A New Year Workplace Diet: More Nice, Less Jerk

When Vishal Garg, Founder and CEO of Better.com fired 900 employees over a Zoom session, he wasn’t expecting the sort of backlash that erupted when the meeting went viral. He apologized, but the damage was done, Mr. Garg is now “taking time off,” presumably while his fate is determined. The incident triggered a very public discussion about the responsibility of managers to create an environment where mutual respect and civil discourse are the rule, not the exception. 

Since the pandemic forced us to communicate from remote locations, any mistake or disruptive behavior can have a significant negative impact on both a career and a company’s image. In the world of Zoom meetings, business etiquette and managerial skills have never been more important.

There Has Been a Reckoning in the Workplace

It might be that the pandemic and the threat of a dangerous illness has accelerated a movement toward rethinking the way we deserve to be treated in the workplace. The “Great Resignation” in November, when 4.5 million people walked away from their jobs, is certainly evidence of this reckoning. 

But the workplace had been changing long before last November, with millennials constantly demanding both flexibility and an increased sense of purpose, and important social movements like #MeToo very publicly calling out intolerable behaviors. While being a jerk still isn’t illegal, in a tight job market there is little room for error. Managers and executives who desperately need to improve their soft skills will alienate good employees and hurt their company’s reputation. Additionally, companies who fail to recognize the changing landscape will start to lose market share as clients and customers seek better services from better organizations. 

Team Players for the Daily Double, Please

To prevent a loss of talent and revenue, executives need to take action. Change happens from the top down, and cultivating a workplace culture intolerant of bullies and backstabbers has to be supported by management. One strategy for identifying great hires was developed by Shani Ospina, executive coach for the tech company, Strategyzer. Shani likes to thoroughly assess a candidate’s fit based on their company’s mandate for hiring team players. As Emma Goldberg writes in a recent New York Times article, No More Working for Jerks, “Ospina’s process is guided by the idea that most people are petty sometimes, but what separates the average person from the hard-core jerk is the capacity to recognize failures and try to improve.”

It’s Not the Mistake, It’s How You Handle It 

For second wave millennials and now Gen Zers who look up to (or dread) their older coworkers, it’s important to understand that a person who's been at a company for 20 years might not have up-to-date soft skills, but still possess valuable experience that’s worth passing on. After all, in a world where we are all flawed humans, it’s not so much about making mistakes as it is about how you handle those mistakes.

We live in difficult times and culture is constantly changing.. But in a world where everything we say and do could end up blasted out on social media, mistakes can cost a company their reputation in a matter of minutes. Better.com had been quietly building it’s platform for years before Garg’s viral tantrum. Maybe if he had seen a few Habitly training videos he would have handled the situation differently. 

In many cases, your team just needs consistent training to help them practice empathy and refine the way they communicate. Habitly creates training videos designed to enhance positive business environments and that’s a powerful way to ensure harmony in the workplace.