Workforce Management Roundup - January 2024

Each month, Mployer collects and presents some of the most relevant and interesting data, information, and insight we've encountered over the past month covering areas related to employee management and human resources. 

Characteristics of High-Performing Teams

A recent survey from Dale Carnegie and Associates collected data from business leaders across more than 2,600 companies in order to better understand some of the underlying attributes and cultural qualities that link top-performing teams.

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The report determined that only about 3 out of 10 teams achieve performance levels that qualify as top tier, and an analysis of the underlying survey data indicates that there are a relatively small number of shared characteristics found among the vast majority of those top-performing teams.

Top 3 Characteristics of Top-Performing Teams

• Clearly-Defined Goals: In order to evaluate team performance in the first place, it is necessary to have concrete expectations for what constitutes the most desirable outcome, the least desirable outcome, and the range in between. With that in mind, it is unsurprising that 85% of top-performing teams make a priority of clearly defining their goals. 

• Daily Interaction: One of the most effective ways to ensure that the moving parts within a time are in alignment, synched up, and operating in a coordinated fashion is to keep lines of communication not just open but active. 81% of top-performing teams report daily interaction among team members.

• Training & Development: To be clear, access to training and development is not exclusive to only the highest performing teams. In fact nearly half of all teams (49%) across the entire range of the performance spectrum conduct at least some training and development as a part of the team-building process. Given that nearly 3 out of 4 (74%) of top-performing teams train and develop as a unit, however, there appears to be a strong correlation between training and development and high-performance work product nonetheless.

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Of course, none of those top-performance-linked factors occur in a vacuum. Daily interaction is only meaningful if the underlying communication is open and productive. Goals can only be clearly-defined if all team-members feel the freedom to question aspects of the goals or how they are to be realized is unclear to them. Not all members of a team must undergo the same training, but all training should be constructed and conducted with the team in mind. 

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Accordingly, for leaders that want to inspire team performance to rise to the next level, communicating with transparency and creating an environment where employees feel psychologically safe and free to creatively collaborate is essential in order to build teams with the necessary adaptability to optimize their performance and grade among the top tier of teams in the world. 

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Top Workplace Trends 

This recent survey from Robert Half highlights some of the major trends that we’ve seen develop and evolve in the workplace over the past year and appear posed to continue shaping the landscape heading into 2024.

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• Bonuses Are Back: Survey responses indicate that nearly all employers will be awarding end-of-year bonuses this year (96%). More than half (54%) claim that the bonuses they distribute this year will be bigger than the bonuses they distributed at the end of 2022, while 37% will distribute bonuses of approximately the same amount as last year. 

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• Work Flexibility Is A Growing Priority: More than 6 out of 10 workers (62%) claimed they would be willing to forgo leaving their current job for a higher paying one at another company if their current job offered greater flexibility. While salary has long been the dominant factor that drives job-related decision-making, the survey authors expect work flexibility to become a close second consideration in the coming year. 

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• Workers Are Optimistic About Generative AI: 2023 will likely be looked upon as the year that generative AI hit its first popular tipping point, and while there is significant uncertainty about how AI will continue change over time as well as how businesses will adapt to and incorporate those changes, more than 4 out of 10 workers (41%) believe that generative AI will have a net positive benefit on their work output and career.

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• Burnout Is High and Requires Targeted Support: Nearly half of all tech professionals (48%) and almost one third of accounting and finance professionals (30%) report feeling burned out and in need of additional help - whether via contract workers or additional hires - in order to meet the demands of the workload. 

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• The Taboo Against Discussing Salaries Amongst Workers Is Dead: While 42% of workers in total reported discussing their salary with coworkers at some point over the previous 12 months, that number nearly doubled (82%) among Gen-Z, indicating the trend is not likely to reverse course at any point in the near future and will further the imperative of maximizing both pay transparency and pay equity in 2024.

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Considerable unknowns remains about how the economic and technological climates will change in the year ahead as well as how the labor market may absorb those shifts, but bigger bonuses, greater work flexibility, additional generative AI utilization, targeted burnout response, and the end of salary secrecy are trends that all seem likely to continue impacting the workplace environment in 2024.

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