Stuart Taylor, CEO and co-founder of resilience training organisation, Springfox, teaches leaders how to build resilient workforces. An expert in resilience and workplace wellbeing, Taylor promotes the link between workplace culture and productivity, explaining how organisational resilience is integral for rebuilding staff motivation and what leaders can do to keep remote staff engaged and excited about their work.

From adversity comes resilience  

Taylor cut his teeth in a high-intensity Big Four accounting firm. As a young, motivated and hardworking professional with an enormous workload, he was on the fast track to partnership. But this lifestyle had serious consequences. 

“I was diagnosed with a grade 3 brain tumour and was given two and a half years to live,” said Taylor. “I was only 32 years old, a family man with three kids. Going from a pathway to leadership to facing a death sentence was a shock for me. I decided it was time to change my contribution in my career. I wanted to help leaders, organisations and staff better approach the way they engage in their work.” 

In completely overhauling his lifestyle, life’s mission and purpose, Taylor miraculously overcame his prognosis, co-founding Springfox – which has now been in operation for 19 years. The organisation provides critical training for organisations about leadership trust, psychological safety and agility. 

“My career is closely tied to my recovery. I teach leaders and staff how to operate better, instead of constantly living on the edge of burnout (which many people do). What could have been an extremely negative experience, transformed into a positive outcome. We’ve gone from strength to strength, working with many large organiations, including government.” 

Building resilience through trust 

In steady times, it’s easy for organisations to operate business as usual. However, tough times (such as pandemics), require leadership to rise to the challenge, affecting meaningful change, instilling trust and being there for their people when they need them most. 

“2020 was a tough year for everyone, including leaders,” said Taylor. “People had to turn on the bilge pumps to get the water out of the boat. Now, we’re seeing the effect of operating in a state of reacting and responding for so long. While we all had to do our best, and it was appropriate and necessary at the time, it was a state of neglect. Now, it’s time to facilitate a successful return to work and motivate staff about their roles and contribution. Leaders must intentionally work to rebuild trust. This doesn’t just mean speaking the truth, but operating with integrity, purpose and connection. ” 

But trust and psychological safety are at risk. Springfox’s COVID-19 People Survey revealed leaders believed a small number (16.5%) of their staff’s level of trust in others decreased. However, double the number (32%) of staff assessed their level of trust in others decreased due to COVID-19. 

What does this mean? Leaders enter the danger zone when underestimating these gaps. Lack of trust results in low respect, high conflict and loss of discretionary effort, particularly when teams work remotely. This highlights the additional work required by leaders to move forward. 

“Lack of trust is dangerous. It’s our permission to lead. Without it, we can’t. The extent to which employees feel unsafe and disconnected destroys motivation, performance and productivity. Trust and psychological safety isn’t something you establish directly. Rather, you work on it indirectly through your behaviour. Now is the time to rebuild trust if it has been lost. Trust and psychological safety are the foundation of workplace resilience, giving you the ability to establish better ways of working.” 

“Trust and psychological safety are the foundation of workplace resilience, giving you the ability to establish better ways of working.” 

Hybrid working environments

One better way of working includes hybrid working environments – where employees can work in both the office and from home. Springfox’s survey revealed a hesitation to return to work – not from fear, but from the fact we’ve proven working from home is possible. 

“As such, many organisations are realising hybrid work solutions are the answer. It’s a happy medium where people can work from home and in the office. It’s been a long time coming and last year was simply the tipping point. Now, organisations have the opportunity to operate in far more compassionate ways. There’s an elevated sense of caring for people in how, when and where they choose to work. Cost savings is just a bonus.” 

Benefits such as increased trust levels and cost savings are complemented by increased engagement and organisation’s ability to attract more diverse talent – such as people living with disabilities and working parents. 

But virtual teams will continue to challenge leaders. Taylor believes resilience, trust and psychological safety can’t exist in a 100% remote environment, as connection and social gatherings are essential components of the human experience. To lose these things is to destroy culture. 

“It’s not sustainable. As humans, we need connection. You can’t replace that with a Zoom call. They tend to be so work-focused you lose that element. Connection, trust and relationships are built through non-work interactions.”

So, how can leaders make hybrid working environments work effectively? 

Taylor recommends determining your organisation’s hybrid working style, setting clear goals, and intentionally building in social encounters. 

1. Strike the balance 

There are many ways to give team members the provision to work from the office and home that are both practical and acceptable. Determine when and how, and strike the right balance. PwC research found that 68 per cent of executives believe employees should be in the office at least three days a week to maintain company culture, but over half (55 per cent) of workers prefer to continue working remotely at least three days a week.

This will look different depending on your organisation’s needs, goals and people. For example, a law firm Taylor consults for opens their office once per week, encouraging team members to catch up with each other and schedule client meetings. On other days, it supports team members to work from home. 

2. Set clear goals

To make hybrid work solutions effective, leaders must establish clear goals. Clarity is key to preventing dysfunctional behaviour and reducing fear. It helps people avoid confusion and retain their sense of contribution.

Taylor recommends establishing a mix of KPIs, personal, team and cultural goals. Ensure your team members understand how their everyday projects, activities and goals align with others in the team and the wider organisation. Tie goals to outcomes to measure performance. 

3. Intentionally build social encounters 

Taylor’s final recommendation is intentionally creating opportunities for social encounters. With face-to-face contact comes humour, respectful touching and sharing – the foundations of meaningful human relationships. 

“Social encounters took a dip in 2020. Rebuilding these encounters forms the fabric of your workplace culture. It gives people an opportunity to reconnect and get to know each other on a deeper, rather than transactional, level.” 

Establishing hybrid working solutions, setting clear goals and intentionally building social encounters for people to deepen relationships will set leaders on the right path to a great 2021. 

Prior to 2020, leaders were driven by performance and productivity. Now, Taylor recognises priorities have shifted to facilitating flow. 

In positive psychology, a flow state (being “in the zone”) is a mental state where people are fully immersed, energised and focused in the enjoyment of an activity. This complete absorption can transform one’s subjective experience of time. 

“When people exist in a fear-based culture, there is no flow and no peak performance. We’re seeing people rebuild their organisations in flow, creating psychologically safe environments where their team members are engaged to reach their full potential. This is a powerful opportunity for us to stretch goals and engage our people. This allows us to maintain a sense of calm and composure, instead of operating in a state of constant hypervigilance.” 

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Talent Chooses You has been referred to as the “the roadmap for the next hiring revolution” and “the new bible for the employer branding practitioner and the novice alike.” 

Let’s pretend you are selling tacos. Or doughnuts. Or toothbrushes. It really doesn’t matter. These things are cheap items, maybe costing a dollar each. So you set up a stand or cart and hawk your wares. Anyone who walks up with a dollar in their pocket is a viable customer, and your job is to convince them that your item is worth the dollar to them. Perhaps it will give them more than a dollar’s feeling of satisfaction to eat that taco. Or it will crave that sweet tooth in a way they’d be willing to spend two dollars. Or that brushing will keep them from needing costly dental work down the road. Either way, your item has value, and they’d be a fool to reject it. The conversation is about value conversion.

Which is fine. This is typical commerce: I have a good or service to sell, and I will sell it to whoever can pay for it. You have a dollar. I have a taco. Let’s make some magic happen! Your goal in this space is to replicate this transaction as many times as possible. Having sold the taco, you look to sell another. You are rewarded for selling lots of tacos. Becoming the best taco salesperson is a game of quantity and nothing more. 

In this process, do you ask your buyer if they have a college degree? Did you confirm that they have a reliable mode of transportation? As you are both in the same place, you don’t wonder if they live close enough to you. But are they certified to eat a doughnut? Do they have at least five years’ doughnut-eating experience? Can they provide names and contact information for three people who can confirm they know their way around a doughnut? How many different varieties of doughnut can they discuss with confidence? Hmm…I see a gap of three months in which you were not eating doughnuts. Can you explain that gap?

Have you ever heard of someone saying they only had one doughnut and were going to sell it to the “best” customer? The one who was a cultural fit to the mission of your doughnut?

Of course not. That would be insane. Again, you have a doughnut and they have a dollar. To quote comedian Mitch Hedberg, why do we even need a receipt? This transaction is completed. It doesn’t matter if they don’t have a work visa, a degree, or can pass a drug test.

Dollar. Doughnut. Done.

But when we’re hiring, we aren’t selling doughnuts or tacos. We’re looking for a specific person to do a specific job. We wonder what school they went to, what other jobs they’ve had, and what the outcomes of their work were. We immediately reject them if they don’t have enough experience. We reject them because they don’t “fit.” We reject them because they were arrested and tried for fraud. We reject them because someone was just a little bit better. 

Hiring isn’t a game of quantity, because we’re generally filling one role and we want the best possible person to take that job. We want one person, so we seek the best person.

“We live in a world driven by quantity, and blindly applying marketing and sales techniques designed for quantity to a model designed for quality is a disaster waiting to happen.” 

This seems prima facie obvious, but it is the difference that underlies all hiring and differentiates it from almost any other kind of profession. It is foundational to everything and what differentiates employer branding from every other kind of marketing and branding in the world. The rest of the world is looking to bill more hours, sell more time, build more widgets, train more people, take more cases, fix more pipes, and take on more clients. We live in a world driven by quantity, and blindly applying marketing and sales techniques designed for quantity to a model designed for quality is a disaster waiting to happen. 

If you’re selling tacos and you sell a million tacos, you’re getting a raise. You’re getting a bonus. They’ll put your picture on a wall above the words “Salesperson of the Year.” 

But if you’re “selling” jobs and you get a million people to apply, you’re getting fired. 

Applying great, clever, or even genius-level marketing thinking won’t solve recruiting and hiring, because they are so different. Tennis, golf, and billiards are all played with round balls, but you can’t switch one ball for another and pretend it’s the same game. 

This difference isn’t academic. It is an industry built on a very different foundation to almost everything else we know and do. But embracing this difference is the beginning to solving your hiring problems.

Talent Chooses You has been referred to as “the roadmap for the next hiring revolution” and “the new bible for the employer branding practitioner and the novice alike.” Unlike any other employer brand business book, it is designed from the ground up to be a call to arms to and for talent acquisition to see a better way to hire. One that doesn’t put candidates and recruiters on opposite sides of a fight. And unlike other books, it literally was designed to not make any money, so James is now selling it at cost (he isn’t making a cent on sales) to ensure it gets in the hands of the people who are looking to start their own talent strategy revolution wherever they are. Get your copy now.

It’s possible that the stories are true and that a radioactive recruiter bit born-marketer James Ellis years ago. All we know is that James Ellis has become a well-known podcaster, writer, speaker and consultant in the growing employer brand industry. He’s done everything from putting a public Fortune 1000 brand on his back to building a 19-person employer brand activation team within the biggest recruitment marketing agency in the world. What drives someone to write, podcast, speak and work so obsessively towards revolutionising the recruiting and talent industry? Coffee. Yes, he would like another, thank you.

(Listen to thetalentcast.com podcast here!)

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