There was a robust response to my post on Wounded Workers 2020. We have experienced a plethora of wounds at work related to Covid-19. Our wounds can be physical, spatial, emotional, mental, stress-related, relationships, technological, psychological, economic, etc. There is a pervasive range and experience of the working wounded and those who are no longer working at this time.

To examine the metaphor a little more, “a wound is a disruption of the normal structure and function of the skin.” Wounded worker have experienced disruption of the normal structure and function of work. Obviously, not everyone has been wounded at work but there are so many more of us wounded than most of us imagine.

A large difference in work wounds from physical wounds is that often we can’t see many of the wounds of wounded workers. That is why I placed a bandage of my shirt, to make things a little more visible even if it is just symbolic.

We need to heal. I believe we will need time, energy, attention, conversation, and caring to heal our wounds. Please note that I say heal not cure. I love Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definition of healing, “coming to terms with things as they are.” Easier said, than done.

How are you doing coming to terms with things as they are?

We have been wounded at work. The coronavirus, about 1/10,000th the size of a grain of salt, altered everything. Wounds have ranged from fatality and unemployment to burnout or the loss of what we thought work was.

I am seeing many articles about coming back stronger. I am uncomfortable with that…not the coming back stronger, but the sense of let’s get over this. Sometimes, this seems to be a shallow plea for resilient workers – when life throws you a lemon make lemonade leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Wounds tend to attract attention to themselves and grief, as hard as it is, is a way to keep a loss alive. I don’t know about you but I plan to keep alive what has happened to myself and so many in 2020.

Robert Bly believed that our wounds transformed can become our gifts to our community. I like the idea of transformational gifts but I don’t think it can be rushed.

William Bridges was adamant that our biggest failure in organizations is the failure to acknowledge who is losing what because of a change. Our transition out of our wounds is through our wounds.

Ensure you pause fully to take stock of your wounds, that everyone is invited to talk about what they lost in 2020, and you move forward carefully, which to me, means full of care.

Last year at this time, none of us imagined how much change we would experience in work in 2020? To get a handle on it, I invite you write a personal 6-word story to capture your work experiences in the first half of 2020.

We may achieve a certain sense of comprehension or control over our experience when we transform experience into story. It may offer us a new perspective or a simple structure for a deeper more salient understanding of what has been going through. Creativity thrives with constraints and the constraint of capturing your work over 5 months with 6 words if a definite constraint.

We have been asking registrants of our June 11^th Poppulo webinar on learn, adapt, and transform to write their 6-word story after registering. Here are 2 examples:

• Thought I might catch up; baloney.
• We can rise to the challenge.

And here is my 6-word story: Almost retired, pandemic pandemonium – I’m needed.”

In 2009 I asked members of the Employee Experience & Engagement Network to compose a six-word story of engagement. We turned it into a small book. I offer you this e-book as inspiration for you to write your own story of 2020. http://www.davidzinger.com/wp-content/uploads/Employee-Engagement-Six-Word-ebook.pdf

So, what is your six-word story?

I invite you to join me this Thursday June 11^th for the webinar: Learn, Adapt, & Transform for the New Work Reality: https://bit.ly/35W3MlJ

James Lawson-Miln, the head of internal communication for Poppulo, and I will offer a framework for responding to our challenges in learning, adapting, and transforming in a webinar June 11th at 11am EDT. Attend the webinar and stay for further conversation after the hour as we equip ourselves and our organizations to make the second half of 2020 a time of robust rebuilding. Register Now.

Below is some background on what we will be discussing.

COVID-19 has created a seismic shift in the way we work. Engagement has been shaken up while the employee experience continues to somersault. Some organizations have collapsed while others have expanded rapidly to meet unanticipated needs.

We have shifted where we work, how we work, and our views of the future of work. Hoards of us are working from home, multitudes are furloughed or laid off, while others are working long hours, risking their lives, and sometimes receiving danger pay as a gesture of support. The boundaries between work and the rest of life are eroding as parents and children wrestle for Wi-Fi bandwidth to complete work and school while sitting at the kitchen table. 

How will we and our companies restructure our relationship with work going forward as the ground rumbles underneath our feet?

1. Learn

Learning requires reflection and anticipation. What have you learned about work and what will you and others in your organization need to learn to sustain your organization and enliven your work experience? A great Canadian thinker, Marshall McLuhan, said in the future we will learn a living more than earn a living. That future is now.

2. Adapt

When things were business as usual we could adapt to work by assimilating new experiences into our existing understanding of work. But COVID-19 has created massive disequilibrium asking us to create new internal and external structures to adapt to change. In what specific ways have you mentally and socially adapted to the changing landscape of work?

3. Transform

Although we must be cautious in declaring silver linings or touting anemic positive thinking it is a marvel to see how individuals and organizations can transform. Many of us have been wounded by work yet as the poet and writer Robert Bly stated, “our wounds transformed can become our gifts to our community.” When you look at the journey of moving through COVID-19 are you enduring, managing, mastering, or transforming your experience and your organization?

I believe engagement needs to transform from employee engagement to work engagement. This signals a shift from focusing on completing surveys and liking the organization or feeling good about where we work to performing good work in a sustainable way, every day. Engagement must become relevant, meaningful, and authentic.

Register now to get ready for the second half of 2020.