Five Tips for Setting Boundaries in a Hybrid Workplace

I recently reflected on an executive leadership coaching panel discussion on the topic “Lines in the Sand: Setting Boundaries in Today’s Global, Always-On Workplace.” The similarities in perceptions between working hybrid or remotely and an “always-on” environment are striking. And the expectations are as well.

The lines between when we clock in and check out are blurred at best. It can seem like we’re always “on” and accessible. Giving that impression or acting as if we’re always accessible is not a recipe for success – individually or for organizations. We need time to disconnect and recharge to be at our most creative and productive when we work. It also makes for a more pleasant parent, partner, friend, etc. But sadly, many organizations constantly push boundaries. It is up to individuals and leaders to keep defining, communicating, and demonstrating effective boundary-setting to ensure healthy, productive, engaging work environments.

Five Tips:

1. Establish agreements

Openly establish agreements and boundaries with co-workers. Figure out what works for you and the team and stick with it (with exceptions for extreme circumstances).

- Set a regular start and end time to your day, whether you are in the office or working from home and a time that you might usually scan email later in the evening or first thing in the morning.
- Have a clear understanding about how and when you will cover for each other when someone needs personal time during the day, for PTO, etc.
- Discuss boundaries around weekends. Define “emergencies.” Teamwork and transparent communication are key. Boundaries outside of work are important too.
- Agreements around device-free time, children’s bedtimes, gym time, sleep-in days, etc., can go a long way to enabling regular downtime.

2. Get clear on what is important

Get clear on what’s important to you outside of work; otherwise, it is easy to let work creep into too much of your personal time – robbing you of your work effectiveness and of having a joyful life! For example, many people say that family is important – but get really clear and specific about WHAT is important. Is it important to have dinner together every night? To read bedtime stories? To attend events together? To have family-focused weekends? Clarity and inspiration will make it easier to set and keep boundaries.

Also, get clear on what is important at work. Many times, boundaries get crossed due to false crises. Don’t create them, and don’t overreact when others create them. Often good listening, a few calm questions, and quick brainstorming of options can reduce anxiety and panic and allow for a more reasonable approach to an issue that doesn’t have to include it being taken care of tonight. Granted, there are times when crises are real and extra time is needed, but those don’t have to be the norm.

3. Use technology to your advantage

Leverage your calendar. Indicate working hours and/or block out times when you are unavailable for meetings, including appropriate morning and evening hours. Use auto-reply if you will be unavailable to respond for a longer-than-usual amount of time.

For example, our love/hate relationship with our addictive mobile devices requires some care too. These things which keep us “on” are also very capable of helping us be “off”, by auto-replying to texts when driving, in a meeting, sleeping, etc., or blocking calls, using caller ID, etc. You can also establish no-device zones or times, e.g. at the dinner table, in the bedroom, on Saturdays.

4. Be brave – yes is not the only answer

Saying no to a direct request of your time is not easy, especially when the request comes from your boss or an important client. But often, an over-eagerness-to-please can cause you to say yes when you are making an unneeded sacrifice. Always giving an unequivocal yes and/or being overly flexible can set up unwelcome behaviors and expectations from that boss or client.

- Take a pause and a breath before immediately answering yes.
- Ask questions to clarify needs and timing – it’s okay to offer alternatives while making sure needs get met.

5. Remember, you have a choice

It can be easy to get overwhelmed with the “always-on” nature of the hybrid/remote workplace today and to slip into a victim mentality about it. But you always have a choice. Focus on what you can control and do your best to maintain healthy boundaries. If your boss or organization has a very different philosophy or culture regarding boundaries it may be time for a new role or organization.

You deserve to be thriving, not just surviving.

Let us know your best tips for thriving in today’s always-on workplace. What works for you?

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About the author:

Tawny Lees, M.B.A., is the COO of Mariposa Leadership, Inc. She coaches, teaches, leads, ensures client satisfaction, and is a coach/client matchmaker extraordinaire. Tawny’s coaching career began in 2004, inspired and informed by over 18 years of corporate leadership experience. She held VP roles in the financial services industry in functions as diverse as Risk, Sales, Service, Operations, Change Management, and Marketing. Despite literally growing up in crazy-paced organizations, Tawny maintained a pragmatic and grounded perspective on leadership.

Find out more about our executive leadership coaching workshops and one on one coaching services.

August 24th, 2021|Categories: Blog, Coaching Skills, Culture, Leadership, Stress / Work-Life Integration|Tags: always on workplace, executive leadership coaching, hybrid, leadership tips, leading remotely, remote workers, setting boundaries, Tawny Lees, workplace culture|

May 20, 2021 / Articles We Like / Blog / Culture / Stress / Work-Life Integration

Alleviating Workplace Stress

Even as the pandemic “eases up,” many of our executive coaching clients and HR partners are still under a lot of stress, pressure, and sometimes even heavier workloads as they plan for their company’s next phase of hybrid work. We have various ways we help them stay resilient, and found this article by Dr. Alice Boyes, author of The Healthy Mind Toolkit to be particularly useful. We hope you will too. Here are some snippets of the article. To read the article in its entirety you can find it here.

“Five Mistakes We Make When We Are Overwhelmed”

Summary. When we’re overwhelmed during busy and challenging times, the way we react can actually make things worse. By being aware of the five common patterns overwhelmed people tend to fall into, you can make things easier on yourself and those around you. First, stop waiting for the opportune moment and actually take the time to do the things you know will help you. Second, make use of your unconscious mind. Third, replace your self-criticism with compassionate self-talk. Fourth, consider your values and make sure they’re the right fit for the situation. Finally, don’t miss opportunities to fill your emotional cup.

When you feel overwhelmed, you may react in ways that not only don’t help the situation but that even make it worse. Maybe you’re oblivious to these patterns, or you know what they are but struggle to do anything about them.

The following are five common self-sabotaging mistakes overwhelmed people tend to make. There are practical solutions for each that will help you feel like you’re on top of things and do a better job of navigating your most important tasks and solving problems.

1. You think you don’t have time for actions that would help you.

People often have great ideas about things that would help them feel better and more in control — for example, hiring someone to help around the house, practicing self-care, seeing a therapist, taking a vacation, or organizing a game night with friends. However, they dismiss them because they think they’re too busy or that it’s not the right time, waiting to take those actions until a more ideal moment that typically never arrives.

2. You don’t utilize your unconscious mind enough.

Focus isn’t the only way to get things done. Your unconscious mind is great at problem-solving, too.

When I go for a walk, my mind wanders. I don’t aim to walk mindfully; rather, I let my mind drift without directing it too much. When I do this, it invariably meanders to work, but not in an unpleasant way. Solutions to problems magically emerge, and what I should prioritize becomes clearer without effort.

3. You interpret feeling overwhelmed as a weakness.

Lots of times, we feel overwhelmed simply because we need to do a task we’re not very familiar with, or because a task is high stakes and we want to do a superb job of it. By itself, this isn’t necessarily a problem. We can often work through the task despite those overwhelmed feelings.

However, sometimes we get self-critical about the very fact that we feel overwhelmed. We think: “I shouldn’t feel overwhelmed by this. It’s not that hard. I should be able to handle it without it stressing out.” When you’re self-critical, you become more likely to procrastinate, because not only does the task trigger feelings of overwhelm, it also triggers shame or anxiety about having those feelings.

4. You default to your dominant approaches and defenses.

When we get stressed out, we tend to get a bit more rigid. Because we have less cognitive and emotional bandwidth to consider other options, we become less flexible about adapting to the demands of the situation and default to our dominant ways of handling things.

5. You withdraw from your supports.

If you feel overwhelmed, you’ve probably got limited emotional energy. This can lead to important changes in your behavior and emotional availability. They can be subtle — maybe you usually give your child a long hug when they come to you, but instead, you now give them a quick perfunctory squeeze while still thinking about other things, then get back to whatever you were doing.

By being aware of the five patterns outlined here, you can make getting through busy and challenging times easier on yourself and those around you. They’re understandable patterns to fall into — and not a reason for you to be self-critical. Know what the traps are and make easy, small changes to overcome them.

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As always, would love to hear your thoughts! Reach out to us with comments, questions and if interested in our help, check out our latest offerings tailored to today’s landscape: Navigating the New Normal.

May 20th, 2021|Categories: Articles We Like, Blog, Culture, Stress / Work-Life Integration|Tags: articles we like, company culture, corporate culture, executive leadership coach, HBR, stress, workplace culture|

March 31, 2021 / Articles We Like / Blog / Leadership

IT Leadership Lessons Learned During Covid

As the corporate focus shifts from response to repair now that the Covid 19 vaccine is becoming more available, leaders look to lessons they learned and prepare for what’s next. In this article by Clint Boulton for CIO Magazine, a publication about and for IT Leaders, Clint speaks with 7 IT leaders from companies including, HP, RSM International, Johnson Controls, and McAfee to hear from them what the past 12 months have taught them and what that means for their business. Here are a summary and snippet. You can read the article in its entirety here.

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The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, and soon after IT leaders rushed to mitigate the impact on their businesses, marshaling teams to work remotely.

CIOs boosted infrastructure capacity, shipped laptops to residences, and migrated applications small and large to software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and cloud software. Eighty-two percent of CIOs surveyed say they have implemented new technologies and IT strategies during the pandemic, according to IDG’s 2021 State of the CIO survey.

Beyond implementing new technologies at scale, CIOs embraced the mental-health hurdles associated with managing remote teams whose work-life balance has been disrupted.

“Like most organizations, the pandemic took us by surprise,” says Paul Herring, global chief innovation officer of accounting firm RSM International. “We had to adjust quickly.”

Here IT leaders reflect on what they learned from a year of leading teams during the pandemic, as well as how work will likely change going forward.

(more…)

March 31st, 2021|Categories: Articles We Like, Blog, Leadership|Tags: articles we like, covid-19, executive leadership coaching, it leadership, leadership, leadership coaching, leading remotely, workplace culture|

April 2, 2020 / Articles We Like / Blog / Stress / Work-Life Integration

Four Tips to Navigate Working from Home

by Anne Loehr, Executive Coach, anne@mariposaleadership.com

I talk for a living, whether it’s through keynotes, employee training, executive coaching, human capital consulting, writing articles, or just a chat with a client. I’m lucky enough to have clients from a variety of industries and sectors, giving me a wide view of how organizations are handling similar situations. This week alone I had the honor of chatting with people from large consulting firms, start-ups, the Federal government, tech firms, mid-size companies, biopharma organizations, large school systems, manufacturing firms, real estate industry leaders, and HR professionals. I learned a lot of best practices for navigating the Covid-19 work from home (WFH) situation and I’d like to share those with you here.

Schedule daily white space

Someone said to me, “It’s just telework. It’s not a big deal.” Wrong. It’s not just telework and it is a big deal. Why? Because the old paradigm of telework was that you worked from home 1-2 days/week, usually while others in your home were at work and/or school. Now everyone is working and learning under one roof, which adds complexity to the situation. I have it fairly easy; our high school daughter can self-manage her day. However, I have one client who has 3 children under the age of 5 at home while both he and his wife are trying to work. Ouch! That’s a tough situation!

So what are organizations doing to manage this? One best practice is to create intentional white space and schedule set times for team calls. One firm only holds calls from 8:30 am-noon and then 2-5 pm, local time. This allows people to have a midday break to attend to their own personal needs or the needs of those who live with them.

Learn together

It’s easy to disengage on employee development right now. I’ve heard “Training and development is a non-essential, so we’re cutting the live employee training we had planned”. I get it; financial stability and cash flow is vital right now. However, don’t forget about your teams who want to feel a sense of normalcy. So instead of offering a live employee development training, conduct a 60-minute virtual ‘lunch and learn’ on living through change or a 45-minute webinar about stress management instead. It’s easy to do and shows the teams that you are still there for them.

Lempathy

It’s easy to lose focus when WFH, so set a clear focus on short-term goals and how the goals align with the organizational mission. Create a 2-minute podcast or video to remind your team what you’re working on and use shared docs to create accountability.

It’s also easy to tilt toward excessive empathy, such as “It’s OK that Biva didn’t achieve his tasks today. He has 4 kids at home.” Giving a pass every once in a while shows flexibility; excessive empathy breeds missed deadlines. So use ‘both/and’ instead; in other words, try “Wow! Having four kids at home while working is hard. How can you achieve the biggest deadline today and have the kids home? What’s the first step? Second step?” Bottom line: show you care AND that goals still need to be completed. One of my coaching clients calls this “lempathy”: leading with empathy. It works for him; see if it works for you.

Focus on self-care

Stress manifests in different ways, for different reasons. In general, there are three pillars of health: physical, mental, and emotional. Take a self-assessment and ask yourself how you’re doing on:

Physical: Maintaining the nutrition, sleep and exercise that your body needs
Mental: Focusing on the task at hand
Emotional: Self-regulating your emotions appropriately with those around you

Whatever you do to manage your WFH situation, remember to keep it fun! People want to feel connected; they are looking for the water cooler experience, where they can just have a fun chat for a few minutes with each other. So set this up with virtual coffee chats, happy hours, walks, exercise classes, and even hobby times (knitting anyone?). One company in Boston creates daily entertainment videos for the employee’s children to watch while the parent is working. Another organization spreads smiles via Skype. What will work for you?

I’d love to hear how you are navigating your work from home in these stressful times. What is working for you and what is not? Let’s share experiences. Send me an email or contact us on Twitter.

April 2nd, 2020|Categories: Articles We Like, Blog, Stress / Work-Life Integration|Tags: coaching, coaching tips, covid-19, empathy, executive coaching, executive leadership, self-care, work-life balance, working from home, workplace culture|

July 29, 2013 / Articles We Like / Recommended Reading

Surprises Are the New Normal: Resilience is the New Skill"

We share this article by Rosabeth Moss Kanter because in business, as in life, change is a constant. An unlikely competitor disrupts your market share, a new promising product fails to get traction, key talent resigns. What makes the difference between winning and losing in those situations is how you bounce back.

In the Harvard Business Review article, Surprises are the New Normal: Resilience is the New Skill, we learn about resilience, what it is – and is not. Elizabeth Moss Kanter offers sage thoughts for us all.

Read it.

How resilient is your organization? What do you do as a leader to help your team move forward after a setback?

Comment below! Or pose a question via Ask Mariposa.

July 29th, 2013|Categories: Articles We Like, Recommended Reading|Tags: executive leadership coaching, global business, HBR, leadership, new normal, resilience, uncertain times, workplace culture|

November 20, 2012 / Ask Mariposa / Coaching Skills / HR / Talent Management / Influencing Skills

Ask Mariposa: Understanding the Culture of Your New Org

Will asked:

How can I help a new employee understand the culture of our organization?

Barbara Baill, Senior Leadership Consultant responded:

The first step is to be able to verbally describe the culture of the organization. We all intuitively know the culture of the organizations in which we live, but it can be challenging to articulate that knowledge and articulate how the organization demonstrates its beliefs, values, underlying assumptions, attitudes and behaviors.

Here are some questions to think about:
• What stories demonstrate the culture? Can you describe situations where individuals have gotten themselves in trouble by unintentionally violating cultural norms?
• What have successful employees done that demonstrate the company values and attitudes?
• If your company has articulated a set of values, what specifics behaviors demonstrate what those values really mean in terms of winning behaviors/successful performance?
• Where is the decision making power in the organization?
• How risk adverse/risk taking is the culture?
• Does communication flow hierarchically (formally) or democratically (informally) across, up and down the organization?
• In what ways and for what reasons do people really get recognized and rewarded?

It’s a good idea to ask multiple people for their input on describing the culture of the organization. You can also give your new employee the task of asking these questions to a list of others that you believe would be honest and open about the culture and who are also highly regarded across the organization.

Over time, continue to mentor your new employee on the cultural realities of your organization. As he or she gains experience in your organization, their contextual understanding of the cultural nuances will grow. Your coaching will help accelerate the integration of the new hire.

Share your thoughts on this response in the comments section below, and ask us anything here: http://blog.mariposaleadership.com/ask-mariposa/

November 20th, 2012|Categories: Ask Mariposa, Coaching Skills, HR / Talent Management, Influencing Skills|Tags: answer, ask mariposa, Barbara Baill, business, coaching, communication, executive coaching, HR, HR Leadership, organizational culture, workplace culture|