, you’re both working toward the same goal, which is to understand each other. 

Conversation vs. interrogation

There’s a fine line between showing your interest in what someone has to say and making them feel like they’re being bombarded. Rather than asking questions at a machine gun clip, take some time after you’re answered to consider what you just heard. Remember, it’s a conversation, not an interrogation. 

Keeping questions open-ended is a good way to avoid “yes” or “no” answers, and also allow for more creative responses. According to Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John, both professors at Harvard Business School, these kinds of questions can be “wellsprings of innovation.” 

On the other hand, survey design research has shown that “closed” questions can introduce bias and manipulation — leading the witness, so to speak. In one study, in which parents were asked what they considered  “the most important thing for children to prepare them in life,” 60 percent chose “to think for themselves” from a list of possible responses. In contrast, when the same question was asked in an open-ended format, only about five percent of parents gave a response along those lines. 

Find the right tone

Different circumstances call for different modes of questioning, and how you ask a question can be just as important as what you ask. Overly direct questions that seem to come from out of the blue can make people clam up, but beating around the bush can lead to frustration on both ends. Brooks and John found that people are actually more willing to reveal sensitive information when questions are asked in a decreasing order of intrusiveness — as long as the first question isn’t too sensitive. It’s a balance. 

The same goes for context. If you’re making an important request, you’ll want to pick a time when the other person isn’t in the middle of something else or in a noisy, crowded environment. 

Keep quiet

In general, it’s a good idea not to interrupt people while they’re talking to you. This becomes even more true when they’re trying to answer a question that you asked. Interrupting sends a clear message that you don’t value what they’re saying, and also keeps you from hearing what they might have said. 

If the conversation seems to be meandering from the topic you want to focus on, gently guide it back. There’s a difference between doing this and cutting someone off mid-sentence because you had a thought of your own to add. Save your own thoughts and questions for when the answerer is done talking — then, wait a beat beyond that to make sure they’ve truly finished their thought. Sometimes that extra pause yields the most important thing a person was going to say. 

People who ask questions have higher emotional intelligence and a greater understanding of the world around them — plus, people like them more. If you become a good question asker, there’s no end to the knowledge you have the power to unlock. 

Studies and statistics have shown time and again that women are not represented in the private sector in leadership positions like men. For example, in Fortune 500 companies, only 8% of executives are women. Out of 500 CEO positions, only 41 of these CEO positions are held by a woman. Even more alarming is the small number of mothers who have a chance to climb the corporate ladder. This may be influenced by the phenomenon of maternal penalties, the maternal wall, prejudice and discrimination against mothers.

The maternal penalty explains that mothers, compared to women without children, tend to receive a penalty in their salary, perception of low competition and little accessibility to corporate benefits for each child they have. The difference in salary is so high that it sometimes exceeds the amount of difference between the inequality of pay between women and men. In addition to this “maternal penalty,” mothers in the workplace tend to face job losses where they are seen as people without dedication to their work, without dependency, without authorship, and more emotional than other women without children. The important thing to emphasize here is that these are prejudices, not that this is necessarily the reality.

Harvard studies have reported that mothers tend to be discriminated against in the workplace in the following ways: women without children tend to be promoted 6 times more than mothers, mothers tend to be passed for a promotion 8.2 more than women women without children, and also mothers tend to go through more job scrutiny where managers are always pending if they arrive on time with more constancy than men and women without children.

These are one of the reasons why some women have been forced to choose between corporate success or success as mothers. Many of this type of discrimination towards mothers comes from the same society. This study, where 1,835 people interviewed, reported that society prefers that women not have children or postpone having children if they want to be successful professionally . Indra Nooyi, the Ex-CEO of Pepsi, has communicated how she had to hide her children under her desk or they had to sleep in her office in order to carry out her job and lead Pepsi . Even though being a mom didn't stop her from being a great leader it has multiplied Pepsi's earnings by more than 84%. Motherhood and leadership is seen in society as mutually exclusive even though we know that traits such as compassion and empathy that can be developed in motherhood are of great importance to be effective leaders.

This Wall Street Journal report shows that more recently during COVID-19 we can see the terrible reality of the lack of social and corporate support that mothers have. More than 1.5 million mothers have still not been able to return to work after resigning out of obligation for reasons such as the closure of children's schools, the closure of daycare centers and the lack of flexibility and support of their workplace for them to be able to perform. your job and babysitting at the same time.

If your company is trying to be more inclusive and promote more women to leadership positions, I will give you 3 strategies for you to help mothers become part of your executive cabinet.

Strategy 1: Offer flexible scheduling

Schedule flexibility is necessary if you are trying to create more gender equality in leadership positions. Not only does schedule flexibility reduce work stress , it has also been shown to create more employee loyalty to the company, more focus, and satisfaction. This is not only beneficial for mothers, but for all staff who have other responsibilities outside of their jobs. Schedule flexibility also reduces the number of times an employee is absent from work because the employee tends to adjust their schedule rather than absent altogether.

Strategy 2: Help remove the maternal wall debuff

Women in general face many prejudices and discrimination on their way to leadership, such as the glass ceiling , where regardless of their credentials and their preparation, many women encounter an invisible ceiling in the company that prevents them from developing as professionals and many times they stay stuck in one position for several years.

Mothers often do not even come close to that ceiling, or the possibility of developing their career. This is due to the damage and perception towards mothers classified as the maternal wall , where they are victims of how employers assume that mothers are not competent or do not have enough time to work in their place of employment. In a Harvard Business Review article , she explains how this stereotype affects mothers' trajectory in the company, where mothers are seen as housewives rather than professionals. They also stop being promoted, trained, and hired on the assumption that they don't have time to be mothers and be excellent workers. To promote more mothers to leadership positions, we must eliminate these prejudices and do not assume that a mother does not have time to dedicate to her work. You can combat this

in your company, creating effective communication links between managers and mothers so that the promotion of the mother is not interrupted by an assumption. Rather, it is recommended that managers proactively look for ways to offer support to help mothers who want to advance their careers to do so with institutional support.

Strategy 3: Make networking or networking event during work hours

In order to promote gender equality in leadership positions, in your company it is necessary that you have work events such as networking during the hours that the person usually works. When we hold events outside of business hours, the usual 9-5 hours, we leave out the possibility that people with responsibilities outside of work as mothers can attend. Networking events , where workers connect with executives from their company and their industry, are crucial for their professional development. At

these events, employees can share with other workers, learn more about their role in their company, and connect with highly influential people who can become their job sponsors.It is of great importance that companies create mechanisms to help normalize mothers in leadership positions and not let their personal decision to have children prevent them from climbing the corporate ladder. If companies are not dedicated to eliminating prejudice and proactively creating systems to help women and mothers climb the corporate ladder to leadership positions, society will continue to put mothers at a disadvantage as they pursue professional development. Corporate support where companies can promote the potential of mothers on their way to leadership can help create more role models and close the gender gap in leadership positions.

Everyone gets the same 24 hours in a day, but it's what we do with those 1440 minutes that separates the successful from the stagnant. 

If you want to edge out the competition, hit your goals and achieve more than the week should allow, these following clock hacks should help...

Think like a lazy person

Is it quicker to load a dishwasher or to personally scrub every single utensil? The result is the same, regardless of how you get there, but the effort involved is drastically different. Josephine Cochran's 19th century attempt to first apply water pressure to plates wasn't just innovative, it was lazy. She didn't want to hand wash every single spoon and found a way to do it more efficiently.

Instead of simply sitting down to do tedious work, see if you can find a way to make the work less tedious. Create workflows, automations and innovations that allow you to do more with less effort, then use that time tackling the next problem. By the time you take a break to look back you will realize that you are miles ahead of the competition.
 

Don't do your tasks in order

The risk with to-do lists is that most people assume they must be completed linearly. When it comes to these chores, it isn’t wise to simply start at the top. Instead, apply time estimations to every item. Find yourself with ten minutes between meetings? Knock-off a tiny task. Plane delayed by two hours? Tackle a larger item. Do what you can when you can and be amazed by what you can accomplish throughout the day.

Maximize transit time

 Instead of staring out your cabin window on a plane, scrolling through Instagram in an Uber, or people-watching on the subway, make travel work for you. Commuting can be great for replying to emails, prepping for upcoming meetings and, when all else fails, continuing education. Skip the in-flight movie and listen to a podcast, make your way through a leadership book or read some articles written by experts. The idea is to treat every moment spent sitting as an opportunity. 

Consider the ROI

Every time you think about committing to something, consider the potential return on investment. Grabbing a drink with an old friend may sound like a good use of time, but is it really? If getting buzzed with a buddy takes away from your work, family or education, it may not be worth the investment. Ask yourself if the reward justifies the cost. Rest and relaxation is, of course, important---but anything you do strictly out of obligation may not be worth the time spent, and it is ok to say "no" when the ROI is not favorable.

Outsource the rest

Most business leaders want to think that they need to be heavily involved in every aspect of their ventures, but the cold reality (and hacky cliche) is that trying to be a jack of all trades makes you a master of none. Instead, figure out what your superpower is and develop that until absolutely no one can do it better than you. Do not concern yourself with the things you do not naturally excel at. Find people that excel in areas that you are weak and let them fly. Something magical happens when you find what you are good at and outsource the rest---everything moves faster! When you get the proper people in the right roles, no one will be bogged down by things that challenge them. Everything gets streamlined and the results can be truly astounding. .

Feeling more forgetful right now? Are you putting off tasks? Does everyone around you seem more irritating than usual? You might have a lockdown brain. 

Your to-do list likely feels more important to you these days than ever before. 

For those of us still in lockdown, it can feel like your brain is functioning at half capacity, and a to-do list can act as a guiding light to get you through the work day. 

I cannot get a thing done these days unless the tasks are written in front of me in giant letters, yelling at me like a drill sergeant. I know I’m not alone. And there’s a scientific reason as to why so many of us are feeling this way.

HRM has covered the cognitive impacts of remote-work and COVID-19 before, but this time we’re unpacking some of the common things people are experiencing as a result of long-term isolation, and what HR can do to help.

We are more forgetful

Do you feel like your ability to retain information has disappeared at the moment? Are you regularly doing that thing where you walk into a room and can’t remember for the life of you why you’re there? Don’t worry. It’s not you, it’s lockdown.

 Lockdown has given rise to greater rates of depression and anxiety, two illnesses that can damage memory. 

Not only does this hamper our ability to remember why we went into the kitchen, it can also mean we lose the important touchstones that jog our memory. 

 A relatively modern theory called contextual-binding theory outlines how our physical and mental states influence our memory and perception of past experiences. The theory suggests that we link memories with the context they occurred in.

For example, imagine you’re on your morning walk and see a clown juggling at your local park. The context is the physical space – the park – and your mental state, likely surprise and possibly fear (if you’re me). When these things are linked together it means next time you’re at the park or you see a clown you’ll find it easier to recall that rather strange memory of a clown juggling in the park.

But here’s where it gets tricky. Let’s say you start seeing clowns at the park every day. The context is the same (park, surprise, fear), so even if it’s a different clown each time, because they’re all linked to the same context, the memory becomes diluted and the specific clowns will become harder to distinguish in your memory. 

If you’re working at home every day, having the same meetings from the same position in your house and likely experiencing the same emotions (curiosity or, dare I say, boredom), differentiating those meetings in your memory is going to become much trickier. 

But this is only part of the problem. As lockdowns continue and our stress levels continue to rise, the cognitive impacts on memory become more severe. In the ABC article, Roswell refers to it as “entering a rudimentary state of cognitive ability”.

Prolonged stress and anxiety can stop us from forming new memories because cortisol (the stress hormone) is tampering with the hippocampus, our brains’ centre for memory and learning. 

Stress inhibits our ability to form pathways quickly, meaning we find it harder to retain the things we’ve just learnt or seen.

We can continue to do our daily activities, says Roswell, but when we try to think outside the box or try something new, our brain simply cannot form the pathways to enable higher level thinking.  

What can HR do?

To escape this Groundhog Day feeling, we need to break up our days. 

 This pandemic might be a marathon, but we should be working in sprints, says Karen Gately, Founder of leadership and people management consultancy Corporate Dojo.

“If we are just stuck at our desk working, we’re going to lose focus and productivity,” she says. 

“Working in one-to-two-hour blocks is much more likely to keep us focused and help us to retain information.

“People are entirely better off working for a short period of time, and then taking a break. That could be just walking around the house or getting out in the fresh air.”

Employers also need to give workers the flexibility to potentially start earlier or work later, and allow them short periods where they’re uncontactable so they can get into deep work, says Gately.

We are more likely to make risky decisions

Prolonged periods of social restrictions can also impact our decision-making skills. 

In a study released earlier this year, researchers questioned nearly 5000 participants in Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom about their decision making during COVID-19 restrictions. 

 The researchers found that participants experiencing harsher lockdown conditions were more likely to make riskier decisions and poor choices, such as being less altruistic and developing a desire to punish others.

“Instead of being more careful because they were in a pandemic, they were taking risks, because they couldn’t take it any more,” said co-author Francisco Lupiáñez from Italy’s Open University of Catalonia in an article for Eureka Alert. 

They found that people were more willing to make difficult decisions without weighing up the potential social costs of their actions, such as not wearing a mask in public.

“It seemed as if the world was coming to an end and people preferred to benefit today, immediately, without thinking about tomorrow.”

 This lines up with older research that suggests social isolation can lead to people making risker financial decisions, often seeking immediate satisfaction and rather long-term rewards. Part of this was linked to the dopamine cravings created by isolation (if you’re someone who has fallen victim to the clutches of online shopping during lockdown, you’ll be familiar with this feeling).

 In the workplace this could manifest as employees making poor financial decisions on behalf of the business. A less extreme example could be someone chasing quick wins to replicate the dopamine they’re missing from social interactions. That might mean they cut corners or fail to work as collaboratively as is needed, for instance, resulting in decreased quality of work and potentially damaging important relationships in the process.

 What can HR do?

 You could try finding alternative ways to keep employees’ dopamine levels high. A good place to start is through consistent recognition and reward for a job well done.

“When I feel respected and valued, these things give me energy and give me the brain chemistry that’s good for the health of my mind,” says Gately.

 “It can be tempting [for employers] to just focus on what’s not happening, so we might have to be more deliberate and purposeful about reaching out and letting people know what we are happy about [in their work].

“HR can be going to the business owner or CEO and saying, ‘Hey, by the way, Mary has been doing a brilliant job. She has been working around the clock. Could you reach out and say thank you?’ Simple as that.”

We feel more irritable and intolerant 

Last year, the overwhelming feelings we shared were grief and anxiety. As the pandemic continues and this new round of restrictions weigh on us, the feeling is different. Grief and anxiety haven’t gone away entirely, but it has been surpassed for many by anger. 

 It’s easy to understand why we feel this way. Lockdown is an experience outside of our control, and when that lack of control meets the uncertainty of not knowing when your freedoms will be reinstated or how safe it is to be outside, it can result in anger and frustration. 

 Research on mice has shown aggression levels increase when they are subjected to isolation. In humans this often manifests as a low tolerance for those around us. 

 On a cognitive level, anger narrows our focus, limiting our ability to take on new information. Even if the source of our anger passes, we can remain on edge and are more likely to get angry at other people or incidents. 

 This can create a vicious cycle. Conflict may arise between employees and, depending on their agreeability or response to conflict, this could cause it to spread like other forms of emotional contagion.

 What can HR do?

 The number one thing HR and other leaders can do right now is lead with empathy, says Gately.

“You don’t have to accept bad behaviour to empathise with the underlying reason for it,” she says.

“You need to create a space where employees can put their hand up and say, ‘I’m struggling’ not just when they’re feeling overwhelmed, but when they’re frustrated too.”

This is where creating a psychologically-safe culture is really important.

There are small changes workplaces can make too. 

“Employees need the tools to recognise their emotions and the ways to short circuit those feelings.

 “Make self care a priority,” says Gately. “Whether that’s taking frequent breaks to walk around the block, taking time off to recalibrate, or calling someone you can vent to.”

A fortnight ago Hayley Breen found herself sitting in front of her computer for 10 hours a day unable to focus. Simple tasks became overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. Almost 200 days in lockdown, homeschooling and working in an industry that has been “absolutely decimated” since March last year had taken a toll on the Melbourne-based professional.

By Wednesday afternoon, Ms Breen, head of people and culture at BlueFit, which operates gyms and pools around Australia, told her boss and her team she was struggling and needed the rest of the week off.

“I have an obligation as a senior executive in the business to call it out when I’m struggling so that others know they can do the same,” Ms Breen said.

“I almost felt my team exhale. They said ‘I’m so glad that she’s done that because I think I feel like that sometimes too’. Everybody is battling in their own way.”

More than 50 per cent of Australian managers say they have not had a discussion with their direct reports about their mental health since the pandemic began despite the added mental strain the lockdowns have placed on workers, a survey commissioned by Allianz Insurance found.

The results come as Allianz published new workers’ compensation claims data which show active psychological claims increased by 5 per cent in the last financial year, compared with the previous 12 months.

Although the bulk of workers’ compensation claims relate to physical injuries, Julie Mitchell, chief general manager of Allianz’s personal injury division, said the number of workers claiming compensation for medical treatment and lost wages for mental health reasons will continue to grow in the coming years.

The most common causes of primary psychological claims were work pressure and work-related harassment mainly leading to anxiety and stress disorders, and anxiety and depression, the data showed.

The rise in mental health problems caused by the lockdowns in Victoria and NSW have already cost $1 billion in lost productivity, according to modelling from Sydney University and Lifeline has recorded the three busiest days in its 57-year history last month.

Ms Mitchell said the survey of 1000 workers and 500 managers showed the pandemic had helped break down the stigma surrounding mental health in the workplace.

“The latest research does show that employees and employers actually do want to be having the conversation around mental health now. So there’s been a shift in a positive direction,” Ms Mitchell said.

Since the start of the pandemic, 67 per cent of managers have already implemented new mental health initiatives and 83 per cent say employee mental health will be more of a priority in the next five years.

“One of the most powerful ways you can break down that stigma is by having senior leaders talk about and role-model their own experiences around mental health, and show that vulnerability within their own workplace.

“That will then encourage people to feel more open and that it’s a safer environment to have those conversations around mental health with their leaders in the workplace.”

Ms Breen encouraged senior leaders to build strong relationships with their employees, to make it easier to have difficult conversations about mental health.

“I think it’s the little things you do all the time that make the changes. It’s the little phone call you have, it’s that awareness of your team and what goes on in their personal life so you can tell if something is a bit off.”

As an HR professional, Ms Breen hoped the stigma attached to talking about mental health in the workplace would continue to decline but noted attitudes vary across workplaces.

“I still think that there is an attitude out there that’s ‘what have you got to complain about - you’re employed’,” she said.

It won’t just put you in a bad mood. Rudeness in the workplace can even affect our creativity, memory and decision-making skills.

Imagine a world where rudeness didn’t exist. Your neighbour didn’t give you the side-eye as you crossed paths in the morning. Your barista didn’t huff at you when you mentioned that your coffee wasn’t hot enough and no one sent you emails IN ALL CAPS.

It would be bliss. But that’s not our reality.

While you might think a rude colleague is just part and parcel of the work experience, if incivility runs rampant it can have significant impacts. 

It can reduce morale and engagement levels, increase intention to quit, and lead to mental and physical health concerns.

These are the common impacts of rudeness in the workplace, but there are some not-so-obvious consequences that HR professionals need to be aware of, such as how it can impact our memories, creativity and decision-making skills.

HRM dives into some fascinating research and offers thoughts on how to combat each impact of rudeness in the workplace.

Effect 1: It reduces creativity and impacts our memory

Rudeness in the workplace can dampen our creativity because it affects our memory. 

Creativity isn’t about having a single eureka moment. It is usually an amalgamation of several ideas over time. When we think creatively, we pull ideas from our long-term memory and hold them in our working memory.

An experiment from 2007 shows that when the study’s participants were exposed to someone who was belittling them, they came up with 39 per cent less creative ideas than those who hadn’t experienced rudeness. 

Rudeness impacts our cognitive functioning, meaning we have less emotional energy to reach our full potential.

“On the cognitive side, we know that exposure to rudeness takes up a portion of individuals’ working memory, which is our limited ability to hold information,” explains Binyamin Cooper, Postdoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.

“This happens because following exposure to rudeness individuals engage in rumination – consciously reflecting on the event, and attempt to understand the reasoning behind it and the meaning of it.”

How to combat it:
The best defence is to disrupt the rumination process. Tools such as mindfulness can serve as a distraction in these instances. 

Mindfulness aims to slow the brain down and bring you back to the present moment. A simple method is identifying three things you can hear, see and feel. This can act as a circuit breaker for your thoughts and help you think more clearly.

Effect 2: It impacts our decision-making skills

A 2021 study, led by Cooper and published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, revealed that rudeness can lead to a decision-

making bias called ‘anchoring’.

Cooper explains anchoring as similar to spotting a bear while hiking. In that moment you focus on the danger ahead (the bear) and your brain will filter out the information you’re capable of taking in from the surrounding environment, such as the trees surrounding you or the sound of a distant bird. It’s as if you put up emotional blinkers.

“Essentially, as part of our fight-or-flight response, we have evolved to focus on the cause of the arousal, so that information that is central to the source of the emotional arousal can be encoded,” says Cooper.

“While obviously not a bear, the rudeness-induced high arousal negative effect is sufficient [enough] to cause this narrowing and subsequent anchoring, making individuals more likely to rely on limited information when making their subsequent judgments.”

In Cooper’s study, medical students were asked to diagnose a patient. Prior to the diagnosis some students witnessed a rude interaction between their instructor and another doctor. Those who saw this altercation were more likely to misdiagnose the patient based on the first piece of information they found. 

The students who didn’t witness this event were more likely to take on additional information and correctly diagnose the patient. 

Even if you’re not making life or death decisions, it’s important to utilise all the data you have access to. Anchoring restricts that ability. 

How to combat it:
The best way to reduce this is through information elaboration, says Cooper. This means consciously seeking additional information. 

For example, here’s how information elaboration could look in a salary negotiation where the person who makes the first offer usually sets the ‘anchor’ for the negotiation (i.e. they put an offer on the table for the person to accept or decline). 

“We asked our participants to think about three pieces of information that they would like to get from their negotiation partner before they had to make a counteroffer,” says Cooper. “We found that this exercise reduced the likelihood of anchoring taking place.”

“This happens because following exposure to rudeness individuals engage in rumination – consciously reflecting on the event, and attempting to understand the reasoning behind it” – Binyamin Cooper, Postdoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.

Effect 3: Virtual rudeness can be worse and harder spot

When we are communicating with our teams solely online, a phenomenon called ‘toxic online disinhibition’ can occur. This means we forget our real-world social etiquette due the lack of  connections we form with virtual beings – i.e. our inhibitions are lowered. 

The term is predominantly used to describe cyberbullying and online trolling, the idea that anonymity can lead to a reduced sense of accountability because the perpetrator doesn’t perceive the person on the receiving end as a person.

What’s worse is that new research published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology suggests rudeness in the workplace is harder to spot in a virtual setting. This incivility can range from general rude behaviour, withholding information, arriving late to meetings or interrupting or ignoring a colleague, the researchers found.

“People have gotten used to not having to engage in interpersonal communication as much and that can take an already distressing or tense situation and exacerbate it because people are out of practice of not having to have difficult conversations,” Larry Martinez, study Co-Author and  Associate Professor of Industrial-Organisational Psychology at Portland State University, told ScienceDaily. 

How to combat it:
Martinez suggests that when employees have more autonomy in their roles, they are less likely to engage in workplace incivility.

Another solution could be simply keeping your camera on during video calls. Anonymity has long been seen as the main cause of toxic online disinhibition, but research suggests that a lack of eye-contact is actually the biggest contributor. 

Although we might be feeling the effects of video call fatigue, keeping cameras on (at least some of the time) could help remind employees there are other people on the receiving end of their communication. 

Effect 4: It increases perceived rudeness

Once we experience rudeness in the workplace, we start to see incivility everywhere. 

Let’s say someone comes up to you and, in a neutral tone, says, “Nice shirt”. This can be interpreted a myriad of ways, but if you’ve recently experienced a rude encounter you’re more likely to believe that the person was being sarcastic or mean.   

Trevor Foulk, Assistant Professor of Management and Organisation at the University of Maryland, explains this concept in more depth in an article for The Conversation. But here’s a very simplified version of what’s happening in our brains. 

Imagine a bunch of switches in your brain. Different experiences can switch them on or off. Seeing a smiling face can flick on our happiness switch and activate positive emotions. Uncivil behaviour flicks on our rudeness switch, and gives us what Foulk calls ‘rude-coloured glasses’. While that switch is turned on, we continue to experience and perceive rudeness. Foulk’s research has demonstrated that this switch can continue affecting us for up to a week. 

How to combat it:
So how can you turn off that switch? Perceived rudeness is an assumption made about the other person’s intent. To combat it, we need to try to see things from their perspective, without wearing rude-coloured glasses.

Perspective taking is the act of imagining what the other person is feeling or thinking and, in Cooper’s experience, it’s shown to help alleviate some of the impact of rudeness.

“We tested this by having participants visualise what a person thinks and feels at work, by ‘looking at the world through their eyes’ and ‘walking through the world in their shoes’,” says Cooper.

Perspective taking also puts distance between you and the strong feelings you’re having about the situation, preventing them from overwhelming you, he says.

Effect 5: We infect others with our rudeness

Rudeness begets rudeness. This point is particularly troubling, as it perpetuates the cycle, meaning all the other impacts mentioned above continue to poison a workplace’s culture.

In a 2016 study, psychologists tracked employees’ behaviour through the work day. Those who experienced incivility in the morning were more likely to lash out at colleagues later in the day. 

We know emotions and arrogance can be contagious – it’s a phenomenon known as emotional contagion – so it’s not surprising that rudeness is too. 

“Exposure to rude behaviors has been shown to activate a semantic network of related concepts in individuals’ minds,” says Cooper. That’s those switches mentioned earlier.

“In turn, this activation influences an individual’s behaviors to be more hostile toward unrelated others.”

How to combat it:

The worst part of emotional contagion is it can come from outside the workplace but still harm your employees. This makes it hard to eradicate entirely. 

However, Cooper suggests two approaches that employers can implement, one is proactive and the other is reactive.

• Proactive: Implement structured interventions that promote civil interactions. This can include creating rules of etiquette for your organisation and rewarding employees who call our rudeness or uncivil behaviour.
• Reactive: “A manager should strive to improve interpersonal relationships in the workplace and actively monitor and be able to identify problematic relationships that may lead to rude behaviors,” says Cooper. “In turn, they should be able to intervene to encourage or teach positive ways of communication.”

• “Over time, these interventions can improve the organisational culture and discourse regarding rude behaviors, and help reduce their occurrence,” says Cooper.

Once you find the right candidate for a role, what is the most effective way of embedding them into your team? Make sure you have a comprehensive onboarding process in place. 

How should you go about overhauling an onboarding process that causes confusion, wastes time or accelerates turnover? 

Raminta Kymantas CPHR faced this challenge two years into becoming senior learning and development consultant at Colliers UK, an international real estate company. 

Having held a variety of roles across a variety of countries, Kymantas has a strong understanding of the various ways a company can welcome a new employee. By the time she landed at Colliers UK, she was able to put that knowledge to use.

Colliers UK’s onboarding processes had room for improvement. So as the foundation of her AHRI Practicing Certification project, Kymantas decided to create some practical and impactful changes.

“Information for new starters was delivered at a range of times and there was not enough focus on engaging new starters in regard to how to get involved, build important relationships or understand the value of their role,” says Kymantas.

Furthermore, qualitative data gathered from monthly evaluations showed that new starters lacked knowledge about the brand, IT systems and finance processes. 

One employee requested “more information about business growth and direction”, while another wanted “more explanation about the different teams”, as well information about “the opportunity to collaborate” with others.
The onboarding process had two noticeable areas for refinement. First, it needed to reduce the time it took new starters to reach full productivity. Also, it contributed to voluntary attrition rates in the first year of employment, which, in 2019, was higher than Colliers was comfortable with, so that needed fixing.

Four-stage journey

To kick start the project, Kymantas had to put herself in the employees’ shoes. 

“In contrast with the previous series of scattered [onboarding] tasks, we developed an onboarding journey which builds new 

joiners’ understanding of the business as they need it, helping them to achieve productivity quickly.”

The journey comprises four stages. 

Firstly, upon signing their contract, the employee watches a welcome video from Colliers’ UK CEO, which is displayed alongside a webpage containing details about the company – such as its mission, values, employee benefits and business expectations, plus more.

Secondly, on day one of employment, the new starter receives a host of essential information, including who’s who in HR; instructions for navigating the intranet; employee benefits; and tips for physical, mental and financial wellbeing at work. 

In the third stage, which occurs throughout the probation period, further information is drip-fed to the new joiner, such as training on finance and IT systems. In the final stage, after one month in the role, a second induction provides more context on the business, including its workplace culture and tips for becoming collaborative with your team. 

“Understanding the Colliers context really improves employee engagement rates. Our senior leaders present to the new joiners about what makes Colliers a great place to work, emphasising that it’s not what we do that matters, but how we do it”.

Measurable impact 

The success of Kymantas’s new onboarding journey bears out statistically. 

Over six months in 2020, new starters reached an average 75 per cent productivity rate within three months of employment, in contrast with the five or six-month industry average. Voluntary attrition rates within the first year decreased by 50 per cent compared to the previous year. 

Fifty-three per cent of new starters rated the quality of Colliers’ communication before they began their role as excellent (compared to 25 per cent before the transformation), 67 per cent agreed the onboarding process helped them understand their job (compared to 57 per cent) and 96 per cent rated their onboarding trainer 5/5, a 10 percentage point jump.

Overcoming obstacles

These successes didn’t mean that the transformation was entirely challenge-free.

“The project relied on many stakeholders. Plus, there were some minor unexpected changes, such as the adoption of a new digital email platform, which meant some stakeholders required extra management to ensure deliverables could be made on time.”

Also, the COVID-19 pandemic hit midway through the project, forcing the onboarding process to be conducted remotely. 

“To overcome this, we added essential information on day one, such as tips for working remotely, as well as demonstrations of new IT systems, to ensure every new starter would be up to speed quickly.

“However, although this has helped to accelerate productivity, it hasn’t solved the problem of not being able to build relationships face-to-face, so there’s more to do in this area.”

Kymantas says that, for her own part, the project’s challenges and outcomes will hold her in good stead in the future. 

“This project developed me as a HR professional. I’d always found it challenging to be an advocate for both the employee and the business at the same time. This helped me understand the importance of both sides.

“Gaining AHRI certification is an additional way for my employer to trust me as an expert to consult on future HR business problems that might arise. 

“I have demonstrated that I can deliver a project from plan to implementation to evaluation, even during the most difficult time of a global pandemic when priorities are constantly changing.”

Quick tips to improve your onboarding experience

Raminta Kymantas CPHR shares some of her top tips, including:

• Consider what a new joiner needs at every point of the onboarding journey – including before starting, upon starting and after the probation period – and create touch points accordingly.
• Start with baseline data, by collating feedback from new starters and line managers regarding their experiences of the onboarding process. This will help generate ideas.
• Replace a task-based approach with a focus on the employee experience, remembering it begins the moment they sign their contract, not on the first day.
• Create an engaging welcome video, including a message from the CEO on what new joiners can expect on their first day and in the future.
• Provide an online community, such as a hub or website, which new starters can use to refer to important information or to network.

We often talk about the “balancing act” of managing work and parenting, which assumes that the solution is a combination of compromise, multitasking, and choosing an understanding employer. But there are limits to compromise, and multitasking is exhausting. And we do not all have the good fortune or opportunity to choose a flexible and understanding employer. Even if we do, this choice can be undermined by the inherent demands of the work or the realities of who gets promoted, whose role is made redundant, and who gets pay raises.

An alternative approach is to think about parenting more strategically and prioritize demands more rigorously: What do I, as a parent, need to do that is unique? What adds the most value to my children’s lives, and how they will develop into happy and well-adjusted adults? What can be done by other people, with minimal impact, if I am not involved?

Every working parent will answer these questions differently. But in general, we can break down parenting into four different types of work, based on how strategic the work is and how much it requires direct parental involvement:

1. Pastoral care: the intellectual and emotional engagement with your children
2. Decision making: deciding what is best for your children, problem solving, and navigating trade-offs
3. Logistics: transporting children, asking them to do their homework, following through on decision making, and organizing activities
4. Household support: all the tasks required for running the household, such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, and errands

Most studies and principles of effective parenting suggest that the latter two need significantly less direct parental involvement, and can safely be left to friends, nannies, or other support without guilt. Prioritizing pastoral care and decision making can have the greatest positive impact on children while requiring far less time — about six hours a week. Yet spending disproportionate amounts of time on logistics and household chores can leave parents drained of the time and energy needed to focus on the more strategic aspects of parenting and to advance their careers.

But you can readjust your priorities, so you can feel confident that the time you do spend at home is making the biggest difference. Here’s how.

Pastoral Care

The consensus from studies on good and effective parenting include concepts such as showing love, communicating, supporting, teaching values, and setting boundaries. While the vocabulary may differ from one parenting expert or study to another, these concepts can collectively be named as “pastoral care.” Pastoral care requires parents who have the emotional energy and headspace to connect with their children and, according to numerous studies, has the highest priority in terms of parental engagement.

To ensure you’re prioritizing pastoral care, find at least half an hour of focused, calm time every day to spend with your children without a specific agenda. It could be during breakfast, or before or after dinner — whenever it is possible to set aside some downtime on a regular basis. It is difficult to provide pastoral care if a parent is bogged down in multitasking, errands, and chores, so clear your schedule for those 30 minutes and only focus on your kids. Pastoral care becomes even more important as children grow older, so for older children, consider choosing a time after younger ones have already gone to bed.

During this time together, ask open ended questions. Be curious and interested. Ask them questions like: How was your day? What happened with a sporting event today? Can I help you with anything? What did you think of the new teacher? And show affection; praise, a hug, or words of support can make a big difference. Even teenagers appreciate it in quieter moments (although they often won’t show it).

Decision Making

Decision making can create a heavy weight of responsibility. Some decisions require research on previously unknown topics, such as medical issues or college financing options; others involve difficult trade-offs with unpredictable consequences. Which subjects and activities should my kids be encouraged to pursue? If there is an incident at school, what’s the best way handle it? Do I need to hire a tutor to help my child? When is the right time for my child to be able to do things independently with his friends outside the home?

Depending on the nature of your decisions, the required level of parental involvement can vary. Where the issue involves pastoral care or medical issues, there is obviously a higher need for parental involvement. But in other instances — such as choosing which extracurriculars to take part in or whether they can go on that sleepover — you may be able to delegate. Designate another adult, perhaps a spouse or partner, family friend, godparent, or extended family available via Zoom (someone in your “parenting ecosystem”) to help with the less critical decisions. In addition to the help this provides to the parent, studies have found that involving another adult in a parenting ecosystem is also beneficial for the emotional well-being of children, especially when they grow into adolescence. Be sure to check in with these people regularly to make sure you are aligned. And as your children grow older, ensure that they take greater ownership of these decisions, as well.

In addition, teach your children problem-solving skills: how to stay calm, assess options, and consider potential consequences. This can help them make confident decisions that are age appropriate, without your involvement in each one. For instance, a 10-year-old can check the weather and decide if it is a good idea to wear a coat to school without your needing to make the choice for them.

Logistics

Logistics include all the planning, transportation, and timetabling involved in getting your children to school, activities, and social events — as well as your own commitments as a working adult. It also includes much of the operational aspects that come from decision making. If a child is joining the swim team, for instance, someone must then purchase needed supplies, manage the schedule, pay invoices, and transport the children back and forth.

It is generally acknowledged that overloading children with activities can backfire, while organizing all those extra activities will increase the parenting workload. To combat this, prioritize activities that are most important and enjoyable for your children, and don’t worry about whether they are missing out on the rest. In addition, get as much support on the logistics as possible: family members, friends, carpools, and bus services. As you make these arrangements, prioritize those aspects of logistics that can have a pastoral care element. For example, many parents find that if there is a sufficiently long drive to an after-school activity, it may be a good idea to do that drive themselves, so they can talk to their children about what is going on in their lives. But a 10-minute drive between art class and soccer practice may be something you can delegate to a friend, especially if their child is also participating in those activities.

Household Support

This is the least strategic aspect of parenting, but one that can be incredibly time-consuming. The New York Times recently estimated that parents spend 6.5 hours a day on housework. It is highly important to reduce the less value-adding aspects of this, in order to free up energy and time for pastoral care, or to convert some of this effort into something that can be shared with children. After all, kids who do chores learn responsibility and generally enjoy greater success in life.

Offload this as much as possible. Outsourcing can include getting help from extended family and friends or hiring help. Additionally, consciously decide which work simply does not need to be done as well or as often. For this part, you’ll need to resist the idea of being judged. There is a lot of social pressure to maintain a “clean” house in order to feel successful as a mother especially, but very few children will experience trauma from dirty dishes being left out overnight.

Turn housework into something everyone does together and challenge your thinking about your children’s capabilities. Create a disciplined environment where children are asked to take responsibility for chores on a set schedule. As a friend of mine tells his children, “Chores are not cleaning up after yourself, but what you do for the household.” A young child can put out food for pets on a daily basis. A preteen can put everyone’s towels in the laundry machine once a week. A teenage driver can do the regular trip to the store for milk and other necessities.

In order to create the headspace for what is important, parents need rigorous prioritization of how their time and attention should be directed. It is much more difficult to engage a child in a calm conversation about a bad day at school or focus on an important presentation at work when a parent is tired from cooking and chores at home. As much as we all love the idea of home-cooked meals and clean houses, an evening of pizza delivery and a messy living room can create a better environment for quality parenting to take place.

• Australia’s gender pay gap has grown to 14.2% or $261.50 a week for full-time earners, new analysis shows.
• Advocates warn women could fall further behind through the slow COVID-19 recovery.
• August 31 marks Equal Pay Day, the point past the end of the financial year that women must work to earn the same annual amount as their male counterparts.

The average Australian woman’s weekly full-time pay is 14.2% or $261.50 below that of the average man, new analysis warns, amid fears the COVID-19 pandemic may put working women even further behind their male counterparts.

August 31 is Equal Pay Day, marking the point past the end of the financial year women must work to earn the same annual mount as men.

To mark the date, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) has highlighted its fresh analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, quantifying how the gap has changed.

The pay gap has grown 0.8% in the past six months, analysis shows.

Full-time average weekly earnings for adult males sat at $1,837 in May 2021, up 1.4% since May 2020, when Australia first did battle with the coronavirus pandemic.

But Australia’s full-time earning women accrued $1,575 a week in May 2021, up 1.1% on a year prior.

Both ABS and WGEA data shows full-time working men earn more in every industry and occupational category, but the agency states the construction industry experienced an outsized uplift in recent months.

The spike in earnings for full-time earning men “is due, in part, to the growth in earnings in the Construction industry, a male-dominated sector of employment,” the WGEA states.

The difference is even starker when considering all earners, including part-time and casual staff.

The average male employee earned $1,555.30 a week, up 1.1% on a year prior.

For women, that figure stood at $1,069.10, marking a -1.3% dip over the twelve months to May 2021.

While lockdown restrictions eased over the early months of 2021, lengthy business closures across NSW and Victoria have ravaged the retail, hospitality, and tourism industries.

Given the high proportion of women working in those fields, it is likely casual and part-time working women could see their take-home earnings slip further.

Anti-domestic violence advocacy group Our Watch states women may be further impacted by business closures and job losses in the early childhood education and care, health care, and aged care sectors.

There are tangible links between inequality and violence against women, Our Watch CEO Patty Kinnsersly said, calling on Australian employers to proactively address the gender pay gap.

“Making sure that women are not left behind in the economic recovery from COVID will benefit the whole of our community,” she said.

In the 2021-2022 federal budget, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg introduced $3.4 billion worth of measures designed to address gender inequality — which advocates said did not go far enough.

Responding to Equal Pay Day, Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele O’Neil today said “the Morrison Government can and must do more to address all these issues.”

“It is a disgrace that women have to start each year effectively $13,500 worse off on average than men,” she added.

WGEA has provided free resources it says can help companies identify and respond to gender pay gaps.

The chief executives of Australia’s biggest companies want to employ more people but are struggling to hire IT specialists, engineers and teachers because of locked borders and skills shortages.

Wesfarmers CEO Rob Scott said the conglomerate, which added 6000 people to its workforce last year, was employing more data and digital specialists, but was finding there was “a very tight market” for technology experts and engineers in Western Australia.

“We are starting to suffer from the lack of skilled migration in some of these areas,” Mr Scott said. “Technology and engineering development skills are two areas where Australia has really benefitted from skilled migration.”

Nearmap CEO Rob Newman said the market for technology specialists was highly competitive but argued that the aerial imagery group’s “exciting growth story” helped it attract talent.

Megaport CEO Vincent English said the network group planned to hire at least 40 people by October, including salespeople, while online outsourcing group Airtasker is looking for engineers and marketing specialists.