For the American worker, things could be a lot worse. They could also feel a lot better.
Chances are a strong U.S. economy will avoid a recession in 2024, but high interest rates and lingering inflation keep weighing on consumers. The volatile global economic picture doesn’t help either. More than half of full-time American employees are increasingly worried about job security, a survey of 1,200 U.S. workers shows. And for the roughly 90% of U.S. workers who said they felt stressed last year, finances were the top cause.
Business leaders should get used to that uncertainty and build a culture of trust by supporting their people, reckons Marie Unger, CEO of Emergenetics International. The organizational development firm helps businesses, schools, nonprofits, and other clients understand and harness their cognitive diversity.
The pandemic ushered in an unpredictable era for the world, she tells me from Denver: “That’s just going to be the new global economy that we’re facing.”
Unger thinks companies can help employees deal by focusing on three things: communication, collaboration, and care.
“By investing in the people, they can navigate all those headwinds,” she says. “Because they know they’ve got some psychological safety.”
Communication might sound obvious, given the wealth of options that leaders have at their disposal. But Unger has often seen them come up short. “When there’s challenges, the executive team, they go into a war room,” she says. “But what happens then is, the rest of the employees are out there filling in their own gaps.”
Transparency is especially important in volatile times, when leaders should overcommunicate, Unger maintains: “That spirit of transparency will give the employees a feeling of trust and confidence that they know what’s coming.”
Part of that is communicating more often, Unger says. For example, if you hold a quarterly town hall, make it monthly so people aren’t left wondering about the company’s health.
Which brings us to collaboration. Town halls give workers a chance to share their concerns and ideas with the business, says Unger, who also encourages chat channels. The goal is for them to “feel like they’re making a difference, and that they are empowered to be invested in getting the organization through whatever challenges that [it] may be facing.”
Care builds trust too. For companies, it means acknowledging that employees have a life outside of work, with its own stresses and strains—while also respecting that boundary.
Okay, but what if people are genuinely afraid their jobs are on the line?
Care also means investing in employees’ development, says Unger, a former school principal. In her view, upskilling and reskilling are vital amid economic volatility, to give people a sense of preparedness for whatever might be next.
“It’s one of the greatest things you can do to improve the loyalty and engagement of your employees,” Unger says, “to avoid burnout, to avoid absenteeism, the things that people face during those hard times.”
She also reminds companies and leaders navigating uncertainty to take time to understand each of those workers and their needs, “because our employees are our number one resource. They’re the ones who are going to help us get through it.”
For sure.
Nick Rockel
nick.rockel@consultant.fortune.com
