Welcome to the latest instalment of ‘Nourishing Waters’ our monthly newsletter.

With so much employee disengagement, ill health, and disruptive external influences on the workplace we’ve never felt more committed to and convinced that the long term sustainable solutions to these dilemmas lie in unlocking the power of purpose and belonging in company cultures and everything achieving that entails.

Nourishing Waters is just one of Emei’s offerings where individuals can come and reconnect with their hidden or diminished potential and also be a place where leaders can find provocations and enquiries into what can inspire themselves and deeply connect and unlock the potential in those around them.

We have a guest columnist every month either offering their own deep insights and experiences around personal and organisational change, or a heart-felt individual story of change and purposeful practice leading to latent and hidden potential being released.

And we aim to deliver this content in a range of mediums from video and visuals to the written word in order to cater for different preferences. We hope you enjoy and drink deeply of these waters and we welcome anyone that is willing to share their own experiences and reflections.

If you would welcome a conversation about how you or your organisation could benefit from Emei’s deep knowledge and experience in this field then feel free to get in touch.

—
Andrew & Matthew.

Replenishing

A collection of the developmental insights and provocations that we have found particularly motivating this month.

1. What behaviours are you rewarding? Whether you believe Gartner or Gallup or another reputable research source most are reporting that employee turnover is currently over 50% higher and it’s taking roughly 20% longer to fill roles compared to pre-pandemic. There's a burn-out pandemic and therefore "quietly quitting" continues to gain traction. The misalignment between what employees are promised from their employers and what they experience is unsurprisingly the biggest issue and within this career progression remains one of the key misalignments in those promises and therefore one of the reasons for employees leaving or checking out. Ironically investing effort in employee career development is often at odds with the metrics line managers are typically measured against. Despite the explicit financial, and more implicit cultural costs of not doing it, most organisations still fail to prioritise and reward those leaders and line managers that develop and share the talent that already exists in their companies while continuing to reward behaviours that ultimately are at odds with doing this. It's easy for employees to spot and therefore it undermines the trust they have in the employer and therefore their engagement.

2. The great break-up - Women leaders are switching companies at the highest rates ever. For every women director getting promoted to the next level two women directors choose to leave their companies…. Do boardrooms continue to snooze on the job, not care, or simply don’t know what to do about it? Perhaps all three. This “great break-up” is becoming an even more significant problem for those companies genuinely serious about addressing ED&I in their workplaces because women leaders are also the most likely to be driving inclusive cultural change in their organisations. Under-represented at leadership level with fewer rising among the ranks due to the “broken rung” at the first step up to management there are so many compounding factors detailed in the sobering McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace October 2022 report.

3. When well-being becomes a "workstream" you know you’ve got problem.
   More evidence from McKinsey on how worryingly lost and misguided leaders are when it comes to understanding well-being and how to develop healthy and inclusive organisational cultures. A hint… Get deeply self-aware, (even more than you are currently), and then find the bravery to have integrity to what you discover about yourself. You may be pleasantly surprised by what you learn about others at the same time. A win for you, a win for others, a win for the organisation, and I would argue a win for wider society. It might not be easy, but it's impressive Leadership

4. Compliance is different to connection. Only one in four hybrid or remote workers is currently connected to their organisations culture. A useful article from Gartner in their November issue helps explain the difference between simply complying with cultural expectations rather than feeling any attachment to it. They believe that cultural connectedness can increase employee performance by up to 37% and retention by up to 36%. How clear are you on what's really going on in your organisation?

5. Dialling up the discomfort. Despite what the majority in an organisation might be desperately calling out for it's harder to make that change happen when the leaders at the top of the organisation fail to respond, are afraid, or simply resist… A thought-provoking report from the Centre for Synchronous Leadership in conjunction with the Chartered Governance Institute on Mindful Exclusion. They report some challenging statistics around what is and what isn’t being discussed in terms of employee issues at board level, why this happens, and critically offer up some very practical solutions to overcome the discomfort (or ignorance) of getting these critical issues on the boardroom agenda.

6. Do you know what your employees are saying about you? Employees just won’t put up with a lack of inclusion, respect, or poor moral leadership anymore, the ingredients of a toxic culture. Recent research by MIT Sloan Management Review indicates that over three quarters of job seekers now research an employers culture before applying. In an age of on-line employee reviews and easy access to organisational information, companies cannot keep their culture problems a secret for long. A toxic employer brand makes it harder and much more expensive to both retain and attract candidates. Your leadership behaviour at all levels matters more than ever and has the biggest impact on corporate culture. Is it up to the job?

Company Spotlight

In each issue, we'll either invite a guest to write a column on something related to personal well-being and inspiring leadership, or spotlight amazing companies that we've noticed doing great work around their employee experience and organisational culture.

In this issue, we celebrate the achievements of Willmott Dixon.

Best Company to work for in the UK

Well done to Willmott Dixon for reaching the top spot of the Quarterly Best Companies to work for league. They have been pushing for the top spot for a while, and now they’ve got there I’m sure they’ll have the commitment to long term sustainable decision making in relation to their organisational culture.

Their purpose “is to deliver brilliant buildings, transform lives, strengthen communities and enhance the environment so our world is fit for future generations” which is impressive in itself and speaks implicitly to the employee value proposition of working there. The trust they must have in their culture to make such a bold promise around transforming lives and communities is admirable. Talking of which, in case you were wondering, Admiral (featured in Issue 4 of our newsletter) slipped just one place to number 2 in the list.

Their website has a very human and heart lead feel to it and is equally as bold as their purpose in terms of content, awards, and both explicit and implicit promises about what it feels like to work there and what they are trying to become in the future. They speak of a leadership culture of accountability and demonstrated in behaviours that a lot of organisations could benefit from reflecting on and adopting.

I’ll be doubly impressed when we see more diversity at Board level, but I sense that’s probably meaningfully on the agenda.

Some of the stats about Willmott Dixon and their c2000 employees in the UK include that it was established in 1852, so they’ve been around a while, and 92% of employees agreed that the leader of the organisation runs the organisation based on sound moral principle (which seems to be increasingly rare in current times). This clearly builds great trust and will undoubtedly help with employee engagement, which is reflected in their relatively low voluntary turnover of 10%.

What’s also significant, and requires great cultural stewardship at all levels, is that 88% employees stated that their manager cared about how satisfied they were in their jobs, and 90% of staff agreed that their team was fun to work with.

It sounds like a pretty good place to work and it’s clear about what they believe is driving their success, making it a meaningful and enjoyable place to work for their employees.

Kudos to them.

The Best Companies approach to evaluating culture is through companywide, anonymous, employee feedback surveys where a minimum percentage of employees must respond before you can even be considered for the award. At Emei we trust these results as not only do we have direct experience in the past of helping organisations to get to the top of these leagues, but we also know it’s impossible to ‘game’ the results.

If you’ve noticed a company doing great work around its employee experience and organisational culture and would like them to be included in this spotlight section of the newsletter then just let us know. It is possible to love what you do, with people you enjoy doing it with, and we’re happy to keep pointing this out wherever possible.

Soul on Deck

Our blog, Soul on Deck, is a personal reflection of our own dreams and aspirations at Emei. We know our art is our life and our lives are our art and our invitation to you is to connect and explore the unknown unfolding in front of you through this art. We wholeheartedly encourage you to embrace and yield to the unknown seas and landscapes we traverse together to help your soul to shine and to inspire and light up others.

We are on the journey with you.

At The Helm

We all learn in different ways, and at different speeds. Our YouTube Channel, At The Helm delves deeper into our purpose, values, and beliefs to help navigate contemplative thought and develop purposeful practices that support our ability to enlighten ourselves and others in our day-to-day. Providing inspiration to grip the wheel and stay the course and nurture your inner courage.

Beyond The Horizon

A fully lived life requires the constant exploration of the unknown. It is scary and fulfilling at the same time. Beyond The Horizon is our Podcast aimed at helping individuals, teams and organisations unlock their deepest intentions, get in touch with their purpose and bring all their potential and talents into the workplace and into the world in service of other people.

Thank you for reading

Our wish is for individuals and leaders like you to take nourishment in our words, practices, and provocations to help support you in accessing your hidden resourcefulness and helping change the workplace.

Change is rarely a straight line or straightforward journey and we hope we can help unlock that powerful source of trust and belief for you in a different future where your brilliance is realised.