Autonomy at Work Isn't for Everyone...or is it?

Everyone wants autonomy at work, but is it for everyone?

Join Chas and Julie as they discuss the impact of workplace autonomy on employee satisfaction, job satisfaction, retention, and innovation. They emphasize the need for trust, flexibility, and effective communication to support employee ownership and creativity. Chas highlights the importance of building relationships and providing training, while Julie shares concerns about potential challenges and silos. 

Transcript

Chas Fields: 0:20

Oh, hey y'all, welcome to the people purpose podcast, Julie, do we even have to do this intro anymore? I don't know. I don't know. Hey, we talk all things work and the things that happen at work and how we help your workers. How about that? Julie, just change it up. Because why not? So, as we do every episode, Julie, what's on your mind?

Julie Develin: 0:47

Um, you know, I heard that Blondes have more fun, so that's why I dyed my hair blonde. Um, yeah,

Chas Fields: 0:52

Hey, YouTube is on an uptick, too for us. I looked at it today. So for those of you who are in listen only mode on your favorite, favorite streaming platform. Uh, go check it out. But yeah,

Julie Develin: 1:05

and by the and, by the way, it's not, it's not all blonde. It's not, not like platinum blonde, but it's um, it's definitely lighter. Um,

Chas Fields: 1:12

yeah, we should, we should place a bet for platinum blonde, or, like, you can choose my hair color. I don't care. You know, yeah, is friendly, but with consequence, no, well,

Julie Develin: 1:24

I used to, I've had my hair dark for a very long time. And when I was, when I was younger, I used to have it like, frosted blonde, yeah, you know, like in sync, you know, yeah. No, no, no, well, yeah, but I love it when it's lighter colored. And it's not easy to do because my hair is so dark. But, yeah, I spent two hours at the salon, and, you know, I got it light. So go to YouTube. Take a look. If you're not on YouTube, let me know what you think it can't it can only get so light. I mean, I anybody can go platinum, but it takes a long time.

Chas Fields: 2:01

Yeah, yeah. Was this inspired by the picture I found in my memories that I sent to you, of you and that, well, you're that I miss being blonde. Was this was, was my photo to you, but your previous inspiration, I guess, is this why you did it?

Julie Develin: 2:22

No, I don't know why I did it. I it was, yes, it was your inspiration. No, I don't know. I just, I just, I had a hankering. It's, why did I get a new tattoo, right? I got another new straight, by the way, great artists. Thanks, thanks. Yeah, so, you know, it's like, it's like, just, you know, changing things up. Because why not?

Chas Fields: 2:44

So for those of you who don't know I mentioned this on the last episode, go into your streaming platform and you can text the show. You can text the show and let us know that you love to at least blonde hair. You can text as well and ask us crazy questions. You can text the show and tell us other things. You know what the reality of it is. We're excited to be able to connect with you, and that's what's on my mind. And shout out. We asked folks in the Olympic episode could because we had an episode in between the Olympic episode and this one with Harvard Business Schools, Dan O'Connor, brilliant episode, by the way, we said, hey, what was your favorite sport to watch? And we had some responses, but the big one that I thought was cool, Julie, was someone really missed softball, and that is coming back. No, that's near and dear to your heart, but that's not coming back until 2028 we had folks that say, rugby. I got my fix on table tennis, and my son absolutely loved it. Daddy, look at how fast they are. Like, yeah, I'll never be that. Sorry. So,

Julie Develin: 3:52

I mean, that's, that's incredible talent, you know, just incredible talent. And, you know, yeah, softball is coming back in 2028 and the one of the things that people are there's some talk about how softball is actually going to be held in Oklahoma City, not in LA, where the rest of the Olympics is not as bad as surfing being held in, you know, the Tahitian islands. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I'm actually, and I've been talking to some folks about this, I want to go. I want to I think that it's like a bucket list kind of thing to go to the Olympics. And, you know, I think will be difficult to get tickets and everything, but we'll see. We'll see,

Chas Fields: 4:36

worth it, worth it, worth a try. So Julie, I did in the podcast that we talked about the Olympic, Olympics, and how it disrupted work. We did have a bet. Okay, remember what the outcome of the bet was? How about we donate to a charity? I don't know, but here's the deal. We made a bet on how many medals the United States would. In and I had no frame of reference, and I said, 35 and you took the over. Therefore I believe so, and you win. So you ready for this Olympic medals? The United States total, in total, was the number one at 126 the People's Republic of China had 91 and the third highest representation of metal count was Japan with 45 So Julie, here's the sad part now that I have a frame of reference, I only said 35 medals is what we would take. And boy, I was wrong.

Julie Develin: 5:41

Yeah, I think next time we start the over under at 99 right? Or we started at one 110 or 111 or something like that. I think one of the things that I noticed the rest of the world for the sports where the Americans have dominated, they have started to really catch up, if you notice what happened with women's basketball, how they just barely beat out France, you know. And you know, France gave the men a really good game too. So it's not, it's no longer, I don't know that any one country can dominate, will dominate anything in although the Chinese, Chinese folks are really, really good at diving. I believe that they, they like, took all the metals. And, you know, I don't know, I, I It's fun to watch. It was, I miss it already. Like, it's one of those things where you can just turn it on and you just know it's going to be on for two straight

Chas Fields: 6:34

weeks. We, we loved, we paid for the the extra subscription to essentially catch everything, right? I don't know, like, 10 bucks for the two and a half three weeks or whatever. So it was on constantly here, like in the morning, we had it on throughout the day, we had it on we watched Prime Time and the metal for gold, like, just it was, it was constantly on here. And my wife and I were sitting on the couch, and she goes, Listen, we would never, you know, rarely would we ever watch swimming. But one of the reasons why we love the Olympics is we're literally screaming at the TV, yelling, Go, go, go, as a sense of pride as we watch Katie wadecki win her like, 9,000,000th medal. You know what? I mean? Yeah,

Julie Develin: 7:19

so fun. And this is the thing, like, you know, we talked about how we did, you can G did the study on the Olympics and the productivity and everything like that. It doesn't always have to be negative. We take it in a hey, this brings people together. And, you know, hopefully, hopefully organizations were, well, listen, you have a four year leeway right to to figure out how you can celebrate La 28 you know, as an organization, how you can bring your employees together. I mean, lots of different things that you can do, which I'm sure we can talk more about as we move forward. But I would love to talk about the Olympics the entire episode and, you know, but I don't know that we're supposed to do that, and we should probably continue on and talk a little bit about business stat of the day you want to give it? Chas,

Chas Fields: 8:05

yep. So, according to a Gallup poll, companies that allow autonomy see a 21% increase in job level satisfaction, and employees in autonomous roles report 15% lower stress levels, you know, drum roll, please. We're talking about autonomy. But Julie, first thoughts,

Julie Develin: 8:27

yeah, autonomy. I mean, go back to the Olympics, right? Did you give your employees autonomy to decide whether or not they wanted to swap a shift so they could watch the Olympics? Did you, you know, or did you as an employee, have that autonomy? You know, we talked about how there were so many different ways to consume this material, this content, and that's the same for any kind of entertainment that's going on in the world today. You can consume it on your phone, computer, you know, laptop, TV, I mean, you name it, right? It's like lots of different ways. But I'm surprised. Actually, I believe that that 15% lower stress levels, it seems pretty low. I would imagine that that would be even higher. And you know, you have to look at the way that they run the survey and everything like that, but I would, I would find that there'd be lower stress levels, except if there are people who need to be micromanaged or need to have eyes on them all the time. So before we get started, though, I think it's important that we discuss what autonomy actually is, and let's, let's go with here. What does autonomy mean to you? Chas,

Chas Fields: 9:32

yeah, so by definition, workplace autonomy is the given, is the freedom given to employees to make their own decisions and take ownership of their work. Now, high high bus works, right? In my opinion, this is, you know, freedom given to employees to make their own decisions and take ownership of their work seems like a very, very distant concept, right? And when I look at the numbers that you that we just talked about in the business side of the day, and the term that you use. Is maybe there's a need for employees to feel micromanaged, because maybe the work isn't getting done. I know you didn't necessarily know, but it's

Julie Develin: 10:10

not no but it's not every it's not every employee I'm talking about. I'm talking about personal choice, because some people want, some people want to have that just don't talk to me. Let me do my work. Let me, let me. I'm over here. You're over there. If I need you, I will come find you right as as a manager or even colleagues in some circumstances. So that's what I'm saying. Some people don't want that, and then some people want it only when they want it. It's difficult. It's really difficult to me. Autonomy is just freedom, you know, and you know the the ability to decide for oneself how oneself is able to work best, and then the organization supporting that. So we've talked before on other episodes about night owl and early bird stuff, right?

Chas Fields: 11:02

It's going way back. Yeah,

Julie Develin: 11:04

I know. I mean, I was on a call today with a colleague who was on the West Coast, and it was a 9am Eastern Time call, and, you know, right, right? But, but, but this person was like, Oh no, it's okay. I love getting up this early. And I'm like, what you know that to me, did

Chas Fields: 11:22

you think of me? Did you think of me? You're like, four hours.

Julie Develin: 11:26

I can't tell you how many of our colleagues will teams message me or email me, you know, like, I'm like, before 8am and I'm just like, what? It's just, it's so foreign to me. But again, you know, UKG allows us that autonomy to to work whenever it is convenient for us. Now, example, I will work until 910, 1112, o'clock at night. Sometimes I've

Chas Fields: 11:50

seen emails come from you at 2am

Julie Develin: 11:53

right. It's just how I am and who I am. That, in my opinion, is autonomy, autonomy to decide when I'm able, when I when I'm most creative, or when I'm most inspired to do my work, the organization allows it. Now, can everybody do that? No, I mean, obviously, think about shift work, right? Let's talk about that. Let's talk about shift work. Yeah,

Chas Fields: 12:19

I want to take a step back and think about for a lot of reasons, when we ask, what is autonomy, people just think I can do what I want when I want, right, and it's a lot about per or policy instead of procedure, right, or sometimes procedure more than policy. So shift work is a prime example. Policy and Procedure require me to work within eight hours, right? And I have to do my job within those eight hours. Where it becomes really interesting is we never talk about how to build relationships to get the autonomy that we so desire, right? Well, that's about trust, isn't it? To some degree, it's also about how the business is structured. It's also about the work that you're doing, the good or service that you're providing. It goes well beyond just Well, hey, you can take ownership of your job and then go and make your own decisions. Well, if you are working in a factory and your job is to produce a piece of a widget, and that's what you do, eight hours in, you know, eight hours out, so on and so forth. You take the ownership of putting it together, right? But doesn't necessarily extend beyond that. Whereas roles like ours, we can have the flexibility we we do what we need to do when we need to do it. You work until 1011, 12 o'clock at night. I've been in bed for four hours. You know what I mean?

Julie Develin: 13:45

I'm like, that's that's early.

Chas Fields: 13:49

So, so the thing that I want to hone in on is to how do we how do we get autonomy to be created in all environments? And I think it starts with the relationships that you build inside of the workplace and how you build them with purpose. Go ahead,

Julie Develin: 14:04

yeah. But I also feel like you build all you build the ability to be autonomous by the output that you have shown, that you have shown that you're capable of providing the organization. Because here's the thing. This is also, and we talk about this all the time, very much on managers. Because if I'm let's say I'm a new employee, and I come in and I'm tasked with building the widget, and you teach me how to build the widget. I go through the training, etc, etc, etc, great. I'm now on my own. I've been taught how to build the widget, but the manager notices that the productivity is way down, right? Meaning, like I was supposed to make 10 widgets an hour, and I've only making four, okay? So at that point, that's when a manager needs to step in and not give, not take away the autonomy, but at covid. Coach and be that person that says, hey, listen, we want you to go and we want you to do this on your own, and we want you to succeed, etc. But what we're noticing is there's a lack of productivity. So that's when I think organizations have to look at themselves and say, Okay, is it a lack of training? Is it, you know, is it a lack of skill building? Like, what is it, right? And, yeah, go ahead. No,

Chas Fields: 15:22

it's true. Because when we have autonomy, we know a proven factor is it invites creativity, right? And I think about the shift work example to creating that widget that you were just describing, you know, there may be an opportunity to do it in a better way, right, or a faster way that, even though you were trained to build that widget within the confines of whatever it is, maybe you know, you have smaller hands and you can do it faster, a different way, right? Or whatever,

Julie Develin: 15:52

are widgets a thing I don't know, like, is there?

Chas Fields: 15:57

Is the closest thing to a widget? Like,

Julie Develin: 16:00

is there actually? We use that. I hear the example all the time, like, Oh, really, widgets on the line? Yeah, we have to listen to the next episode. We'll determine whether or not widgets are a thing and is there. And if there is a widget, what does it look like?

Chas Fields: 16:15

Text us your ideas and how your workplace helps you with autonomy are providing you autonomy, but, but let's say, in those instances, in the confines, whatever the circumstances, whatever good or service you're providing, I am not going to hear my manager. Listen to my manager if I haven't built that relationship right, I'm never going to achieve autonomy. And they may never give me true autonomy. If my productivity is lower, my output is incorrect. So I agree with you completely. You have to do a little bit of work, and that's why I say build the relationship and do your job and do it well. But in building that relationship as you do your job and do it well, both sides have to show some level of empathy, and I did some research. What's interesting about autonomy in the workplace? It actually requires quality time with colleagues.

Julie Develin: 17:10

How does that? Does not compute autonomy, but with but getting together with people? And no, I guess that makes sense.

Chas Fields: 17:18

Sure it does. Yeah, you know, to have it. And then the other piece, what a shocker, Julie. Is communication, right? So, so can you the question then becomes, can you have trust and autonomy if you don't have empathy, quality time and communication? No, there you go. No.

Julie Develin: 17:38

I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about this too. From another perspective, I think so often in today's workforce, folks want to know their purpose, right? But I think purpose, purpose comes from ownership, being able to own something and say, Okay, I this is my project. I'm taking it on now that comes with with some challenges, because if something fails, they also need to be able to take ownership of it, of the project not working out, or perhaps not being able to meet a timeline, or perhaps being able to having to pivot. Now, we have to have psychological safety at work to allow people to make mistakes, because humans will make mistakes. I made one or two of my life. You know, I mean,

Chas Fields: 18:24

no, I agree with you, because ownership, you know, ownership means good and bad, right? It's the same with managers and leadership, right? There's not every manager, not every leader is going to make the exact right decision to appease every single employee. It's it's not realistic. So it's that delicate balance of accountability. And when I think ownership, I think owning a home, or even renting a home like you, you want to keep it nice, therefore you have to invest time and resources to continue to keep it nice. That is part of ownership, and that's where, you know, you highlighted like psychological safety and doing well, and you want to achieve your goals. Now we're getting into like, self determination theory, and this is where

Julie Develin: 19:12

Don't hang up. Don't turn this off everybody. He's going to start talking

Chas Fields: 19:16

about theories. No. Self determination theory is a heavy responsibility on the workplace, even though I myself have goals and things that I want to achieve, and yes, I want autonomy and ownership, it's still I still rely on the company to allow to give me those opportunities and to make sure that my goals are aligned with company goals and so on and so forth. So I think it reinforces autonomy to some degree, but we also know that autonomy has a phenomenal benefit to the organization. So it's like, if I trust you to do this job, I hire you to do this job. I want you to do this job. I know you're going to do this job. Well, should I give you full autonomy on the first. A, I don't know that I have the answer

Julie Develin: 20:02

to that is, really, is all of this just a Mic drop? We need to do an episode on this. Mike HR, mic drops, right? You get, no, you get, you write it down.

Chas Fields: 20:12

You're my great place to work. Notebook you get, you get trust,

Julie Develin: 20:16

right? And things work out. You get communication, right? And things work out. You get ownership right and things work out. How do we how it's almost like, how do we look at these things, these big, macro things? How do we get if we get them right, if we work to get them right, and it's not snap your fingers, it's right, and you're done. It's a process of continuous improvement. But if we work to get them right, I believe that so many other things fall into place, but there's so much man, the workplace is so complicated, but we make it that way sometimes.

Chas Fields: 20:51

Yeah, do you here's, here's a here's a question. Do you think control limits autonomy and productivity? Control? Control. So, so let me, let me preface this, you know, I think here's my thing about autonomy, right? You want people to take ownership. You want them to do their job well. You want to put measurable things in front of them. And, you know, succeed, right? But you as a manager, you as a people leader, have to control some of that output. So is it truly autonomy, right? Is it truly autonomy by me saying, Okay, go, own it, but I'm going to make sure that this gets delivered the exact way, so I'm actually hindering your decision making power, right? But is

Julie Develin: 21:37

it, is it, is there collaborative autonomy?

Chas Fields: 21:41

Yeah, I think, I absolutely think so. I think you and I exemplify that every episode, right, like I do. I think we do it's you want to cover something this week. We figure it out. We work it out. You know, you may do the outline, or whatever, I think, in the workplace that happens often, collaborative teams, absolutely you own your piece of the project, but the responsibility is ultimately on the one that has to deliver it,

Julie Develin: 22:07

yeah, but that could also be dangerous, because it could lead to silos with especially when we're talking about, well, when we're talking about team autonomy, right? Okay, great. My team has this project, so you know, you guys own that project, and this is yours, and I'm wiping my hands clean of it, and then something goes wrong, and I'm blaming you, and then right? I'm throwing you under the bus and all of the and all of those things. I mean, this happened. If we get relationships right at work, I think that's another HR mic job, right? Like or relationship management or civility, I mean, so many different things that we can do. But, but, you know, I think autonomy also. I think there's a a risk in fairness, also the perception of fairness when it comes to who can be autonomous versus who needs to be managed more closely, which is another word for micromanagement. How do you measure it? And and also, and also, Who?

Unknown: 23:20

Who?

Julie Develin: 23:22

Who? Who gets to say whether or not my autonomy needs to be pulled back a bit. Who's, who's, who's

Chas Fields: 23:33

again, is it based on output? Is it based on, you know, external circumstance, right? Like i

Julie Develin: 23:40

Well, yes. And I think all organizations would do well to review autonomy now and how they're utilizing this concept. But don't just assume, right? Ask, ask your employees, yeah, sorry, I cut you off.

Chas Fields: 23:57

No, no, it's great. Like, I think a prime example, and this is, this is a hard one for a lot of organizations to give up. It is expense cards, right? Yeah. So, so, you know, establishing a policy that, you know, for autonomy, that allows budget expenditures that that don't necessarily require approval, you know, it's good but, but maybe there should be something in place that doesn't allow it. You know, you don't want every employee going out and spending, you know, 10s of 1000s of dollars. But, you know, this is, it's a tricky subject, and that's why I wanted to talk about it, because we know that autonomy does a lot of good things. And I kind of want to talk about that, because we got to wrap here pretty quick. Yeah, we know that it increases productivity, right? Because it allows people to manage your tasks and their time. We you know, flexible scheduling and flexible work environments have proven productivity increases and. Are at a higher level, based on a study that that we found University of Birmingham 22% more productivity than those with less autonomy, right? So, so the question we got, do you want a 1/5 better productivity in your organization by providing autonomy? Right? Yes,

Julie Develin: 25:18

yeah, sure, yeah. 5% Yep,

Chas Fields: 25:21

would take it. You know, 10% Absolutely, but 22% the other piece here that talks about it is overall well being right? It's linked directly to higher job satisfaction, and they're more likely this is interesting, to be content with their job if they have autonomy, right? Because it impacts their overall positive well being, and that was the study we saw earlier, the 21% increase in job satisfaction from Gallup. I really find it interesting how that ties directly to stress, because if I find content, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to be happy, but content does not increase stress like I think we apply that in our personal life. What are what are the other ones? Jules,

Julie Develin: 26:08

I think it can help with retention, because and we're always looking at how to have lower turnover rates. But if we're thinking about giving someone autonomy, autonomy can breed loyalty, and then loyalty breeds, basically, is like synonymous with trust, right? And then, you know, ultimately, you know, that leads to lower, lower costs for employers. And you know, I think that there was a study from the American Psychological Association that found that workplaces that had better autonomy, or higher levels of autonomy, had about a 30% lower turnover rate. Again, you have to look in your own your own organization. Are you are you seeing folks who are leaving under a certain department, under a certain manager? And could this be one reason why? Right, they don't feel like they're trusted. They don't feel like they can just work and do their job. And there's too much red tape, you know. And you know, too much red tape and lack of lack of support for autonomous working also leads to disengagement. So when we have autonomy, higher employee engagement is seen. And I think also when we look at the overall outcome, what happens here is that there's better business success when we have this kind of thing in place. So it's just a matter of, what does autonomy look like for your positions? One of the things that I've been suggesting a lot organizations take a look at, and we have to start here, is take a look at your job descriptions, and start with the job descriptions and make sure they're up to date, and make sure that they're current, and make sure that people are able to see them, and, you know, set expectations the right way. So no,

Chas Fields: 28:00

I think you're I think you're spot on with all that. The last one that I would say is we talked about at briefly, is it fosters innovation and creativity. Harvard Business Review had talked about 33% higher or employees are more likely to foster innovation and creativity with autonomy. But that all of that is so driven by culture and what you talk about when it comes to psychological safety in the workplace, it's not just, Hey, go do take ownership. Do it well, we're not going to leave you in the wind. It's also, if and when you fail, don't worry about it. Because guess what? We're going to go back to the drawing board. We're going to figure it out. We're going to do it together, you know? And I don't want to get to the place where, in a workplace, where it's micro managing, and then all of a sudden you lose creativity, one of those things, when we stop talking, the conversation never progresses, right? And it's like, Well, that seems so simple, but the places that I've spent, and time I've spent on a shop floor or walking a warehouse or sitting in a boardroom, I like to go talk to the frontline employees, because they're going to tell you exactly what they need. And one of those things is I just wish they'd let me do my job, because I know how to do it and do it well, and then take that and build on it, right? So, too

Julie Develin: 29:22

much, too much red tape and too many decision making layers. So anyway,

Chas Fields: 29:27

too much. Want to control too Yeah,

Julie Develin: 29:29

yeah. What did you find your purpose in Chas tough

Chas Fields: 29:33

subject. I want every company to have autonomy. I just don't exactly know how every organization can do it, but I do want to hear from our audience members text the show. We would love to hear how you feel as though your company limits your autonomy, or how they do a really good job of it. And we'll obviously keep that private, and we'll just share the comments. What about you? Where

Julie Develin: 29:56

do folks find the number to text the show? By the way, it's in the. Description

Chas Fields: 30:00

of the platform. So whatever platform they're listening on, right at the top it says, send a text message, and that goes directly to you and I Jules,

Julie Develin: 30:06

send a text message. It's all about communication. Yeah, um, I found my purpose in, well, coming up with a new episode, but also coming up with my own new term, which is HR Mic drop. And I think, Well, I think I'm going to lead into that and but, but no, I mean, truthfully, it's really just about checks and balances and checking in and making sure that managers are all on the same page for what the organization expects, in terms of them allowing employees their autonomy. So Chas, don't forget to like and subscribe and do all the things and text message us and, you know, visit the ukg.com of course, we have so many cool resources on there. It's just a wealth of information. So, yeah, besides that jazz, anything else, you

Chas Fields: 31:06

and I are going to be at HR Nebraska next week, doing the pre conference workshop and a couple of sessions. So I'm stoked for that. By the time this drops, it'll actually be passed. But shout out to our HR Nebraska, you know, followers and all of the cool people that we get to meet there. It's such a great conference. So Omaha, okay, yeah, Omaha, that's right, yeah, thanks for listening. Bye.