How can you get there, too? In the next phase of my research, I pulled together the sometimes one-of initiatives I encountered in various organizations and then analyzed them against theories that my fellow organizational change and MBA nerds will appreciate: human capital theory, stakeholder theory, systems thinking, social exchange theory, equity theory, and distributed leadership. From there, I devised a holistic approach to rewiring the transactional status quo workplace to a Win-Win workplace: By prioritizing employee well-being, creating an environment where everyone has a fair chance to succeed regardless of background or identity, fostering continuous learning and development, and managing human resources strategically, organizations can be adaptive, inclusive, and financially sustainable through whatever the future holds for us all.
The Win-Win Workplace: How Thriving Employees Drive Bottom-Line Success confronts biases and systemic barriers within corporate structures, offering actionable solutions for recruiting practices, performance management, and more. It's a call to action for leaders—C-suite, management, and worker-bee leaders alike—who are ready to transcend the transactional status quo and build a new kind of workplace—a Win-Win workplace—where employees and companies can thrive together. Is this an easy path? No. But imagine the rewards. Imagine a workplace where
* employees feel valued, empowered, and connected to a purpose greater than company profits;
* companies flourish through innovation, collaboration, and peak performance; and
* we, as a society, collectively move beyond the win-lose mentality and create a world of shared success.
THE ZERO-SUM WORKPLACE ISN'T WORKING
During my research, I focused on companies across sectors who were doing well and where their employees were thriving while others who were set in their ways were falling behind. I found two opposing strategies at play. One valued the old ways of work, where there must be losers so that the winner can take all the riches. I call this the Zero-Sum workplace. It's often based on seniority and hierarchies, where years of service and your perch on the "org chart" mean more than performance and potential. A Zero-Sum workplace is one that doesn't prioritize employee well-being or consider employees' lives outside of work, even for those at the top.
Globally, 40 percent of workers say they grapple with an inadequate work-life balance. Within this group, a staggering 67 percent blame things intrinsic to their work—like unclear expectations—and/or their workplace culture, like pressure to work extra hours and be constantly available, all while feeling undervalued. A Zero-Sum workplace often neglects continuous learning and development and falls short when managing human resources strategically. As an example, the Anne E. Casey and Joyce Foundations found that most corporations spend 80 percent of their professional development dollars on their highest wage earners, with the remaining dollars used for safety training for the rest—mainly entry-level workers and frontline employees. This especially resonated with me. My employer paid for my graduate program at a time when I had the resources to get it myself. Lower-level employees got little to no help climbing their career ladders. In this sort of Zero-Sum workplace, the privileged get more privileges and perks. The rest? They get safety training. It's like telling the commoners, Just get your job done without bleeding all over the place.
Whether it is a lack of imagination or the inertia of historical practices, these companies hold their employees at a distance by design, treating them as disposable and replaceable, thinking that will help leadership make "tough" decisions in the long term. These are places where regular turnovers and layoffs (rebranded with the gentler sounding "reduction in force" or "RIF") are the gold standard to winning the competitive advantage. We've seen it a lot recently: one tech company will have a RIF, and others will follow suit. As Jeff Shulman, a professor at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business says, "There is a herding effect in tech. ...The layoffs seem to be helping their stock prices, so these companies see no reason to stop. They're getting away with it because everybody is doing it. Workers are more comfortable with it; stock investors are appreciating it."
