Employee wellbeing and trust in leadership declines, and Meta fires staff over meal vouchers

Lindsey Caplan joins us again to discuss the stats showing that fewer than one in three employees trust their senior leaders. Next we talk about the employees fired by Meta for misusing their meal credits and what it means about org culture, trust, and how we write and implement our policies. Then, we dig into the stats that a record-low percentage of employees feel genuinely cared for by their employers, and talk about why wellness programs without real action backfire.

Connect with Lindsey on LinkedIn or at The Gathering Effect. 

Transcript

Stacey (00:00):
Hello and welcome to Toot or Boot where each week we talk about news related to HR and the world of work. We toot the news we like and boot the news we don't like. I'm your host, Stacy Nordal, a serial joiner of early stage tech companies as their first in or only HR person. And joining us today, we have the one and only Lindsay Kaplan.

Lindsey (00:21):
Hello, Stacey. Hello. Thanks for inviting me

Stacey (00:24):
Well, thanks for coming back. And for those of you not us, I know who you are. For those listeners who didn't hear you previously, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Lindsey (00:35):
Sure. My name is Lindsay Caplan and I am the founder and lead consultant of the Gathering Effect. And after many, many years in a mix of communication, learning, and development and organizational psychology work and roles, I now help companies to do what I call match a message with a moment to create an effect. Meaning any time a company wants to put people in a room, give them content and sort of poof change them, that's my expertise. So it looks a lot like all hands, offsites, leadership development programs, onboardings, values launches, things like that. And I'm really happy to be here with you today, Stacey. So thank you.

Stacey (01:20):
Alright, we had a good one last time. I think we had some where we were kind of in agreement and kind of not, which I actually love. We've got to give multiple, a little bit broader perspective. So I'm wondering today if we'll have some of the same mixed or divergent vibes. That'll be fun.

Lindsey (01:39):
My prediction is no, but let's see. Let's see.

Stacey (01:44):
Alright, we're going to start off with an article from Fast Company. The title is, "Here's what happens when Employees Don't Trust their Leadership." And the recap is, okay, we start off with some shocking or maybe not shocking statistics that trust in leaders, particularly senior leaders, is incredibly low. Fewer than one third of folks trust senior leaders in their orgs. The author says the result of this is diminished trust that employees don't listen, they disengage, they do the bare minimum, they stop taking risks, collaborating, innovating, and then the author gives a few suggestions about how this could be turned around. What'd you think?

Lindsey (02:31):
This is like a big fat duh. Is that a toot? I think that's a toot.

Stacey (02:37):
I mean, for me, that's a boot. I was like, bye. Okay. Yeah,

Lindsey (02:43):
No kidding. No shit. Yeah, I don't need to read that article. I mean, hold on. I've written articles for Fast Company, congratulations to the authors. That's great. I'm happy for you, but duh duh. So that was my response. And I mean, don't hate me for saying this. I read this and then my response was, yeah, it's hard to maybe be in the middle and they have to answer to people above them and we never maybe know the full context and maybe they don't trust the board or these executives. I mean, there's so many reasons for why this is happening, but they may also feel stuck. I dunno, there's always more to the story, butYeah. Duh.

Stacey (03:38):
Yeah. I think that the reason that I booted it is because I don't like when articles start off with this, oh, here's this big statistic, and then they tell you a bunch of stuff. That's like the most basic thing that as you're saying, it is obvious that if an employee doesn't trust you and there isn't psychological safety, they probably aren't going to take risks. They aren't going to go out of their way and collaborate with someone who they don't trust. It seems very clear. And then the kind of suggestions are, be trustworthy. Oh, okay.

Lindsey (04:26):
Yes. Right. Eat your vegetables. Yes. Yeah. I know it's not a simple topic, but yeah, I think, yeah, I agree

Stacey (04:40):
I mean, I think ultimately to me, when I read it after I kind of got over the like, okay, where's the meat in this? Where is the real something I can learn from this? Something I could action from this. What I thought was ultimately it kind of described to me a toxic workplace. If this is kind of what you're seeing, if the trust levels are this low and what they're saying that you need to do, they're saying the recommendation is do an audit on the four areas that comprise trust, and that's competence, reliability, sincerity, and care. To me, if you're failing in those four areas, you do not have what is going on in your workplace. That's bad.

(05:34):
It is quite bad. And I think trust is more a feeling than a quantitative analysis. But it also made me think about the locus of control and really the manager employee relationship or the direct team relationship being the place to sort of triage or support or educate or focus on. Because I think if you survey most employees as this article did, maybe 46% or whatever, say they don't trust their senior leadership or the executive team, but they're still there and they're still working. And so can we fix that? I don't know, but I can maybe support the direct manager in building trust and creating sort of a safe space and helping them feel connected and trustworthy there in the area they have more control over. So not to put more on a manager, but I do think that is a huge area of influence if we can't maybe trust those above us for various reasons.

(06:40):
Yeah. Yes, I think it definitely does speak to when you're thinking about locus of control. Also, a lot of what comes out in this article I think is what employees feel they have control over. So that's also what you see happening is if I don't feel like I can speak up in a meeting, I'm not going to speak up in a meeting. That's it. They

Lindsey (07:11):
Poly working right to our other podcast. I think this is why all these articles to me are so connected. Again, we've been talking about this larger theme of trust and self-protection or self-preservation. And to me, again, this is mostly anecdotal. I'm seeing that literally folks are just out for themselves and sometimes in a negative way and sometimes in just I have to way, especially with layoffs and cost cuttings. And the next article that we'll talk about folks are literally just looking out for themselves, which is dangerous, but also I think the current reality given the lack of trust and lack of loyalty and stability in many companies these days.

Stacey (07:55):
So let's dive into that. Actually, the next one we're talking about, this one comes out of the Guardian and it is Meta fires staff for using free meal vouchers to buy household goods. And the recap here, meta the parent company of Facebook and Instagram fired, and this is weird, I thought they said about 24 employees, I'm not sure about 24 is a weird number to me, but they fired about 24 staff for using their daily meal credit allowances on household goods, groceries, and personal items. They said that folks who had only broken the rules on occasion were given warnings, but others were fired. They also note that one of the workers let go was making a 400 K salary. And that just to kind of show the broader trend here, they also said that in 2022, meta changed its meal service from 6 to 6:30, which caused an uproar from employees because it meant that folks taking the shuttles would miss the meal service and they wouldn't be able to take free food home. So this is also putting that in that broader context as well. I see. You're chomping at the bit to talk. You're like, oh, I could see you were just holding it in.

Lindsey (09:13):
I have an expressive face. I've been told booted to the moon. I feel I'm a nerd for change theory. So when you take something away from people, it's really tough. Even if it's like we're going to move dinner half an hour later, that can cause a big uproar. Change is really hard as we know. So especially change that feels like a sense of loss. I feel like I used to work in organizations where we had a learning and development stipend and there were maybe a handful of people that would "abuse" it every year. And there was this big focus on how do we change the policy to get everyone to comply and what is this costing the organization really what is the effort to police the bad versus focusing on the 95% of people or the a hundred thousand people at meta who are not abusing the policy and why this contributes to what you and I were talking about earlier, which is making HR the bad person, the police.

Stacey (10:21):
Yeah

Lindsey (10:22):
I just don't feel this is necessary and there's probably more going on, but in general boot the, I want to swear, but hell no boot this.

Stacey (10:37):
Yeah. I also have this as a boot. And what you said earlier about this kind of the culture of in a bad way, people being out for themselves, I kind of felt like what is it about the culture that even someone who is making, let's say a 400 K salary feels the need to use a $25 voucher to buy household goods. And maybe they need to do that, maybe even the salary is not, it seems like a lot, but it's not a lot for them. But to me, there is something culturally about the org culture that people would feel the need to extract every bit of value. And I think that goes back to what you're saying of what is it that makes folks feel like they have to be in that mode of self-protection and that they have to bend the rules in these ways.

(11:41):
So that for me was a bit of what is that deeper thing happening that is the root of this? And to your point, and I think about this a lot as HR folks, we can, because our roots are in compliance. I know a lot of folks can have something like this happen and then move, like you're saying, into that deep compliance route of, okay, well how do we prevent the people who are abusing this from abusing it? Instead of just saying, okay, well we've got 95% of people aren't, so are we changing the entire policy for the 5% or are we just going with what works for the 95% and then managing the 5% in the way we need to manage it?

Lindsey (12:31):
I would vastly prefer the latter. A couple thoughts, and I think one just escaped my head, but I'll try to get it back in. There was something in the article about someone said, well, I didn't want to waste the voucher or waste the credit. I think that makes sense. I don't excuse it, but it makes sense to me, especially if this is viewed as part of your compensation or something everyone gets, I just wonder about that person's situation because we never know. We never know. So I just when in doubt would like to be more curious than just reach for a compliance stick. But that's one. But I also think there's this kind of sense of we must teach you a lesson and we must make an example out of you. And it feels very much like we treat our employees like children when we do stuff like this and reprimand them. And I think folks on the other side could say, well, they acted like children because they didn't follow the rules, but this status difference of there's so much here, I don't like it, any of it. And I think the larger point is it promotes a culture of fear and you must get in line and do everything correctly, otherwise we're watching you and we're going to police everything that you do. Just boot, boot, boot boot, boot, boot.

Stacey (13:58):
Yeah. Yes. And I mean, I understand, like I said, I think there is that sense of there are rules in place. Yes, there are rules in place. Generally if someone is not abiding by program policies, that's a warning. That's, let's talk about this. Let's be curious. Just like you mentioned, it's generally not a firing unless it's some incredibly egregious thing and we're talking about $25 meal vouchers. So again, to your point, it is a bit of what is the story behind this? What really caused this to happen? What is going on within the culture? Maybe is this something where meta is trying to do larger cuts and has just decided to implement them in these kinds of ways? It does feel like that there is something broader happening.

Lindsey (14:58):
It made headlines though. I saw this in a couple of other places, and I wonder if that's part of the employer brand strategy. I would guess not.

Stacey (15:11):
I wouldn't think so.

Lindsey (15:12):
Yeah.

Stacey (15:15):
All right. And we're going to go to our last article of this episode. This one comes to us from Gallup, and the title is, "Despite Employer prioritization, employee Wellbeing falters." The Recap here, So that's a quote from the article. They're also talking about when employees perceive that employer initiatives about wellbeing are just empty words that creates the impression of care washing, which is a topic we've discussed on a previous tutor boot episode, and basically doing these superficial things, neglects and neglecting the root causes. Employees become aware of that, right? They sense that, and so it doesn't actually improve their wellbeing in any way if they sense that's what's happening. So what did you think? What was your takeaway from this?

Lindsey (16:24):
Yeah, I don't know whether it's a toot or a boot. I just think it makes sense. Again, it's like this goes beyond the workplace, but the more we look at an organization to be everything to everyone, to be its place where it lives up to your own values and aligns with that, and also becomes a place where you make money and you live your purpose and you make your friends, and it must be the place where I also have the most wellbeing versus it just being a job. I think the more pressure we put on it and the more fault we put on it to fix every societal issue. So that with that said,

Stacey (17:05):
Yeah, that's a lot.

Lindsey (17:06):
I do think that, yeah, there are a lot of check the box wellbeing initiatives that mean super well and are vastly underutilized for many reasons. One being the friction of actually starting it or using it specifically like an EAP. I've never used one, although every company I've worked for has had one, but also not really knowing what it really means, or if my company's going to to another article surveil everything I'm doing in that EAP session. I think it goes just back to the manager being the best intervention versus these large company initiatives that we hope maybe touch five or 10% of the population.

Stacey (17:51):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I think it was my take on this was Toot? I guess? Yeah,

(18:05):
Because I don't think this told us, Gallup, you didn't need to run the survey. I don't think it told us anything. We didn't already know. I mean, they're talking about EAPs and they say many employees don't know that they exist and they're underutilized. Any HR person could tell you that. Any HR person could tell you that they're talking about covering, broadening your sense of what wellbeing is. And they mentioned five elements, which is career, social, physical, financial, and community wellbeing. I appreciated that. Call out. I feel like that's something, when I was at CultureAmp, we really were trying to focus on, let's think about these different segments, these different parts of wellbeing. Wellbeing isn't just one thing. It isn't just physical. It isn't just mental expanding that out. So I appreciate that. I also think that's not necessarily new. I mean, maybe that's new to some folks.

(19:09):
Maybe they haven't really delved into that a bit more broadly and thought about what are the elements we can really focus on that tie into our organizational values or something like that to really embed that and make it feel more aligned. Maybe folks haven't thought about that. I feel like that that's not particularly new information. And they also, as you mentioned, talk about bringing managers in more and having them be that intervention. I think also that HR folks, any hr, maybe the thing is, I'm looking at this too much from an HR lens, and not everyone reading this article is in hr, but any HR person will kind of tell you, yeah, we do that. We're doing that a lot. We're doing a lot to try to enable managers and get them to have those kinds of conversations and be that intervention. But just like you mentioned, if there isn't trust and you don't know how the information that you're giving, be it to an EAP person, be someone in the EAP, your manager, if you don't have that trust, you're not going to give that information.

(20:26):
So it kind of again comes back to, as you said, trust and self-protection and self-preservation, right? So I think, yeah, it was a bit of like, yeah, we know this already. We already know this. And they also said when employee strongly agree, their organization cares about overall wellbeing, they're more likely to be engaged, thriving, recommend their organization, not look for other jobs. We know obviously, duh, obviously. So again, it was like, okay, toot, maybe it's, I've read too many of these articles and not everyone's an HR person with a background in counseling psychology, so this is news to them. But for me it was like, okay, yeah,

Lindsey (21:21):
Yeah, I don't remember where I read this. It was someone very smart said something like, let's not keep adding more to people's plates. Let's not do leadership by addition. Let's do leadership by subtraction. And I think a lot of these wellness solutions, and again, I'm not an expert in this space. I know there's so many good intentions. I just want to be really careful about how I'm talking about this. However, I think a lot of these solutions add more to people's plates, come to a yoga class, all EAP provider, whatever these things may be. Versus I think a really good intervention is like what can we remove that lessens pressure and lessens burden or stress on people?

Stacey (22:14):
And I think that's a really good point too, because I think in the article they mentioned it, I've talked about this, I know other folks have talked about this, that we're not trying to create a situation where managers are meant to essentially be mental health practitioners or HR are trying to be mental health practitioners. And they shouldn't. They absolutely shouldn't be. But you know what managers can do. They can say, okay, let's talk about your workload, let's talk about deadlines. Let's talk about all of these things that are very clearly related to work within their locus of control generally or within their ability to influence. Let's talk about those things because that to your point, that can relieve stress, that can create a different work environment. There are things that you really can influence that affect wellbeing that aren't having you cross a boundary into becoming a mental health practitioner or doing something like that, giving advice on things that you truly aren't trained to be doing.

Lindsey (23:22):
Yeah, you're making me think about a lot of things. Damn you for making me think. You're talking about the connection between wellbeing and employee engagement, and to me, employee engagement or this article is talking about a little bit to me, employee engagement is how emotionally connected do I feel to the organization? Therefore, how much do I want to stay, how much do I want to give? Et cetera, et cetera. And to me, I think the more personal, the more emotionally invested we are. And so someone I know told a story of how they had a very difficult family situation and the organization or their manager was like, don't worry. Take as much time as you need. Don't check in. And beyond any other sort of wellbeing intervention, that nod of care and time, I think cemented that person another one or two years in role just because they felt like they owed the company, not just more work, but gratitude for being seen in that way. And so that's what I think we're talking about in terms of manager support, those small decisions that add up that are personal, that deeply affect people versus, well, here's an EAP and here's a yoga class. And those are nice, but they don't necessarily emotionally connect me more to the organization.

Stacey (24:39):
A hundred percent. I think that is a great point, and I just want to leave it there. Okay. So I want to thank you so much for bringing all of your insight to Tutor Boot today. If people want to connect with you, how can they do that?

Lindsey (24:58):
Well, thank you for having me, and thank you for asking. Folks can find me on LinkedIn or at my website, which is gathering effect.com.

Stacey (25:06):
All right, and you'll find that in the show notes. Everyone, thank you so much for joining, and thank you, Lindsay.

Lindsey (25:11):
Thank you.