News

Australia’s minimum wage will go up by almost $20 a week after the independent umpire decided that the economy had improved dramatically but it will be delayed until September for workers in retail, sparking demands from unions for profitable employers to pass the rise on early.

About 2.5 million workers will get a raise because of Wednesday’s decision, but the independent panel that decided it said the threat of lockdowns, pace of the vaccine rollout and the upcoming 0.5 per cent superannuation rise all weighed against a higher increase.

Most employees will see the extra money from July but it will be delayed until November for cafes, restaurants, gyms and airlines because their recovery from the pandemic has been slower.

Retail workers will get their pay rise in September, setting up a clash with unions that are demanding profitable companies voluntarily pass on the wage rise early. “We’ll campaign against them,” said Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus.

“There is simply no reason for delaying the increase,” said shop union boss Gerard Dwyer. Last year major retailers including Coles passed on a wage rise before they had to as their workers kept stores stocked during the pandemic.

Iain Ross, a member of the expert panel that sets the wage, said this year’s decision recognised how much the economy had recovered from the doldrums of the coronavirus. “The broad consensus is that the performance of the economy has exceeded expectations and the economic recovery is well underway,” Justice Ross said.

But he emphasised that the risk of future outbreaks of the virus, the pace of the vaccine rollout and the risk of problems with Australia’s trading partners overseas weighed on the decision. Next month’s upcoming 0.5 per cent rise in the minimum superannuation rate was also a factor, Justice Ross said.

As a result of the decision, the absolute minimum wage that about 180,000 workers are on will be $772 a week or $20.33 an hour, up $18.80 weekly and 49 cents an hour from the old rates.

Industry minimum pay rates, which are set in lockstep with the minimum and apply to more than two million people, will go up by 2.5 per cent.

Unions had asked for 3.5 per cent while most business lobby groups said they would not like anything above 1.1 per cent, which was the rate of inflation recently.

Business lobby boss Jenny Lambert said the decision would hurt businesses that were already struggling, especially smaller firms in sectors such as retail, food and accommodation.

“This is a bitter pill to swallow for the approximately 230,000 small and family-owned businesses which dominate these particular sectors,” said Ms Lambert, the acting chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. She urged all parties to pass industrial relations law reform that largely died in the Senate earlier this year.

Labor claimed the panel, which is independent but takes into account submissions from interest groups, may have given workers a bigger raise if the federal government had asked for it.

“It refused to do so,” Labor’s industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke said. The Morrison government had emphasised the improving economy but urged an element of caution.

The minister, Michaelia Cash, noted the panel’s decision and said the government was growing the number of jobs. “More Australians in work, drives upward pressure on wages,” Senator Cash said.

The incredible jobs boom has the unemployment rate on track to have a four in front of it before the next federal election and will test the Reserve Bank’s guidance that interest rates will not rise until 2024 at the earliest.

The jobless rate has fallen to its pre-pandemic level of 5.1 per cent after the creation of 115,000 jobs in May.

Even more impressively, the underutilisation rate, which combines unemployment and underemployment, is the lowest since February 2013.

That was the last time the economy experienced wages growth of at least 3 per cent – a key threshold the RBA is trying to achieve.

An earlier interest rate increase, perhaps in 2023 as the US Federal Reserve now projects, has suddenly become more plausible.

Local interest rate traders are betting on a late 2022 rate increase by the RBA, though governor Philip Lowe disagrees because wages growth is running at a chronically weak 1.5 per cent.

Still, with international borders shutting out foreign labour and fuelling skills shortages in some industries, job ads at a 12-year high and vacancies soaring, the local labour market could reach full employment sooner than expected.

Pushing unemployment down towards 4 per cent is one challenge, but a bigger test may be for a tight labour market to generate wages growth of more than 3 per cent.

So much for the end of the JobKeeper wage subsidy hurting the labour market – 84,000 extra jobs have been added since the end of March.

Female employment is at an all-time high.

No wonder Treasurer Josh Frydenberg declared it had “been a very good morning” and talked about the economy “roaring back”.

Despite the “V-shaped” recovery cited by the RBA governor on Thursday, he is in no hurry to raise the ultra-low 0.1 per cent overnight cash rate target.

Lowe emphasised that the central bank will not raise rates until there is a long-awaited pick up in wages growth.

In the RBA’s view, pushing unemployment down towards 4 per cent is one challenge, but a bigger test may be for a tight labour market to generate wages growth of more than 3 per cent.

An hour before the stunning jobs news, Lowe encouraged bosses to abandon their cost-control mindset to give workers bigger pay rises, to ultimately push up inflation inside the 2 to 3 per cent target band.

Wages growth puzzle

“Notwithstanding these signs of a tightening labour market, wages growth and inflation remain subdued and there have not been upside surprises,” Lowe said.

“And it is noteworthy that even in those pockets where firms are finding it hardest to hire workers, wage increases are mostly modest.”

This explains why Lowe and Frydenberg are on a unity ticket to keep stimulating the economy with monetary and fiscal policy.

Their hope is that by driving down the jobless rate below full employment – estimated to be somewhere between 4 and 5 per cent by the RBA and Treasury – bosses will be forced to compete harder to attract and retain staff.

Resources boom hangover

Lowe thinks businesses feel they are operating in a very competitive marketplace and that they can’t raise prices or wages.

He says it’s a hangover from the resources boom almost a decade ago, when the high Australian dollar exceeded parity with the US dollar, and firms believed their Australian dollar cost structure was too high.

“This experience has left a lasting imprint on many businesses and it has reinforced the narrative about the importance of cost control.”

 The RBA’s business liaison has detected that some firms facing labour constraints are pulling back on the production of their goods and services, rather than offering pay rises that would permanently increase the cost base of their labour force.

“Some are also adopting a ‘wait and ration’ approach: wait until labour market conditions ease, perhaps when the borders reopen, and until then, ration output,” Lowe says.

“While there is always a degree of uncertainty about the future, we are not expecting the influence of these various factors to wane quickly.”

Nevertheless, if the jobless rate keeps falling, the stickiness of wages and the RBA’s interest rate forward guidance will be tested.

The CEO role is like no other, so perhaps it is not surprising that so many crash and burn. Too many fail to grasp the nature of the job, fail to listen and learn, fail to shed their biases and keep their ego in check and think culture is easy.

This week, BOSS asks four of the country’s top executive coaches and advisers, who work behind the scenes for ASX 100 leaders, their top tips for setting CEOs up for success.

1. Understand the job

“The CEO is almost like being an electrical conductor, a genuine source of energy for the broader organisation, not just the people who are around them,” says Stephen Johnston, senior client partner at executive search firm Korn Ferry.

But all too often, CEOs approach the top job like they did the positions they occupied along the way. They still want to be involved in the day-to-day running of the company. In fact, CEOs need to set aside their subject expertise and their natural desire to be intimately involved in business operations and recognise their role as a storyteller, or a “meaning-maker”, establishing the conditions for the company to thrive.

“The ones who, I think, are less successful are still defining their role as: ‘I’ve got things to do. I need to be involved’,” Johnston says.

Executive coach Peter Hislop adds that CEOs need to forget their previous desire to always be right.

“[Executives] have always been taught that they are right, because in their area of expertise, such as being a CFO, they almost always are,” Hislop says. “It’s particularly true of men. Men don’t naturally think laterally the way women do. And so they hold on to this idea of their professional rightness.”

Hislop says that even as a member of the top leadership team, executives don’t get enough experience across different parts of the company. They tend to focus on their own business unit, where they have intimate knowledge – and so are in a strong position to make the right decisions.

“The whole idea of adaptive leadership at the executive leadership team level, so that everybody knows everybody else’s business, has failed, because there’s too much pressure on individuals to deliver on their numbers and on their bonuses,” Hislop says.

The need to be always right is an attitude that won’t carry into a CEO role, because there are many areas in an organisation in which the CEO has no expertise and has no choice but to learn and ask questions.

2. Talk to the board about the support you need

“Success has a little to do with your competence,” says Stephen Langton, leadership adviser at executive search firm Russell Reynolds. “It’s mostly to do with the conditions in place that let you use that competence.”

A key condition of CEO success is maintaining trust between the chief executive and the board. Langton says CEOs need to establish with the board a set of ground rules to cement mutual trust between directors and management so that meetings are supportive rather than adversarial.

“Right now, management goes into the board meeting and it’s like a mini royal commission,” Langton says. “Management feels like they’re under scrutiny. Boards are asking micro questions. ‘Have you thought of this?’ The intent of the board is good, but the impact is: ‘The board is just out to catch us. Board doesn’t trust us.’”

To be successful, Langton says, CEOs need to talk to the board about how management will demonstrate that they are trustworthy, such as by being transparent, by communicating regularly and by promising there will be no surprises.

“No surprises. It’s a simple rule,” Langton says. The quid pro quo is that meetings will become less of an interrogation and more constructive.

3. Listen and learn

“The real competency [in a CEO] is learning and information gathering,” Langton says.

Experts are universal in their tip that CEOs must be curious, listen and learn, but Hislop says they are a rare breed.

“I’ve not met a CEO who’s a good listener,” Hislop says. “Normally they listen until they hear something they agree with and then it’s all over.

“If they do truly listen they will learn about things, and they’ll learn how to communicate to individuals, and it will save them a lot of time. It also means that the person is going to do more for them.”

CEOs are not good listeners because they don’t want to change, and change is hard, he says.

4. Recognise your biases

Counteracting biases is hugely important when it comes to decision-making, particularly if CEOs need to make quick decisions, says Meredith Hellicar, Australian and New Zealand chairman of executive mentoring company Merryck.

CEOs can make incorrect assumptions in a range of areas, including the key drivers of success in a company, how a company operates and how tasks are performed.

Hislop concurs.

“If you’d speak to some of the really highly commercial CEOs of big companies, they’ve got opinions on HR, they’ve got opinions on marketing,” Hislop says. “And they’re all ill-informed opinions because they’ve never really paid attention to what these teams do. They’ve never challenged their thinking on these things.

“They have to attack their biases. Coming up as a subject-matter expert in a particular area, [executives] are used to getting information and opinion from sources that are familiar to them. When you become a CEO, there are a number of new sources you’re not familiar with and they have to learn to try those sources out. But under the pressure, they go back to their old sources, and their old biases.”

Hellicar says one technique to counteract biases is to appoint someone to be the “black hat” when decisions are being made. The role of that individual is to look at what could go wrong if a particular project were approved.

“That’s a great way of [revealing]: ‘Where might I have been relying on unquestioned assumptions or beliefs?’” Hellicar says.

5. Be self-aware – and remove the pressure on yourself

CEOs who are egocentric and derive too much of their identity from their job are more likely to find the job difficult.

CEOs who have failed to keep their ego in check are likely to think that they are solely responsible for a company’s success – and failure. That is a huge amount of pressure for someone to put on themselves.

Egocentric CEOs are more likely to believe that the bigger the company they lead, the more important they are and so the greater the requirement for them to be a strong leader – and the more pressure they place on themselves.

“They think they’re managing these very large organisations, whereas in fact they’re managing seven people,” Langton says. “They are ambassadors and role models for thousands of people.”

6. Under-promise and over-deliver

Hellicar recommends under-promising and over-delivering – and doing it consistently,

“It’s very tempting to come in, take out a huge amount of costs, put out a fabulous set of results, get written up in the media as a huge success for shooting the lights out,” Hellicar says.

“Much better to do a good, steady ‘underpromise, overdeliver’ consistently year after year. Be realistic, take the time to set expectations. Have the short-term pain of having your forecasts not looking as exciting as investors might like, but beating them.”

And forget the five-year strategy

Langton says: “We are encouraging CEOs to stop the indulgence of saying: ‘Here’s our five-year plan.’ How on earth do you know?” Rather, he says, CEOs should have a five-year ambition, for which the rationale is properly spelled out.

Long-term plans or strategies, he says, rarely come to fruition. It’s better, says Langton, to tell stakeholders the direction in which the company is going, recognising that plans will need to be adapted as circumstances change.

7. Use your top team

Johnston says many CEOs fail to derive enough value from the executive team as a whole. One challenge is actually figuring out the role of the executive team. Another is to get the members of that team to think jointly and to make them understand that their main loyalty lies with the top team, rather than their business unit.

“Where I’ve seen CEOs become really effective, is when they are able to galvanise that top team into a shared belief that that is their No. 1 team,” Johnston says. “I think that creates the greatest opportunity [to get] consistent views and an aligned culture. When people feel the functional team that they lead is their premier team, often they struggle for a reason to be [at the top team].”

Another key benefit is that when there are trade-offs to be made between the best decision for the company as a whole and the decision that would benefit the executive’s own business unit, he or she will agree to the former.

8. Communicate

While undertaking an Eisenhower Fellowship in change management in large organisations, Hellicar interviewed an array of big company CEOs.

Asked what they would do differently if they had their time over again, all the bosses said to Hellicar they would move faster and communicate often.

A typical response from the CEOs was: “I didn’t realise that I needed to communicate repeatedly, incessantly, over and over until I was sick to death of hearing my own voice. I didn’t realise how long it takes to for people to really hear what you’re saying.”

9. Own the complexity

Hellicar says CEOs also need to understand that they live in a complex world without perfect information, but they can’t let themselves be held back by that.

“Realise that you can’t wait for perfect information, that sometimes a wrong decision is better than no decision. Those who wait for more perfect information might ultimately make a really good decision, but there is no point making a great decision if the opportunity to disrupt or adapt or leave the market has gone.”

 

If you’ve been thinking about quitting your job, you’re not alone. Surveys show that anywhere from a quarter to more than half of employees are planning to look for a new job post-pandemic. Some of that is normal churn — professionals simply looking for new career challenges — that is unusually clustered because of employees’ reluctance to leave a “safe” position during last year’s uncertainty. But others are searching for different reasons, such as concerns about their company’s post-pandemic policies, or changes in workplace dynamics over the past year of remote work (and the transition back to in-person or hybrid arrangements).

If you’re uncertain that leaving your company is the right move, or if you’d stay provided certain of your concerns could be addressed, it’s worth speaking with your manager before giving notice.

The return to the office post-pandemic is a liminal period in which norms are in flux and routines are being re-established. Coupled with companies’ keen awareness that many employees are eyeing other opportunities, if you have a strong reputation within your organization, this may give you unique leverage in negotiating for the arrangements that work best for you. Here are four things to discuss with your manager before you decide to leave.

The logistics of work

This past year, knowledge workers dove headlong into remote work, and they generally liked it. One study revealed that a stunning 87% of professionals who worked remotely during the pandemic would like to continue the practice at least one day per week — and if their companies don’t let them, 42% are willing to leave their jobs. Many employees may also be reluctant to return to the intensive travel schedules that were sometimes required pre-pandemic (one colleague I know hastened her plan to resign when her consulting firm announced its intention, after a year of remote work, to send its employees back “on the road” 3-5 days per week).

But even if your company has announced a “universal” new policy governing how and where employees are required to work, don’t necessarily accept it as definitive. If you’re planning to leave otherwise, it’s worth it to ask if exceptions can be made. The answer may be no, but especially if you’re in a critical position (a salesperson who brings in substantial revenue), in a field experiencing shortages (such as a data analyst), or have built up substantial political capital within your company, they may well decide it’s worth it to accommodate your preferences.

Your projects and skill development

Many professionals start looking for new opportunities because they feel like their work has become routine, or that they’ve stagnated. (This may be particularly acute post-pandemic, given that for a year we eschewed new experiences and barely left our houses.) Excellent managers scan the horizon for new development opportunities for their employees, and think proactively about how to help them develop new skills. But even the best managers have, in many cases, spent the past year focused on how to keep their heads above water during straitened circumstances: Their ability to be “cognitively magnanimous” and focus on your needs has likely been diminished. That’s why it’s important, before you bow out, to speak up for what you want. It’s certainly easier for leaders adjusting to the post-pandemic landscape to keep you in the same job, doing the same thing; they may not be eager for any changes. But odds are, they’re even less eager for you to leave the company entirely, so if you request (for instance) that the company fund your participation in a particular executive development program, or allow you to chair an initiative investigating a new business opportunity, they may well be amenable.

The colleagues you work with

One of the most typical reasons employees leave their jobs — pandemic or no — is dissatisfaction with interpersonal relationships at work. If there’s a team member (or boss) who’s been making your life miserable, a year of limited contact through video screens may have felt like a blessing. With the return of in-person work, and a greater likelihood of conflict, it may seem like an auspicious time to leave. But before you make the unilateral decision to quit, it’s worth asking whether you might be reassigned to a new project or team (perhaps you might even suggest one, if you see a need or an opportunity emerging). According to the journalist Brad Stone, Amazon has adopted the policy of allowing employees, even newly hired ones, to change jobs within the company at any time, “so that they could always escape a bad manager.” Other companies may begin to feel competitive pressure to adopt similar policies.

The money

Money isn’t a panacea. If you’re experiencing a particular pain point that’s making you want to leave your job — such as working with an abusive colleague — you have to address that directly. After all, a pay increase doesn’t matter much if you’re miserable every day. (And studies show many professionals would even be willing to sacrifice income for more flexibility in other areas, such as remote work.)

But sometimes, money is the issue. If you feel you’re being underpaid, or you’ve gained new skills or experiences that make you especially marketable, or if there’s a particular life goal that feels pressing (such as earning enough to buy a home), a raise may obviate the need to leave your job. As is always the case, it’s important to pose your ask thoughtfully, making a reasoned argument about the value you add to the company and why a salary increase is merited.

Generally, it’s advisable to avoid ultimatums, which can come across as bullying or manipulative. But if you truly are planning to leave otherwise, it’s helpful to be transparent with your employer. “I’d love to stay with the company,” you could say, “but I’ve decided it’s the right time to buy a house, and in order to make the numbers work, I know I need to earn an additional X per year. I don’t know if that’s possible here, but I at least wanted to check in because I really hope we might be able to make it happen.”

Sometimes moving on from a job is clearly the right decision. But if you’re generally happy except for a particular issue, it’s worth reaching out to your manager before taking action to leave. We’re in the midst of a post-pandemic realignment, and employers — hungry to retain talent — are far more likely than usual to make exceptions and partner with you to think creatively about options. By raising these questions strategically, you’re giving yourself the best chance possible to make your current job work for you, without the stress and hassle of having to leave if you don’t really want to.

 

Occam’s Razor is a principle that states with all things being equal, the correct answer to most problems is the simplest and most direct one. Funnily enough, in life and business, people choose the opposite as they underestimate the power of simplicity.

I remember being asked in high school by my English teacher if we could sum up the 10 Commandments with a single statement. The people who answered first gave some complicated answers which didn’t satisfy him so he kept looking. When he finally picked on me, I said, “Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself.” Turned out I was right.

Applying the same logic to leadership, what would be the one sentence that captures the essence of leadership? I’ll give you a few seconds to think about it. Got an answer? I’ll give you a hint. It’s something we have heard numerous times over our lifetimes.

The answer: Lead by example. That’s it.

If the leader shows up on time, employees will show up on time. The opposite it also true. The leader is the one who sets the tone of the organization. In any organization, all eyes are on the leader. People follow leaders. Just as they will follow a leader's positive examples, they will also follow the negative actions and attitude of a leader.

Let’s take a look at seven mistakes you may be making as a leader that are hurting your organization.

1. Complaining

No one likes negativity, especially when it comes from leadership. Employees look to leaders for inspiration, guidance, advice and hope. Dale Carnegie sums it up best in his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do," Carnegie writes. "But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving."

2. Failing to learn the art of criticism

Mistakes happen, from the mailroom all the way up to the boardroom. It comes with the territory. How we deal with them determines our maturity as a leader. Destructive criticism will only demoralize your team even if it’s done behind closed doors. Instead, leaders must learn the fine art of giving constructive criticism. Acknowledge their strengths and how employees can improve.

Praise and recognition are things everyone craves. Successful leaders tap into that desire by offering feedback that is not only helpful, but transformative too.

3. Failure to listen

Henry Ford knew that listening is one of the most valuable skills a leader possesses. On his board, he had numerous people that disagreed with him. He didn’t want a bunch of Yes Men, but rather people that would challenge his thinking.

Listening is a skill that is often overlooked by many. Those leaders that fail to listen, won’t be leaders for long.

4. Lack of vision

Business is ripe with stories of companies that failed to see the changing winds. Blockbuster refused to let go of their cash cow and fell prey to Netflix. Yahoo underestimated the power of Google’s search engine. Kodak created the digital camera, but stuck with film and paid the price. Innovation is always just around the corner.

Leaders must keep their ears to the ground and take swift action when they hear the rumbles in the distance.

5. Indecisiveness

As a leader, one must develop the ability to make decisions quickly. Indecisiveness is a productivity killer for teams who often have so much on their plate that one delay in their pipeline can cause all sorts of logjams. Decisiveness tells their employees there is a plan in place and we know what to do. Even if it turns out to be the wrong course of action, through taking action in the wrong way, you will learn how to correct course quickly. Without action though, people become paralyzed, unsure of how to proceed.

6. Failure to study

Great leaders understand the power of books. In the words of Walt Disney, “There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.” They start their day by filling their minds with knowledge. They read articles and books both in and outside of their field. They know the golden rule of learning “garbage in garbage out.” They feed their mind with ideas and inspiration. They get into the right mindset, before they even leave for work.

7. Dodging accountability

This is an absolute killer. As a leader, the buck stops with you. If you’re not willing to accept responsibility for the mistakes made in your organization, you set a dangerous standard.

After you’ve made it to the top, you need to make sure you don’t let bad habits set in. Despite the simplicity of the aforementioned mistakes, mastering them takes a lifetime.

As U.S. states and the federal government start to roll back Covid-19 restrictions, and companies and workers start to firm up their office return plans, one point is becoming clear: The future of working from home (WFH) is hybrid. In research with my colleagues Jose Maria Barrero and Steven J. Davis, as well as discussions with hundreds of managers across different industries, I’m finding that about 70% of firms, from tiny companies to massive multinationals like Google, Citi, and HSBC, plan to move to some form of hybrid working.

But another question is controversial: How much choice should workers have in the matter?

On the one hand, many managers are passionate that their employees should determine their own schedule. We’ve been surveying more than 30,000 Americans monthly since May 2020 and our research data shows that post-pandemic, 32% of employees say they never want to return to working in the office. These are often employees with young kids, who live in the suburbs, for whom the commute is painful and home can be rather pleasant. At the other extreme, 21% tell us they never want to spend another day working from home. These are often young single employees or empty nesters in city center apartments.

Given such radically different views it seems natural to let them choose. One manager told me “I treat my team like adults. They get to decide when and where they work, as long as they get their jobs done.”

But others raise two concerns — concerns, which after talking to hundreds of organizations over the last year, have led me to change my advice from supporting to being against employees’ choosing their own WFH days.

One concern is managing a hybrid team, where some people are at home and others are at the office. I hear endless anxiety about this generating an office in-group and a home out-group. For example, employees at home can see glances or whispering in the office conference room but can’t tell exactly what is going on. Even when firms try to avoid this by requiring office employees to take video calls from their desks, home employees have told me that they can still feel excluded. They know after the meeting ends the folks in the office may chat in the corridor or go grab a coffee together.

The second concern is the risk to diversity. It turns out that who wants to work from home after the pandemic is not random. In our research we find, for example, that among college graduates with young children women want to work from home full-time almost 50% more than men.

This is worrying given the evidence that working from home while your colleagues are in the office can be highly damaging to your career. In a 2014 study I ran in China in a large multinational we randomized 250 volunteers into a group that worked remotely for four days a week and another group that remained in the office full time. We found that WFH employees had a 50% lower rate of promotion after 21 months compared to their office colleagues. This huge WFH promotion penalty chimes with comments I’ve heard over the years from managers. They often confided that home-based employees in their teams get passed over on promotions because they are out of touch with the office.

Adding this up you can see how allowing employees to choose their WFH schedules could contribute to a diversity crisis. Single young men could all choose to come into the office five days a week and rocket up the firm, while employees with young children, particularly women, who choose to WFH for several days each week are held back. This would be both a diversity loss and a legal time bomb for companies.

So I have changed my mind and started advising firms that managers should decide which days their team should WFH. For example, if the manager picks WFH on Wednesday and Friday, everyone would come in on the other days. The only exceptions should be new hires, who should come in for an extra office day each week for their first year in order to bond with other new recruits.

Of course, firms that want to efficiently use their office space will need to centrally manage which teams come in on which days. Otherwise, the building will be empty on Monday and Friday — when everyone wants to WFH — and overcrowded mid-week. To encourage coordination, companies should also make sure that teams that often work together have at least two days of overlap in the office.

The pandemic has started a revolution in how we work, and our research shows this can make firms more productive and employees happier. But like all revolutions this is difficult to navigate, and firms need leadership from the top to ensure their work force remains diverse and truly inclusive.

In part three of HRM’s long-term impacts of COVID-19 series, we explore what prolonged exposure to feelings of languishing, grief and loneliness is doing to our mental health.

Warning: this article discusses mental illness and may be distressing for some readers. If you or someone you know needs help, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. 

There was a strange moment mid-last year when I realised I was lonely. 

That was an unusual feeling for me. Even as an introvert, I have always had a lot of friends, but I moved cities and started a new job about a month before most of Australia went into lockdown. That left me isolated from old friends and restricted my ability to make new ones.

Of course, I wasn’t alone in feeling lonely. Almost 50 per cent of Australians were experienicng loneliness at the time. And that wasn’t the only feeling we were grappling with. As we mourned the loss of our connections, grief became an overwhelming part of our lives.

For many people, the rapid disruption of COVID-19 initially created a flurry of productivity. However, as the pandemic dragged on, that productivity spike quickly dropped off and it became apparent many weren’t coping as well as we thought. Reports of employee burnout skyrocketed and experts’ warned a mental health crisis was on the horizon.

There were also plenty of people caught in limbo between feelings – not depressed, but not all that happy either, just existing. This is what experts call languishing.

If you feel like you’re just going through the motions day in, day out, you’re probably languishing.

HRM asked an expert about some of the long-term impacts that COVID-19 could have on our mental health.

Less flourishing, more languishing 

Organisational psychologist and host of the WorkLife podcast Adam Grant calls languishing “the neglected middle child of mental health”.

“It’s the void between depression and flourishing – the absence of wellbeing. You don’t have symptoms of mental illness, but you’re not the picture of mental health either,” Grant wrote in a now viral New York Times op-ed. 

Originally coined by American sociologist and psychologist Corey Keyes, languishing is the opposite to flourishing. It can be experienced as a sense of apathy, restlessness or a general disengagement from life.

There isn’t much data on the number of people languishing, but according to a 2020 report from the Wellbeing Lab and AHRI over 40 per cent of respondents said they were ‘not feeling bad, just getting by’ – which sounds remarkably similar to languishing.

Unlike depressive episodes, you can still function while languishing. You can still smile and laugh, but that doesn’t mean you are doing well.

“Part of the danger is that when you’re languishing, you might not notice the dulling of delight or the dwindling of drive. You don’t catch yourself slipping slowly into solitude; you’re indifferent to your indifference,” Grant writes.

Languishing employees are more likely to cut back on work, have lower motivation levels and poorer functioning. 

A slow recovery

For people who already experience depression, languishing might be familiar to them. In many cases, it can be a precursor to more serious mental health illnesses. 

“Through the pandemic, people who were already mentally unwell were like ‘Welcome to my world, this is where I live’’’, says Dr Michelle Lim, senior lecturer of clinical psychology at Swinburne University and chairperson of Ending Loneliness Together.

According to Lim, people who were struggling with their mental health before the pandemic have not only continued to deteriorate but will recover at a slower rate.  Employers have a responsibility to prevent mental health problems, she says.

“We tend to wait to deal with mental health issues. We wait until there’s a suicide or someone has to take months off work because of their mental health. We don’t take enough of a preventive approach.”

Workplaces that do take the time to focus on wellbeing see increases in employee satisfaction, engagement and productivity. It also decreases workplace injuries and improves retention.

What workplaces can do

In Grant’s NYT article, he proposes ‘flow’ as the antidote to languishing. According to Grant, flow (also called deep work) is the complete immersion in a task. When you’re in the flow you forget who you are and become completely entranced by what you’re doing.

The problem with finding flow is that it requires a solid chunk of time without disruption, which is not always easy when our days are crammed with meetings and our inboxes full of emails that need an immediate response.

There are a couple of ways workplaces can combat this. One option is to implement meeting free days. An organisation in India saw a nearly 20 per cent jump in productivity when it banned meetings before noon three days a week. 

The other approach is to empower employees to block out sections of their calendar for deep working. For this to work, however, all employees need to respect these boundaries. Some messaging or email platforms offer the ability for employees to change their status; this can be a handy way for an employee to broadcast when they’re uninterruptible. 

Lim suggests workplaces take the time to rebuild connections between employees. However, to do this, people need to head back to the workplace for at least part of their working week.

“Humans need incidental interactions, and the workplace is where many of those happen,” she says.

“‘Water cooler chats’ can actually pave the way for good relationships and employees who have better relationships with their colleagues are better workers.”

Lim also thinks workplaces could design spaces that facilitate better connections between employees.

“We need to be smarter and build spaces that mean people can come together to have the opportunity to interact,” says Lim.

“The human factor is going to be up to the employees themselves, but employers can take control of the environmental factors and that’s really important.”

A hidden epidemic

Workplaces have a responsibility to prevent mental illness. if they don’t Australia might find itself drowning in a mental health tsunami. 

As Grant points out, “The people most likely to experience major depression and anxiety disorders in the next decade aren’t the ones with those symptoms today. They’re the people who are languishing right now.”

Last year was rough for Australia. Between the bushfires and the pandemic, it’s no wonder we’re struggling. But our reasons to be concerned should go back further than 12 months.

A study published last year in the The European Journal of Health Economics found a positive link between higher numbers of affective disorders (such as depression) and those impacted by the global financial crisis. 

An obvious reason for this is the direct link between unemployment and mental health, but the authors also suggest those who are employed suffer due to higher levels of job insecurity.

HRM has previously explored how job insecurity can change our personality. Long-term job insecurity can decrease agreeableness and conscientiousness, and increase neuroticism. Those who are highly neurotic are also more likely to develop both anxiety and depression. It’s also linked to higher likelihood of substance abuse.

Workplaces can ease employees’ minds over job insecurity by creating stability and consistency. The easiest way to do that is to move away from casual roles and offer permanent positions where you can. 

Lim also suggests helping employees to find meaning in their work.

“We know from psychological studies that if you feel like you have a meaning and purpose, you will thrive and flourish as opposed to just functioning.”

There are always going to be employees who aren’t looking for meaning in their work; for them work is a means to an end. Lim says it’s okay to acknowledge that, but it doesn’t mean they don’t need attention.

“We have a responsibility to help people move along in their trajectory. And that’s actually part of the fun. It’s nice meeting people who come in and out of your work life or your personal life and see them make that transition [to another stage in life],” she says

“Think beyond employees as a single faceted entity. They are very multifaceted. If we do that I think we have a chance of making a difference.”

We can rattle off Elon Musk’s accomplishments in our sleep: co-founder of monetary giant PayPal; founder of Tesla, the electric car company that is literally changing the world; and founder of SpaceX, the company that is trying to take us out of this world and colonize another. We can also absentmindedly rattle off a stream of adjectives that describe him: innovator, leader, genius, visionary, futurist, entrepreneur.

But can we describe why Musk is the way he is? And can we not only quantify those things that make Musk so successful, but also begin to embody them in our own lives? This might be a little bit more difficult to do, but I think it's possible.

I’ve spent much of my professional life working with incredibly high performers, and although they all impress me to no end with their talents, habits and work ethic, they don’t quite reach Musk’s level. For some time now, I’ve been assessing Musk and have outlined five different reasons that explain why he's so successful. I’ll talk about them here.

"No" means nothing

There’s an anecdote Musk’s first wife tells of him back in college. He received a 98% on one of his tests. Being a perfectionist, he went to his professor and got them to change his score to a 100%. Now many of you will read this and think: Why? What’s the point of doing that? I would have been happy with a 98%. I feel the exact same way. But this small, simple detail is a defining one. 

You see, the 2% that separated Musk from his current score and perfection sounded to him like a giant “no.” But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Even if it was for 2%. That 100% meant enough to him that he put himself in a possibly awkward situation, speaking with his professor, and had the hard conversation that many people shy away from. In the end, he got his way. Why? Because “no” meant nothing. 

If we can overcome the initial fear of being told “no” and understand that no truly means nothing, we’ll be better for it. How many opportunities are lost because of our fear of asking? 

A singular, unblinking focus

Musk has perfected the art of remaining focused. In fact, there was a time during Tesla's infancy where a specific problem needed solving, so Musk would sleep under his desk and work 75-hour weeks until that problem was solved. 

He didn’t think about anything else. He wasn’t distracted by other, tedious tasks. All he focused on was the task at hand. Now look at Tesla: it’s a booming giant that’s changing the automotive world. It certainly wouldn’t be that way without Musk’s unblinking focus at the forefront. 

This focus has allowed Musk to perfect the art of getting into a “flow state,” "the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement and enjoyment in the process of the activity.” This flow state is only achieved when the person can perform undistracted by other, less-significant tasks.

Think of your own work life and the way you go about your day-to-day tasks. How often are you distracted? How often does something small in scale pull your attention away, making you less productive and less effective? How can you schedule your day so you can complete one task, then move to the next, effectively, excitedly and purposefully?

Work ethic that feeds on passion

Another factor that helps Musk get into and remain in the flow state has to do with the quality of work he’s doing. Musk is a perfect case study for someone whose work ethic is fueled by his passion. He loves what he’s doing, because he does what he loves.

His passion for his work is so intense that it fuels late-night shifts, motivates 80-hour work weeks and, like we talked about in the last section, sleeping under his desk. 

The truth is, if we are passionate — or find passion — in the work we’re doing, work stops feeling like work. It turns into a mission or game, and we find ourselves enjoying what we’re doing. Eighty-hour work weeks don’t feel like work weeks, because our passion is fueling us.

When we started Backstartup , I never imagined that I would end up managing the ship. The 4 founding partners: Adriana, Diego, Cristian and I, we defined our roles in the beginning and Diego assumed the role of CEO. In 2017, after several CTO changes, he decided to focus on leading the technology area and retiring as CEO. At that point I was surprised by the fact that most of my partners (Backstartup co-founders and investors) promoted my appointment as their replacement, as, in their opinion, I had the necessary skills to take our operation to the next level.

My first reaction, naturally, was to doubt my abilities: not only because I didn't think I was the right person, but because I didn't quite understand what it meant to be the CEO of a startup.

All the people I shared my self-doubt with diagnosed me the same thing: Imposter Syndrome . This false syndrome first came to light in 1978 when two clinical psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, published the study " The Imposter Phenomenon in High- Achieving Women." According to the study, there is a high percentage of high achieving women who consider that their success is about luck and has nothing to do with their talent or qualifications.

The study, which was reviewed by Clance in 1993 , reinforced the concept that the impostor phenomenon is "the psychological experience of believing that one's achievements did not come about through genuine ability, but as a result of being lucky, having worked harder than others, or have manipulated other people's impressions [...]. " and that it affects men and women equally.

Based on what I have told you, it seemed easy to explain my self-doubt. My reluctance to assume the role of CEO had to be based on the fact that I was not convinced that I had the necessary qualities or characteristics to be one and therefore, I was suffering from imposter syndrome. If it is something that according to the study The Impostor Phenomenon , by Jaruwan Sakulku, affects 70% of people at some point in their lives , why couldn't it happen to me?

To overcome my imposter syndrome, or at least learn to live with it, I wanted to do my own study, interviewing different CEOs of startups and traditional businesses. The first thing that surprised me was that, despite having gone through an acceleration program like 500 Startups and having a fairly wide network of peers, when I went out to ask them what skills I should have and what was expected of me in my new role, I realized that all the CEOs I knew, with the exception of one person, were men. And they were not few.

There is so much gender disparity that today, according to the most recent WhitePaper from Endeavor and MasterCard, only 23% of startups in Latin America have a woman on their founding team.

This, in my opinion, generates a very important bias for women who lead technology companies: As there are not enough references of female leadership and above all, of success, we believe that to be a successful leader you need to be a man or, that we must adopt very masculine leadership styles.

Over time I realized that talking about the impostor syndrome is to simplify to the extreme a much more fundamental problem that starts from ignorance. Nobody prepares us to be the CEO. In fact, in the words of Ben Horowitz, general partner of one of the most renowned investment funds in the world, “Andriessen Horowitz”, being “CEO is a very unnatural job”.

My "impostor syndrome" did not arise from self-doubt, indeed: I dare say it was not even the impostor syndrome. My problem was one of lack of information and fear of the unknown: not understanding what it means to be the CEO of a startup (something I will write about in future columns); from not knowing what skills are needed to lead a business and from my complete ignorance of how capital was raised. But above all, due to the lack of role models in the world of entrepreneurship who are women.

So I think we should stop telling people who suffer from imposter syndrome. In doing so, we give a superficial explanation to something that can be a fundamental problem: The impostor syndrome can be lack of clear instructions, lack of mentoring, fear of something we do not know and recognize our capabilities. Understanding the real cause of what generates insecurities gives us tools to face them face to face and also helps us to be better leaders for our teams.

Today I know many more entrepreneurial women who are willing to share their experience, their learnings and also, know what worked for them and what did not or where they failed. This led me to create, together with Adriana, my partner, an initiative that we call Fearless: Women Entrepreneurship, a space to hear and learn from the experience of other women. These are conversations with female entrepreneurs who have already traveled part of the way and how they overcame their own fears and challenges when undertaking. This project, which we are publishing every Wednesday and every time, has taught me to overcome many of the beliefs that fed my so-called imposter syndrome. Some of them, I describe below:

• Belief 1: “To raise capital you need to be aggressive. If you don't take the deal now, you lose the opportunity of your life ”: Actually, to raise capital you need traction. You don't need to be aggressive, although it is one of many strategies that work. You need to be authentic and demonstrate a genuine passion for solving a problem.
• Belief 2: "Only aggressive and strict leaders create successful teams.": Each person has their own leadership style. Whenever I tried to be someone I'm not, I backfired. And aggressive leadership can easily translate into leadership of terror and that your collaborators follow you out of fear and that same fear leads them not to point out mistakes that you may be committing as CEO.
• Belief 3: "To have a successful venture you need to be a man": You need many things that do not depend on gender: Solve a problem, listen to customers, create a great product. You always need to be willing to keep learning, have a great team, surround yourself with people who share your passion and who know more than you. There are great examples of successful female entrepreneurs, starting with Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of Bumble.
• Belief 4: "To be a CEO, you need to know everything." I do not believe that everything, but you have to understand very well how your company works and learn to prioritize. You shouldn't be a finance specialist, but you should know how money is spent or invested; You should not be an expert in technology or software development, but you should know how the product or service you offer works. In short, you must be able to put together a team where each member knows their work area very well and that you can speak in the same (work) language with that person.

A senior executive at the country’s largest business bank has called for governments to build more quarantine facilities and relax border closures to enable skilled migration to restart in order to provide a lifeline to businesses under pressure.

The National Australia Bank’s head of business banking Andrew Irvine said overall businesses are managing to “motor forward” following the pandemic lockdowns, with the lender seeing record demand for credit and new business accounts.

Mr Irvine said the “financial cliff” predicted once JobKeeper and bank loan deferral periods ended had not occurred, adding there had been strong growth across the economy particularly in health, manufacturing and construction. He said a big problem for businesses was finding employees to fill vacant roles. “I’m doing a little bit of work on my house having just bought in Melbourne and it is not easy finding tradespeople,” Mr Irvine said.

NAB’s total loan book is worth about $109.9 billion, with $2 billion of loans deferred during the pandemic now being managed by the bank’s “financial difficulty” team. Mr Irvine said NAB had not yet had to close down any businesses due to loan defaults and he predicted this would be minimal.

However, he said some sectors of the economy were still struggling and these could receive a major boost to profits if the hard closure of Australia’s international borders was relaxed for certain types of immigration.

“I would like to see all levels of government working well together to safely get long-term migration going,” he said. “So we can bring them here and get them to work.”

He called for additional quarantine sites to be built, whether in Australia or abroad, to enable people who intended to remain in Australia for extended periods of time to enter the country.

“I’m not talking about your two-week holiday. What I am talking about is enabling skilled migration and international students to come back safely to Australia. We’re more optimistic that can happen in the medium-term than we would be around tourism,” Mr Irvine said.

The Victorian government last month called on Canberra to fund a $200 million quarantine site in the outer northern suburbs of Melbourne. Mr Irvine would not be drawn into the debate over who should fund the site but reiterated the need for more quarantine facilities. Australia has one quarantine facility in the Northern Territory which can house about 2000 people a fortnight.

Mr Irvine, who joined NAB last September coming from the Bank of Montreal, said allowing international students to return would have flow-on effects throughout the local economy, including city-based retail, hospitality and real estate businesses.

But he also said easing border closures would help regional communities after many farmers endured a critical labour shortage last year which had devastating impacts on their harvest. “Certainly access to migration on farms, that also would be really, really significant for our customers.”