Beware of the Activity Avalanche That Can Damage Employee Well-Being
Learn about the evidence we have gathered that shows a return to normalcy can come with a price.
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Anyone who has worked with organizational networks knows that they are extremely dynamic in nature. The loss of a few critical employees can create substantial network fragmentation. While on the other hand, a few central employees moving from one part of the network to another, can quickly fuse together two previously separated groups.
As a result, organizational networks can rapidly shift from too little cross-organizational collaboration, to too much. This is exactly what is beginning to happen with many of the organizations with which Connected Commons partners. As both leaders and employees increasingly return to the office, organizations are becoming more and more connected – and that increases the risk of the activity avalanche.
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The Neighborhood Effect
During the early stages of the pandemic, the Neighborhood Effect had a major impact on organizational connectivity. In particular, bridging connections, or those connections that span across teams and functions deteriorated by as much as 30%. As we have written about frequently, the shift to remote work limited the opportunity for chance encounters across the organization. The result, was more distinct clusters, or increased network voids that limited the flow of ideas, information, and communication. In other words, the organizations began to look much more like a set of local neighborhood structures.
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The good news is, over time, teams became more intentional about finding creative ways to reconnect to other teams, even virtually. For example, in the early days of the pandemic, in just under 5% of the cases, we found that some groups not only defended off the erosion of bridging connections while working remotely, but they also increased connectivity. These groups were able to build out formal bridging mechanisms, proactively engage key bridging people, and actively leverage the social equity of key leaders. As a result, other groups were able to adopt these strategies to offset the negative implications of bridging erosion to ensure ongoing innovation, adaptability, and broad-based organizational effectiveness.
Activity Avalanche
However, more recently, we are beginning to see a different effect take hold. As leaders and employees return to the office, the degree of organizational connectivity has been increasing significantly. For example, in one division of a large consumer products organization that recently returned to the office, we saw a 22% increase in overall connectivity in just a few short months. As highlighted in figure 1., two hundred and thirty employees across seven different product groups quickly became hyper-connected across the division. This is a stark contrast to what we experienced at the beginning of the pandemic, and while it is beneficial in stimulating new innovation, it can also usher in some new concerns.
Figure 1. Large Consumer Products Division
We believe there are a number of things converging at the same time for many organizations. Not only, are many more leaders and employees returning to the office, but we are also seeing a surge in new activity within organizations. For the past few years, many organizations have put projects and initiatives on hold to power through the pandemic. As these organizations return to normal, leaders are kicking off new initiatives, launching critical transformations, and confronting new problems. The result is employees are being bombarded with an avalanche of new activities and demands on their time.
An activity avalanche begins to unfold, as priorities are piled on top of additional priorities without considering the implications of increased collaboration. Many employees are facing an overwhelming amount of work as they return to the office and reconnect with their colleague’s post pandemic. This is creating a burden on organizations by elevating the amount of collaboration. This results in new activities, requiring more interactions, resulting in an increase in the number of connections necessary to get work done.
Much of this is being fueled directly by leaders, yet the consequences are often invisible to them. In the case of a large pharmaceutical company, 71% of all meetings were either directly scheduled by executives or, cascaded throughout the organization in response to executive requests. For example, an executive schedules a meeting on a given topic, asks a few questions, and the next thing you know a new priority is formed, resulting in five more follow-up meetings. Pile on top of this, the current strategic objectives, a new initiative or two, and then add in a major transformation and you have an avalanche. This effect is intensified when many organizations are engaging in significant layoffs, because there are fewer employees to absorb the collaborative load.
Collaborative Intensity
The result of all of this is a significant increase in collaborative intensity across many organizations. This can lead to stress, burnout, and exhaustion among employees, as well as slowing down the organization's progress on critical priorities, transformations, and projects. Figure 2. shows this effect. Too little collaboration created languishing for employees, but too much generates overload.
To avoid what our colleague, Rob Cross calls, collaboration overload and its negative effects, organizations should focus first on determining the essential collaboration. What are the critical few activities on which to focus. This work suggests that we can buy back 18% to 24% of the collaborative intensity within organizations. High performing organizations collaborate in ways that enable them to be more efficient and improve their well-being, while avoiding unnecessary and excessive collaboration. However, as another Connected Commons colleague, Greg Pryor suggests, organizations also must be more intentional about their focus. Once they have bought back some time, they need to then refocus on the most critical activities associated with productivity, innovation, and well-being.
To address this issue, organizations need to be mindful of the amount of work and activities they are assigning to their employees. It is important to prioritize projects and initiatives, and to provide employees with the support and resources they need to manage their workload effectively. This might include additional training or coaching, as well as tools and technologies that can help employees work more efficiently and effectively. By taking a strategic and thoughtful approach to managing the activity avalanche, organizations can help their employees stay engaged, productive, and connected as they navigate the post-pandemic landscape.
Ways to Avoid the Activity Avalanche
To focus on only essential collaboration, organizations can take the following steps:
Define clear goals and priorities: Organizations should have a clear understanding of their goals and priorities, and ensure that their collaboration efforts are aligned with those goals. This will help them focus on the most essential collaborations that will drive business results.
Identify key stakeholders: Organizations should identify the key stakeholders who need to be involved in each collaboration effort. This will help them ensure that only the necessary individuals are involved, and avoid unnecessary meetings or discussions.
Create a collaboration framework: Organizations can create a framework for collaboration that outlines the purpose, goals, roles, and responsibilities of each collaboration effort. This will help ensure that each collaboration effort is focused and efficient.
Monitor and evaluate collaboration efforts: Organizations should monitor and evaluate their collaboration efforts to ensure that they are achieving their desired outcomes. This can help them identify any areas that need improvement or where collaboration efforts can be streamlined.
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