They say that April showers bring May flowers. But for many working parents, the only things growing this season are panic and anxiety.
那时，除了定期承担义务外，父母还面临着毕业生活动的袭击，包括镜像，体育奖颁奖典礼，教室派对 - 在精神上和身体上将他们带离办公室。同时，他们争先恐后地组装了一个营地，活动和育儿的拼布被子，以覆盖整个夏天。这是一个沉重的认知和情感上的负担。
Some call it Maycember: an end of the year that comes in the middle of the year. This period leaves parents feeling overburdened, overwhelmed and racked with guilt, as they toggle between frustrating their coworkers and disappointing their kids.
It doesn’t need to be this way. Managers who communicate personally and meaningfully with their team members, can ease this hectic time, help retain valued employees, and make the workplace more sustainable and even more productive.
But first, they must grasp the scope of the problem. My company recently commissioned a民意调查about workplace attitudes, and the results suggest that managers may not be sufficiently aware of what many employees are experiencing. Although more than 20% of individual contributors said they felt their workplace culture is very unsustainable, only 5% of senior leaders agreed—a difference in perception that could stand in the way of change.
That difference can have its roots in who serves as the default parent in a family. This is the one who takes on most of the childcare and housework, often because their spouse has a higher paying job that’s deemed more important to the household. Chances are, senior leaders are not involved in the nitty gritty of coordinating, say, a new day camp program for the kids every two weeks throughout the summer, and they don’t fully understand the time and attention such tasks demand.
And since men still hold the majority of managerial and senior positions, it’s a burden that has typically fallen more heavily on women.
Studies show that even thoughmen’s share of domestic duties has risen近几十年来women perform significantly more caregiving, oftenat the expense of their paid work和心理健康。A recent survey by McKinsey和leanin.orgfound that the gap in burnout between women and men had almost doubled since the year before, and that one in three women had considered leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers—up from one in four early in the pandemic.
So, for senior managers, awareness comes first. The next step is to connect with the team on a truly personal level—which can mean moving beyond the routine check-ins that may work well for some team members but that others may find tiresome.
How to do that? Here are some proven approaches.
Really get to know your team
好吧，在忙碌的季节打击之前，请使用Myers-Briggs类型指标（例如Myers-Briggs类型指标）的个性评估工具来了解团队的沟通方式和冲突解决方案的偏好。这些见解将使您以最舒适的回应方式与每个成员接触。对于一个偏爱外向的员工，一个快速，面对面的人“嘿，你好吗？”可能足以使她在家中感到不知所措。另一方面，一个更内向的同事可能需要一封电子邮件或松懈的消息，以分享使他分散工作的问题。
转到问题的根源
我们想相信，人们可以完全将自己的角色划分 - 将作品放在一个盒子里，生命放在另一个盒子里。但是，当然，我们是全部人民，生活中的压力源会影响我们在工作中的表现，反之亦然。目的是使经理能够在人类层面与团队建立联系，从而达到困扰他们的根本原因。
The Maycember frenzy usually results from factors that are external to work. But sometimes it triggers a deeper issue: being in the wrong role. Research出版在斯坦福大学的社会创新评论中发现，工人在六个关键领域之一中的匹配不佳时更有可能烧毁：工作量，控制，奖励，社区，公平或价值观。试图解决团队的压力和倦怠问题而不发现根本原因可能是徒劳的。
提前计划并建造板凳
常规，有意义的沟通还可以有效地计划，以确保通过季节性退潮和员工缺席的流动。例如，在本周初举行会议，并得知父母在星期五早上与妈妈有松饼，这留下了足够的时间来相应地重组时间表。
Or bring the whole team together before Maycember panic sets in and plan not only around all the month’s school-related events but also for vacation travel plans throughout the summer.
但是，有时甚至预期的计划还不够，您必须暂时扩展团队。鉴于每年可能同时出现，父母会长期感到伸展，请考虑先发制人的措施，例如雇用承包商或重新分配工作量，以确保工作完成，而不会将恐慌的父母推到他们的突破点。
Think about it like this: When team members are reluctant to leave work for the recital or school party, they are going to worry about letting someone down—either their coworkers or their children. And they can’t help but bring all that tension, guilt and distraction to the job.
It’s never about just one person, one parent, or even one month. For the best outcomes, everyone’s needs and schedules must be interwoven and synched.
Anna Dearmon Kornick is head of Community atClockwise，团队的时间编排平台。她还主持It’s About Time，关于工作，生活和平衡的播客。