April 2021’s National Stress Awareness Month has a whole different lens now that we’ve all been experiencing over a year of our life in pandemic mode. Normal, everyday stressors are now heightened and intensified by heavy doses of grief, anxiety, anticipation, and fear. No matter who you are in this world, this last year has impacted your relationship to stress, especially at work.
For some of us, our work is a balm to our stress – easing us into feelings of purpose, pride, and possibility most days. For others, our work is a trigger to our stress – igniting feelings of overwhelm, discomfort, and worry. These are two ends of the spectrum, and there’s a heck of a lot in between. Whether you began this historic time on one end, perhaps you’ve seen your way through to the other, for better or worse.
Companies are also shouldering this burden because no one has been immune to the pain of stress.
As a response, some leaders have increased their wellness efforts, brought in mindfulness training, and implemented new policies and procedures to support their people. And others have acted like it’s “business as usual,” expecting everything to run as effectively and effectively as before, without considering the humanity of their employees.
As a workplace culture consultant, I’ve lead life-changing mindfulness programs, retreats, and workshops to help teams reduce stress within their culture. I’ve also stopped working with clients who were downright abusive to their team members and clearly weren’t interested in investing in their people and giving them permission to be human: embracing and supporting the complexities of our human experience.
There’s one thing that’s been there all along that your company is likely not harnessing as a tool for stress reduction in your everyday culture: your values!
As humans, we often feel drained, not because we’ve done too much, but because we’ve done too little of what reflects our values. We’re all walking, talking, living, breathing sets of values, and so are our companies.
Corporate core values are intrinsic motivators that represent an organization’s principles or standards of behavior, their judgment of what is important in life. When harnessed, they serve as an internal compass and represent what the company stands for. They are typically nouns like innovation, accountability, trust, community, empathy, or transparency. But oftentimes, these carefully curated words are just that… words.
The problem is that most companies don’t actually live their values. They just display them on their website, as a poster on the wall, platitudes they preach with no follow-through. Like a company that claims innovation but still hasn’t figured out how to support their working parents who have taken on homeschooling in addition to in their profession. Or an organization that touts accountability, but only when it comes to the follow-through of their worker bees, not the powers that be. Even a team that champions trust can quickly get out of alignment when the leadership doesn’t share the latest updates and ask for feedback on their return to office plans.
Your employees may seem to be drained, stressed, and lacking the energy they need to drive results forward. From day-to-day conversations to company-wide policies, when your core values don’t align with the ways your company behaves, trust is broken, stress ensues, and everyone suffers.
So where to begin?
Start by looking at each of your company’s core values and ask yourself:
- How are we doing when it comes to living our values? Are our behaviors a reflection of our values?
- What needs to change/evolve/shift in order for us to truly be grounded in these beliefs?
- What needs to be celebrated and lifted up as a proven practice?
- How can I give myself and others permission to be human?
When you go back to basics, you can align your everyday experiences with what makes you come alive instead of dragging yourself through the day feeling fueled by stress. As Simon Sinek so eloquently puts it, “Working hard for something we do not care about is called stress, working hard for something we love is called passion.” And when it comes to our passions, they are a direct reflection of our values.
So, who wants to reduce their team’s stress by returning back to your core values? Today is the best day to start that journey for you and your people.