Nonprofit Staff Culture and COVID-19
For over a decade, I worked for a successful youth-serving nonprofit organization with an incredibly strong brand and culture. From our board president to our volunteers to the youth we served, we had a common identity.
We had high expectations for ourselves and everyone in our community, we treated everyone with dignity and respect, and we got things done.
This brand, this identity ran through everything we did-- from our after-school classes, to our annual fundraising event, to setting up new partnerships with educational institutions.
A national organization once sent a researcher to our office for several days to write a case study about our organization. The researcher was a well-respected professional, nationally known as an expert on nonprofit organizations focused on college access and success. At the end of her days with us, she observed with both wonder and humor that everyone she interacted with and interviewed during her time with us delivered the same message about our organization. We were a positive place, we had high professional standards, and we wanted the best for everyone in our world. (She was also abashed by our insistence on punctuality and the way our students reported that to be on time was to be early!)
Organizational culture starts with leadership and staff. Here are three tips for building (and pivoting) your staff culture under these circumstances.
Establish expectations and communicate them.
Many of us were scrambling at the beginning but at this point, it’s important to have established expectations for common meeting times, appropriate zoom attire and backgrounds, virtual meeting etiquette, etc. If you have a relaxed workplace culture, zany zoom backgrounds may be okay. If you have a more buttoned-up culture, it’s okay to ask everyone to make sure they are professionally dressed and groomed, in a quiet room with a tidy, professional background while on video calls. It’s important to communicate these things though. It’s also important to establish common call/ meeting times. Many families need to create a daily or weekly plan for space, managing children, meals, etc. Good planning from leadership will go a long way to keeping morale up and boosting productivity.
Action item: Have you written down your WFH (work from home) expectations and shared them with staff? If not, take a few minutes to do so.
Be flexible, even if flexibility isn’t usually your brand.
With the shift to so many people working from home, many for the first time, flexibility is incredibly important to preserve staff sanity and to accommodate the complicated lives that we are all living. The reality is that not everyone is going to be able to accommodate a strict 9-5 schedule. Many couples are staggering work hours to allow one person to tend to children and handle virtual schooling, while the other works. And that’s only the scenario where there are two adults. In either single or two parent households, a staff member may ask to work several hours in the morning and several in the evening, rather than a solid day. As long as the work gets done, this kind of flexibility is key, even if you don’t typically accommodate flexible schedules. It’s possible to maintain your brand, while being compassionate. You can still produce quality work, meet the needs of your clients and constituents, and accommodate your staff needs.
Action item: Does your work absolutely necessitate that everyone work the same hours? If not, have you offered flexibility to your staff? If you haven’t, make that an agenda item on check-in calls and meetings this week. With unemployment at an all-time high, staff may be intimidated to ask for flexibility in fear of not having a job at all.
Respect boundaries.
While being flexible is important, so is establishing and respecting boundaries.
One of the dangers of working from home is the lack of clarity between work and home. You’re in the same space, same clothes. One thing blends into the other, unless you put some boundaries around it and encourage your staff to do the same.
One of my friends is a third grade teacher. On Saturday morning, I texted her asking how the shift to online teaching is going and she replied: “Our hours are 10-2 M-F. Spring break started at 2 yesterday. Since then I've received 5 emails from the district, 2 from my principal, 1 from a parent, 1 phone call, written a report to justify the work I did this week and started planning for activities that I can share with my students to keep them busy next week during spring break. This spring break is nothing like a normal one.”
(Sidenote: One of the things I really hope results from this pandemic is more respect and compensation for our teachers.)
I’m all about getting work done. And about helping the most vulnerable. But we need to be realistic about what we expect from folks. And you need to protect your work-life balance. (Stop laughing! You really should try to have SOME!)
If you can be flexible with staff so they can work alternate hours, great. But let them know when you are available. If you can be flexible with them, they should also be flexible with you.
Action item: Let your direct reports know what your hours will be, even if it’s day by day, and how they can best contact you during your work hours and outside work hours. Consider discouraging texting and phone calls outside of work hours, unless it’s a true emergency. Encourage staff members who supervise others to do the same.
Be well during this difficult time.