How to Make Work Better
Sense of Purpose
Help create an environment where people like what they do.
People like their jobs more when they find meaning in them — a clear sense of the organization’s mission and how their individual work contributes to it. Yet less than a third of people say they feel engaged at work. One reason is that finding purpose and meaning is complex: You can’t just put it on a to-do list. But there are concrete things workers can do.
Meet the People Whose Lives You Affect
Even though everyone’s work ultimately helps other people, we don’t always see it. But making that human connection improves productivity and happiness, found Adam Grant, a professor of management and psychology at The Wharton School. He did an experiment in which he brought scholarship students to a university fund-raising office for a short visit. Immediately, the number of fund-raising calls and the amount of money they raised spiked. Similar effects have happened when customer service agents meet a customer, or radiologists see a photo of a patient.
Do What You Love
Most of us assume we’re stuck doing our jobs the way we always have. But there’s a way to redesign our jobs so they make us happier. A Yale professor named Amy Wrzesniewski, together with her colleagues, came up with an idea called job crafting, inspired by what freelancers and entrepreneurs do.
Put simply, job crafting means breaking down your job into individual tasks, and then asking which you want to do less of and more of. It can be taking on new projects or dropping certain responsibilities, working with new people or even just shifting your perspective about what you do.
For example, a hospital janitor could begin talking to patients whose room he visits and offering to bring them water or a blanket, and think of himself as a helper of the sick. An overstretched office worker could turn some of her tasks into group projects, so she could get both help and companionship. An internet service salesman might think of his job not as sales but as connecting the world.
You might think your boss would never let you change your job, but often it’s because people don’t ask. Good managers are likely to respond warmly if you want to, say, do more public speaking, start a new project or work with a new group of people. That’s also why Mr. Grant suggests entry interviews — when managers ask employees about their interests, values and career goals before they start their jobs.
Make Time for Life Outside Work
It's easier to enjoy your time at work if you can step away from it when you need to.
It might seem counterintuitive, in a guide to improving workplace culture, to focus outside the workplace, but one of the most important ways to make work fulfilling is to ensure that it doesn’t come at the expense of the rest of employees’ lives. Workers say flexibility is their No. 1 desire, and research shows it makes happier, more productive employees. Yet work has become less flexible and more time-consuming than ever.
Mandatory Disconnecting
Requiring people to take time off, including no calls or emails, increased employee satisfaction and performance, researchers at Harvard found. But they also discovered an unexpected benefit — when workers couldn’t contact colleagues on their days off, they realized they didn’t need to be in touch around the clock even when people weren’t on vacation. “It’s not just about a night off,” said Leslie Perlow, a professor at Harvard Business School, “but a night off is a catalyst, if we do it collectively, to rethink the ways we work.”
Time for Caregiving
Today, most parents work outside the home — and they report feeling stressed, exhausted and in need of flexibility. Others are caring for their own parents or other family. The United States is the only industrialized country not to offer paid family leave, so it’s up to employers to do so. But even when they do, caregiving doesn’t stop after parents go back to work. Other helpful things are paid sick time, part-time schedules for new parents, closing workplaces when schools are closed and limited bonding activities for employees that happen in the evenings or on weekends.
It's Not Just for Parents
People want time to go to the doctor or exercise or run errands or work on a side project or travel — and they’ll be happier at work if they get it. There are creative ways to offer it, like giving people an hour off each week to do whatever they want; letting people come in late or leave early and make up the time another day, no questions asked; or letting people work from home on a regular basis.
Rethink Meetings
A good way to find more time in the workday: fewer meetings. People in big organizations say they spend 75 percent of their time preparing for and attending meetings — and many feel they’re a waste of time and chop up the workday, leaving little time for productivity. It’s important to keep meetings small, have an agenda and end them 10 minutes early, so people have time to use the bathroom or walk to their next meeting. But to really change the culture, people need to question whether they need each meeting in the first place, Ms. Perlow said, which often only happens with a drastic change. One company she’s working with eliminated all its meetings and is adding them back one by one — only if they’re necessary.
Find a Rabbi
Find a person who will advocate for you, and become an advocate for someone else.
When I started at The Times, one piece of career advice I got was to find a rabbi. Since then, I’ve learned that researchers call this sponsorship — when senior people know you and your work well enough that they’re willing to give you opportunities and advocate for you.
How to Find a Rabbi
Start by getting to know senior people — ask them to coffee, seek advice, join their committees. But to take it to the next level, you have to earn it. You do this by helping them and showing your unique value — whether it’s your ability to write the clearest memos in an office, or to name the missing seasoning in a kitchen.
“Turn them into a sponsor by impressing the heck out of them on performance, loyalty and value add,” said Sylvia Ann Hewlett of the Center for Talent Innovation. In exchange, you get a senior person “advocating for you in rooms where you’re not present.”
How to Be a Rabbi
Take the time to get to know more junior people. Be a human: Share a bit about your life outside work, and ask them about theirs. Invite them to join your projects so you can see their work. Back them up when they take risks and fail. And make sure they’re not all your mini-mes. At one company, Ms. Hewlett said, there’s a rule that each senior person should have three protégées — and two can’t look like them.
Don't Eat Alone
People are more satisfied and productive when they work with friends — but fewer people say they have work friends these days. One way to make them is to eat lunch together: A study of firefighters found that when they ate together, their performance improved.
Work friendships can also be useful for your career — people can turn to friends when they need someone to advocate for them with a boss, for instance, or when they need financing for a new project. But research shows that men are more likely than women to tap friendships that way, Ms. Hewlett said. She suggested an approach she saw at one company: Women made pacts to operate in pairs and talk about the other one’s achievements, which raised the profile of all the women at the firm.
How to Hire
Add diverse people to your team in a rigorous, thoughtful way.
In the 1970s, some symphony orchestra directors decided to try a new way to hire musicians: blind hiring. Musicians played behind screens, and walked on carpeted floors so the judges couldn’t tell if they were wearing heels. Symphony musicians had been mostly white men. The new method increased the chances that women were hired — and also encouraged more women to apply, because they were confident they would be treated fairly.
Hiring is one of the most important parts of work, but it can also be the least rigorous. Managers often ask questions that don’t actually test what people will do on the job and people are attracted to people who are most similar to them — often unconsciously.
Avoid Your Biases
The orchestra directors were not alone: When people scan resumes, they automatically prefer people who went to the same college or have a similar hobby, according to research by Lauren Rivera, who studies hiring at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. But those things have nothing to do with whether the applicant is a fit for the company’s style of work or business strategy.
New services mask identifying information on resumes and even allow recruiters to administer job-related tests without knowing people’s identities — so they aren’t swayed by biases before applicants have the chance to prove themselves. Another strategy: Follow the N.F.L.’s Rooney rule, which requires that the group of candidates interviewed for coaching jobs always includes minorities.
Interviews are most effective, researchers say, when each candidate gets asked the same questions and interviewers systematically compare answers. They should also include tasks that simulate on-the-job work, whether it’s writing code or teaching a lesson. And people of a variety of backgrounds should be on interview panels — not just white men.
Watch Your Language
“Manage,” “exceptional,” “proven”: When job postings include these words, more men apply, according to Textio, which helps companies write effective job listings. Words like “sympathetic,” “fosters” and “empathy” attract more women.
Instead, Textio suggests words that both men and women respond to in equal number, like “extraordinary,” “visionary” or “premier.” Postings with gender-neutral language fill 14 days faster, Textio said, and bring in more diverse candidates.
Benefits like family leave, an on-site gym and performance-based incentives filled jobs fastest, Textio found. Offering vacation or sabbaticals (as opposed to leave) slowed down hiring, and benefits like on-site massage or pet leave had no effect.
Treat People Equally
Workplace discrimination can range from blatant to subtle. Here's how to address these issues.
Hiring equitably is the first step. Next is treating colleagues respectfully. Discrimination happens in ways overt and subtle, like people interrupting in meetings, taking credit for ideas that weren’t theirs, or handing out promotions and raises to people most similar to them. Not only is it hurtful, but it harm’s people’s careers and stifles the flow of good ideas: Groups that penalize such behavior end up having more creative expression, found research by Jennifer Chatman at the Haas School of Business.
Practice What You Learned in Preschool
Basic kindness goes a long way toward building respectful workplace cultures. Here are some of the behaviors Fran Sepler, who does workplace trainings and investigations, teaches:
Greet people.
Don’t interrupt.
Credit the people who come up with good ideas, not the people who most loudly take credit for them.
Don’t multitask during a conversation.
Don’t write in email anything you wouldn’t say in person.
Equal Pay for Equal Work
Women earn 79 cents for every dollar men earn, according to the Census Bureau. But certain things would go a long way toward closing the pay gap:
Make everyone’s salaries public.
Know that men are much more likely to negotiate salary than women, so either make salary negotiation a part of every job offer or ban it altogether.
Don’t ask workers for their previous salaries, which perpetuates pay gaps from earlier in people’s careers.
Require less face time: When possible, let employees choose where and when work gets done. Economists have found that employers pay people disproportionately more for long hours, and the gender pay gap is smaller in jobs that don’t require as much face time at prescribed hours.
When people become parents, men get raises and women get pay cuts. Be aware of that pattern and don’t repeat it.
Learn to Listen
Meetings are cesspools of disrespectful workplace behavior. There are ways to make sure everyone gets heard:
1. Certain people tend to dominate the conversation, so stop and ask if everyone has had a chance to speak — and don’t forget those on the phone or videoconference. A start-up called Humanyze makes a badge people wear that measures their interactions with colleagues, including things like how often they interrupt or get interrupted, and how long each person spends talking.
2. Don't allow others to take credit for other people’s ideas. Redirect the conversation back to the person who originally raised it, saying something like, “She just raised that same idea. Would she like to tell us more?”
3. In a brainstorming meeting, ask people to come up with ideas alone and then discuss them together, and have the leaders share last. That way people aren’t swayed by the group conversation or by people more senior than them.
Prevent Harrassment
The most effective training researchers have found for preventing sexual and other types of harassment is bystander training — teaching everyone to speak up. If you’re a witness, you can:
Disrupt the situation, such as by making a loud noise or asking the victim to leave for coffee.
Support the victim: “I saw what happened. Are you O.K.? Would you like me to go to H.R. with you?”
Talk about it openly with colleagues: “Did you notice that?”
Only if you’re comfortable, confront the perpetrator in private: “Were you aware of how you came off in that conversation?”
It’s Everyone’s Responsibility
There are things everyone can do — from senior leaders to the rank and file — to create workplaces that make people want to work.
If You're Interviewing
Even job applicants can shape workplace culture. Ask questions about what you value — like the diversity of employees, the number of meetings or parental leave policies. Many job applicants don’t ask about these because they fear they will make a bad impression on managers. But if that’s the case, wouldn’t you rather find out before you start the job?
Also, remember that job interviews go in two directions — employers are also trying to sell themselves to you. And if they know certain things are important to applicants, they’re more likely to institute them. Research has shown, for instance, that millennials are more likely to ask about flexible schedules during interviews — and that employers are changing their policies as a result.
If You're a Freelancer or Remote Worker
Don’t be afraid to share your ideas and background. Remember that one reason companies hire freelancers is to add fresh ideas and diversity to workplaces that have grown dull and repetitive, said Stephane Kasriel, chief executive of Upwork, a freelance marketplace.
For workers who aren’t on-site, use tools like Slack and inexpensive video conferencing to erase the geographical distance. One rule at Upwork: No one is allowed to interrupt — unless they are joining a meeting by phone. That way freelancers and remote workers can get a word in.
If You're Rank and File
Take advantage of your company’s benefits. Some people don’t use things like parental leave or flex time because they’re worried they’ll get penalized in pay or promotions — and unfortunately, there’s evidence that they might be. But people will stop being penalized — and workplaces cultures will change — if everyone does it.
Other easy things to try:
Tell colleagues when they did a good job.
Listen when they talk.
Ask them to lunch.
If you see someone treating a colleague poorly, ask the colleague if they’re O.K.
If You're a Boss
Your actions speak louder than words, and people are watching them closely — even more if you’re the top boss. Here are a few suggestions of small changes you can make that will help change the tone in your office:
Set the example for a flexible, empathetic culture. Leave before dinnertime, even if you keep working at home. If you leave a meeting early for family reasons, tell everyone that’s the reason.
Embrace diversity, equality and respect for all. Choose deputies who don’t look like you and have different backgrounds than yours. Show up at diversity and sexual harassment trainings, and parties celebrating someone’s promotion — if you’re there, people will know it’s important.
Tell people their work is important (and show it, too). Make sure they know how it fits into the organization’s broader mission, no matter how junior the person is. And do the work yourself — spend a day at the cash register, on sales calls or delivering products.
Talk to your employees. Ask people what they want to do in five years, and how you can help them get there. Let people work on the stuff they’re most passionate about.