338. Are workplace friendships actually a good idea? PLUS! Quiet firing, 80s jobs and Xmas rotas, with Nicole Williams C.Psychol

21:41So, Nicole, can I come to you first? First of all, these five steps are, number one, clarify before you blame. So in other words, work out whether it actually is their fault or whether it's someone else's fault. Secondly, the accountability conversation. This is where they say, hey, I know this fell through. I know you care. So I'm going to assume this failure is on us leaders. We either fail to clarify expectations or fail to provide the resources to succeed. Which brings me on to number three, confirm they do have the resources. Do you have everything you need to succeed? and four the performance improvement plan so this is i'm guessing after it's escalated more that's when you go through a pip with a 30 to 90 days and step five let them leave on their own terms so if none of that works we let team members resign before starting a pip and still receive the same separation pay they would have earned during the pip most take it they know they're failing this lets them walk away with dignity nicole pull that apart tell us what's good and what maybe not so good it's an interesting one isn't it um i'd be interesting to know how successful that is like how on how many occasions do they do people actually come to the conclusion that they're gonna leave or do they just go no i'm still not leaving you know because what what are their other opportunities what are they supported after they leave to find another job to find another employment um all of that side of it um I guess if it's a supportive process I'm all for that I think if somebody is performance managed in a supported way but I think again what's the agenda so is the agenda to to manage them in order to prove that they can't do the job or you support performance manage them to help them improve and get better potentially be able to fulfill a role in your business or your company, whether it's the same role or a different role.

23:37So what's the agenda there? You're managing them to prove that they can't do the job or you're managing them to try and support them to stay in the job and fulfil and succeed. I also, I don't know, I mean, I'm not an HR expert, but where does it teeter on the constructive dismissal end of things as well? Probably more questions than thoughts around this at the moment.

24:02Leanne:Yeah, I agree. what's the agenda like it how it was set up and maybe this was just for the power of social media to get some attention but how it was set up made it sound like this is how I get rid of people when they're not performing rather than this is how I re-motivate and get back on track people when they're falling behind and most of them end up staying and smashing it do you know what I mean like the way it's it's phrased make it sound like it doesn't really matter how well they'll do during that period it sounds like an empty like do you have all the resources you need yeah clearly not because something's not working and also how do i necessarily know what resource i need if things aren't working it just sounds like it's it's a foregone conclusion this person is going to be exited from the business and that feels a bit icky to me yeah well to be fair there's um it's only got 10 000 views but 238 bookmarks so that's that shows that people are looking is going great okay this sounds like a good thing, a good framework to follow.

25:02And you're saying that you have to be a little bit careful. I suppose the question I've got is, if I'm a manager or if I'm an employer, an employer, so let's say I'm a founder and it's my own business, it's going to cost me money if I have to go through a lengthy process of like six months of just seeing if this person's going to get better. I just want to get rid and move on. But what you're telling me is that I shouldn't be doing that it's not the attitude I should have I can empathize with people particularly small businesses where you know this can be a real kind of it feels like a real drain on your costs and expenses if you've got somebody who isn't performing and you're a small business and budgets are tight and all of that stuff totally understand that I think you can't have one extreme or the other you've got to have a balance of those managing those two two things and I also what also came to mind was we also pin a lockdown on that individual don't we and actually are we looking at whether the the the organization we are the system that we're creating for that person to function is is that supporting them and setting them up in the best way as well so again where's our accountability as a business as a business leader as an owner to make sure that we're creating the conditions that somebody is able to, is it all down to that individual or are we, what is it, the system that they're operating in as well?

26:27Leanne:So yeah, it's complex. I mean, look, it's a method, isn't it? It's a method, whether it will come back to bite them in the end, going through that kind of process. I guess it depends how it feels from the employee's perspective as well, doesn't it? and I'd be interested to know how employees felt going through that kind of process as well. Very good point and I should point out that Ryan Dice is based in the States where I believe it's slightly easier to fire people up. If suits is anything to go by then they just fire people without anything. They just go you're fired and then they have to clear the desk whereas in the UK or different places HR rules.

27:05As I say none of us here are HR experts but you're saying that HR rules you have to be a little bit careful of that.

27:09Leanne:Yeah and I think Nick's right. It points to the kind of operating environment. what else is happening isn't it like for you to have have such a policy in place which or a framework in place means it must happen fairly frequently so my question is why you continue to bring people into your business who aren't qualified or capable of doing the job you're wasting your time you're wasting their time you're putting extra stress on on the team potentially going you know through kind of unlawful dismissals um it just seems like you're putting a lot of effort onto how to get somebody out of your business when maybe you focus on getting the right people in it might not be much of a as much of a thing very nice very nice okay so that's the end of the news roundup we uh we're going to take a very short break and then we're going to come back with nicole's truth or lie this is we're looking forward to this could be a good one see you in a second welcome to the break yes my favorite part of the show they these these two idiots have stopped talking yes i want to tell you about my new favorite podcast no that's a lie it's my old favorite podcast i've been on this one for a while didn't know where that was going It is called I Digress.

28:14Leanne:It is hosted by Troy Sandage and it is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Yes, it's got shows that are under 30 minutes and I Digress helps eliminate complexity, complications and confusion in your business with frameworks and strategies that achieve scalable and sustainable success. At least that's what it says here. And if you do want to hear a really personal story, go to episode 136. This is Troy's honest account of fatherhood, killing hustle culture, and what really matters when you stop performing and start living with intention.

28:45Listen to I Digress wherever you get your podcasts.

28:47Leanne:That concludes the break. Let's return to the scheduled programming. Back to the studio.

28:57Welcome back. Welcome back to Truth or Lie. It's that time of the week where we take a popular workplace idea and ask if the research actually backs it up.

29:04Leanne:Yes, we do. And this week we are asking if friends at work are a good idea. You know what it's like if you've got a work bestie, the days just seem to go quicker. They feel more fun. You feel like you belong and teamwork just seems to happen pretty naturally. But what if those close friendship groups turn into cliques and instead of being part of a team, you start to feel like a bit of an outsider? it. Well, this week, that's what we're asking. Truth or lie? Close-knit teams make better teams. Nicole, over to you. Thanks, Leanne. So, yeah, workplace friendships. Do we think they make teams stronger?

29:40Is that a truth or a lie? So let's dig into this a bit. And I think most of us might instinctively say that this one is true. And if you think about a really good team that you've worked in there is a fair chance that people actually really liked each other um you know you've you probably chatted about things outside of work had a laugh together helped each other out may you know maybe some of those relationships became genuine friendships very much like us you know that I'd say that's very much how our friendship started out so intuitively that makes sense. If I know you, I trust you, I feel like I belong with you, you'd probably expect us to work better together.

30:24And actually, there is quite a lot of research saying that is true. So one large meta-analysis in 2021 looked across research involving more than 12 ,000 people. That's quite a big meta-analysis. And they wanted to see whether more cohesive teams actually perform better. So overall, the researchers found that more cohesive teams did tend to perform better. But there's also research specifically looking at friendships. So a study, probably going back a little bit further in 2015, looked at 168 employees working in an insurance company. They looked at what they called multiplex relationships, which sounds quite complicated, but it essentially means a relationship where somebody is both your colleague and your friend.

31:13And they found that people with more of these relationships tended to receive better performance ratings from their managers. So actually, if I've got a friend at work, I'm actually, my manager sees me performing better than if I didn't. They then consulted a study with 182 people working in restaurants and retail. And that helped them to understand why these relationships might actually be beneficial. and one of those important ingredients was trust and that makes sense psychologically. Friends can be an important source of support at work. We can ask them for help. We can share information. We can admit when we're struggling.

31:57We might feel safer asking a question or admitting that we don't know something. So at this point, workplace friendships makes teams stronger is looking pretty true. But there's always a back. There is a catch. So if we go back to that larger study that I talked about earlier on team cohesion, there's a really interesting distinction. So the strongest relationship with performance wasn't simply social cohesion, which is essentially how much people liked each other and enjoyed spending time with each other. But it was task cohesion, which is people being united around what the team is actually there to try and achieve, that was more strongly related to performance.

32:44So a team getting on brilliantly isn't necessarily the same as a team working brilliantly. And friendship itself can also create some complications. Whilst it can be really good, it can make things a little bit messy at times. Imagine having to give difficult feedback to somebody that you've just gone for drinks with on a Friday or knowing something you know professionally that you can't share with a close friend you know you make these close bonds and friendships and then you're suddenly having to do like business stuff with them or or have a difficult conversation um so researchers call that maintenance difficulty and essentially it's that effort involved in managing being somebody's friend and their colleague at the same time and that was associated with emotional exhaustion But there's also another potential problem with close relationships at work.

33:38And this is where it gets particularly interesting for me because humans don't just form relationships, we form groups. And once there's a strong sense of us, it's surprisingly easy for there also to be a them. researchers sometimes talk about fault lines and fault lines in teams and that's basically a potential dividing line where one team starts splitting into smaller teams or smaller subgroups so a 2023 meta-analysis brought together 96 studies looking at these team fault lines and it found that when those divisions resulted in subgroups forming they could reduce the quality of interaction across the wider team which could ultimately affect performance.

34:28So I think there is an important caveat here. Having subgroups isn't inherently bad. So having a close group of friends at work doesn't necessarily make you a toxic workplace clique either. Pretty much every workplace will have smaller friendship groups. The warning signs appear when the boundaries and around those relationships start affecting the wider team and how it operates. And importantly, that doesn't necessarily start with bad intentions either. So for example, if I've got a quick question, it's probably easier when I'm at work to message my colleague that I'm closest to. We might have our own little shorthand that we use or we might talk about something over lunch.

35:16perhaps a few of us have got a whatsapp group already whatsapp groups is just becoming a really frequent thing that i found in my work now at the moment where these groups kind of set up little whatsapp groups that they talk to each other three um and maybe somebody said share something really useful on there so none of us in that are doing anything necessarily to exclude somebody on purpose but over time that information that influence and even that decision making can start kind of traveling through those friendship networks and that's where being on the inside or the outside of the group can start to matter and that's where a close friendship group can start to have these clique-like effects the issue isn't really that people are too friendly it's when the membership of that group starts affecting your experience of work so who gets information first who gets invited to conversations whose opinion carries the weight who gets access to opportunities who gets defended when they're challenged who gets left on the outside so there is another study that I just want to mention as well I particularly like because it shows that friendship itself isn't really the villain here so researchers looked at 672 people working across 148 teams and mapped the relationship between them and they found that friendships could actually help team performance when those friendships crossed the boundaries between different subgroups.

36:46So in other words what researchers sometimes call bridging relationships. So if friendships crisscross a team connecting people across different roles and levels and professional groups or social groups they can act as bridges and they help information travel and keep smaller groups connected to the wider team and I think that gives us a much much better question than simply asking are people in this team friends what we should be asking is who is friends with whom and what effect does that have on everyone else and this is particularly interesting to me because my doctoral research looks at cliques cliques driven incivility and bullying particularly in healthcare teams so I'm interested in what happens when some of these groups dynamics become much more problematic and one of the things I think we need to remember is that the same group can be experienced very differently depending on where you're standing so a group can feel incredibly supportive and trusting and psychologically safe to the people inside it but while someone outside that group experiences exclusion and a lack of influence or even just feeling unsafe challenging its members So workplace friendships make teams stronger.

38:03Do we think it's a truth or a lie? I'm giving this one truth but with a fairly substantial caveat. Friendship can give us trust, support, belonging and connection and those things can absolutely help people and teams perform. but friendship itself isn't the magic ingredient. Friendship helps when it creates trust, cohesion and belonging across a team. It becomes problematic when it creates those things for some people at the expense of others. Can I ask a question? So if, imagine that I'm a manager and I've got a team of 10, like you said before, and I noticed that four of them are really close, probably got WhatsApp groups, as you said, special language, et cetera.

38:51Am I supposed to do something about that? Am I supposed to split them up like I'm a teacher or something? That's really interesting. Are you talking from the perspective if you're a manager? Yes. In that respect. Yeah. This is such a common problem. Or if I say it's a problem, an issue, I suppose. And it's the way world we live in, isn't it, now with social media. Those groups are naturally going to emerge. I think the natural thing that managers want to do instinctively in that situation is break up a group. They want to go, right, stop the WhatsApp groups or you're not sitting together, separate people.

39:28But you've got to think those groups emerge because they're self-serving to the group. It creates trust, belonging, safety. And that might exist in that group because maybe it doesn't exist in the broader team. Ideally, they wouldn't need to form those groups if broadly across the team, they felt safe and secure and trusting of others, et cetera. So if you start to break that group up all you're going to then create is some defensiveness and a sense of you know unhappiness in that team because you've broken down that trusting network for them so the idea is to actually try and broaden that group out in a sense rather than break it up it's about how do we try and promote inclusion and try and get those narratives that are happening informally to happen in a more open, transparent space.

40:22It does come down to communication as a manager where you're having those important conversations with everybody and it's not happening on the sidelines in the informal spaces. It's really tricky though to manage.

40:34Leanne:I think we've seen a lot of this as well, haven't we? With the clients that we've worked with, the entrepreneurs we've worked with, it tends to fall into two camps where they're like, oh, everyone's like really, really gets on and really good mates but nothing's getting done. the way that I want it to or it's like I just want everyone to be friends and right now there's no sense of camaraderie but performance is really high and everyone's smashing it and it's usually the same conversation so I love what you were saying about kind of the difference between social cohesion and task cohesion actually task cohesion is probably more important from what you said in terms of performance and I also thinking if you've got really great task cohesion if you focus on that I feel like social cohesion grows from that because then people have a bit more kind of trust and respect that you're helping my job be easier by what you're doing is that fair yeah I think so and I think I think you can you can start with the task cohesion um I think you know you can create clarity can't you about this is what we're all aiming for this is what we're striving towards this is our goal this is you know our central point I think the social cohesion comes out of building that trust and that's got to grow over time and so I think as a manager you can almost kind of you in some ways maybe it's easier to to instigate the task cohesion because you can set the parameters about the goals and what we're all striving to but yeah that that social cohesion if you can achieve that as well it's about creating that culture of psychological safety and trust across the whole team and the two things together really effective um but yeah i think it can be really challenging to achieve that at times for a lot of business owners nicole if people want to learn a bit more about your doctoral research is there a place they can go yes so you can find me on linkedin um and i do talk a lot about the topics from my research on there um and yeah if anybody's interested i also have shared some work that's come out of my research um on linkedin as well um all about clique dynamics um in workplaces so yeah find me on linkedin i've got some resources people can download or you can even just drop me a message if you curious.

42:57Time for my favourite time of the week. It is time for the world-famous weekly workplace surgery. I'll put your questions to Nicole this week. Don't worry, Leanne, I will ask you your opinion, but it's going to be all about Nicole this week. We don't often get a chance to have Nicole on. I hope you come back again. I really do. Okay, so question number one, Nicole, it's about the biggest red flags of a toxic workplace. It says, Hi, Alan Leanne and Nicole. People talk a lot about toxic workplace cultures, but the warning signs don't always seem obvious when you first join. I've read it could be high turnover, unrealistic expectations, bad leadership, or how people are treated when something goes wrong.

43:31So what are the biggest red flags that tell you a workplace culture is unhealthy? What should I be looking out for, Nicole? That's a really good question because it isn't obvious always. And so generally, when I end up working with organizations that are experiencing workplace toxicity, for want of a better word, it can be quite far down the line where it's blatantly obvious that there are problems because people are leaving. there's a huge amount of sickness absence um there's conflict there's people not talking to each other there's grievances there's this or you name it there's all that stuff going on um often though those red flags would have been um there a lot earlier on um and so what the work that i tend to do um doesn't just look at what's on the top of that iceberg it looks at like what's underneath it what's what are the conditions that's driving some of that um and there's lots of things um but if i focus on maybe a couple of of of red flags would be um the key foundation i believe for any team functioning team is psychological safety and trust such a huge foundation so if you're finding that there just isn't isn't the dialogue that's going on the openness the transparency the information the free-flowing of information the the groups kind of people getting information from their groups and not going through formal channels not coming to leaders with stuff not opening up not sharing um tensions sensitivities just people treading on those kind of eggshells around other people but again you have to really get curious to uncover some of that stuff but you know people feel like um you know you just notice there's these little rumblings going on little tensions between people often it's a sign underlying that there's this lack of psychological safety and this lack of trust between colleagues that's bubbling away underneath and it's really trying to get to the bottom of why does that exist and sometimes these things can go back years sometimes there's things that have happened in a team that have um led to this perception that people start to shape this narrative that plays out.

46:04And then if you leave it and you don't address it, you start to see the bigger red flags, the more noticeable,

46:10Leanne:obvious stuff. So it is really tricky. And I just want to kind of reassure anyone who is working with this stuff in their team, it is really tricky. It can be quite messy, quite muddy stuff to really unpick. But the key thing is to just try and start noticing it, try and get curious and get underneath it if you can, and early as you can, even if you just think, oh, I've just noticed that person's being left out of this or whatever. Oh, I wonder what's going on here. You know, that's a good starting point. I'm curious to know what Leanne thinks as well from her point of view. Yeah, all of that.

46:47Leanne:I agree with all of that. Do you know what's funny? When you were talking about that, I was remembering a time after the back of the conversation of cliques as well when I worked in another organization and there was there was kind of my team and an adjacent team that we were separate in terms of functionality and location but there was such a lack of trust between us and the other team to the point where we try and build bridge and we try and do it and then we then have people move over from the other team to our team then go oh I get it now you really can't trust them can you I know right um but anyway that aside I think all of that's really really great advice and the one thing I'd say is because we don't know kind of why you're asking this in terms of whether you're a manager set an organization you're starting to notice some of these things or you're an employee that's trying to assess whether a culture is a good fit for you if it is the latter I think my thought would be always think about like to an extent I think toxic culture and kind of bunnies can be somewhat subjective so I remember talking to Dr Audrey Tang about this and she was like you can be the right package at the wrong address so if I worked in a very kind of cutthroat sales environment that was all hustle kind of there are people that would absolutely adore that I would find it toxic and horrible because that kind of shocking and you know but there are other people that would really get on board with that there's going to be other people that might work in an organization that that feels very supportive and very trusting and maybe might feel a bit bureaucratic and a bit slow at times so I think a lot of it as well as thinking about what your values are what's important to you in terms of of your goals and your lifestyle and how you want work to integrate with all of that to identify what your red flags would be so working constantly over time without any pay not being expected to take all of your your paid annual leave um all of those types of things that for you would feel toxic i think it's just as important as trying to figure out whether the environment you're in is toxic because i think you're right i think when it gets to that point it's really obvious you can just feel the tension can't you it is about stopping and noticing you know just taking a step back and noticing what's going on around me what's become normalized here what if I you know what would seem weird to me if I stepped into this organization as a fresh new person you know all of those things makes perfect sense makes perfect sense thank you so much okay so I've got question number two why does my colleague hate me um so is this person writes there's someone at work who really seems to dislike me and I genuinely have no idea why he's friendly and chatty with everyone else but barely acknowledges me avoids sitting near me ignores me when I speak to him and has even walked away when I've asked a work related question oh my goodness I've never had an argument with him or done anything to my knowledge that has upset him but he is making working together a bit awkward Nicole should I ask him directly what his problem is first of all I'm sorry if this is having an impact on your experience at work because it can feel really isolating when this sort of thing happens um in in a workplace or in a team.

50:00So the first thing I'd want to say is, I know the next step might be to ask them what their problem is, but let's not assume that they have a problem with you in the first place. So it comes back to some of the things we were talking about before about sometimes these behaviors are not intentional. Yes, it's this intention versus impact issue, isn't it? Where people engaging in behaviors that are not necessarily intentional but it's having a negative impact and they may be not understanding that impact that that's having. It could be intentional but we just don't know and maybe it's about keeping a bit of an open mind at this stage about where this behavior is coming from.

50:46I'd also want to know is this individual behavior or is this part of a group thing? So are there other people as part of the group this person's that is also isolating you and not engaging with you or is it just this individual so again you know if it's part of a group this person might not be talking to you because they're getting everything they need from the group that they're in and they feel they've built that trust they've built that connection that belonging with them and and actually it just doesn't serve them to to break out of that for example um and they might again they just might not recognize that You're not part of that group or you're connected into that.

51:26So I guess it's trying to, maybe not going in with what's your problem? Why are you leaving me out? But maybe going, because that might just make them feel a bit more defensive and a bit like, well, okay, what's this all about? If they don't quite recognize the impact their behavior is having, just going in with some curiosity. um you know things like look I've noticed that we're working on the same project but I noticed we haven't really talked to each other about it much you know do you think it'd be worth this getting some time in together so starting to build that communication and and show that you're someone you that he can trust that he can build a work relationship with that's positive that's helpful that's advantageous all of those things would be maybe a good start and then depending how that goes you can see how the relationship develops from there um yeah what are your

52:21Leanne:thoughts leanne a lot yeah i agree it's really tricky isn't it i mean i don't know i mean my cheesy kind of kind of talk to my girlfriends if there was it was their kind of what they were telling me i'd be like maybe he fancies you maybe he's in love with you you know like pigtails on a playground like oh he barely just ignores you and walks away because he's so flustered because are so gorgeous could be it could be you never know i think you just don't know you don't know al ignored me for the first 18 months and after we met so true story anyway i think it's whether it's how much is this impacting your work i think i'd want to know like if i could ask more questions because i think if he's chatting with everyone else but he barely acknowledges you and he doesn't sit next to you then whatever who cares you know as long as he's not making your job harder then this just isn't somebody that you're going to have a a very friendly relationship with and from what we've heard from from Nicole's truth or lie that doesn't necessarily matter in terms of your performance at work but if they're walking walking away when you're trying to ask them a work-related question that's when I think there's a bit of an issue there so I agree with Nicole like try and get in a bit of time with that person have a very specific conversation even maybe say these are the three points that I want to want to talk to you about maybe you bring in another colleague into that conversation as well so it doesn't feel quite as kind of head to head or of course i mean you haven't said that this person is is kind of in a manager role or not so assuming they are just a colleague this might be something that if you do that it still doesn't work you you escalate to your manager if it's making your job harder or it's impacting your performance if they just don't want to be your mate maybe they just don't want to be we'll be careful snitches get stitches don't be uh don't be telling the manager about that.

54:02That's a tough one, but I think that that's probably as good advice as anyone's ever going to get without seeing more specifics and asking more follow-up questions. I have question number three here, which is quite a funny one. It's funny because you're a parent, Nicole, and we're not. So I'd be interested in your thoughts and whether they differ to ours. I should say as well,

54:20Leanne:true warning, if anyone is really offended talking about the C word in September, maybe skip ahead a few minutes. It's Christmas. I do have one friend that's like, hard no. Oh, yeah, yeah. Is that the same one who takes the Christmas tree down on Boxing Day? On Boxing Day! Who does that? I... Well, crazy. Yeah, that's not allowed in our house. No. We leave ours up until the end of January. As long as it's alive, it stays up. Oh, that's bad luck, isn't it? Maybe that's why. Maybe that explains everything.

54:56Anyway, anyway. So this person, this person, he says, I work in a hospital where we rotate who works Christmas each year. This year I'm due to work, but because someone else has picked up the shift, one of us can have the day off. Hey, I've worked more holidays than anyone else, so technically it's my turn. But a colleague with young children has asked me to give it up so she can spend Christmas morning with them. She says it's different for me because my children are adults and a few colleagues seem to agree. Am I being selfish if I take the day off anyway? Now, sorry, I just realized now, actually.

55:27Leanne:Yeah, me too. I thought this was about someone who didn't have kids, but this is someone whose kids are adults. Adults, right. Okay, right. Got it. Sorry. Nicole, what are your thoughts? I have a heavy sigh with this one because having, I've worked in the NHS. This is, this just came up every year, every pre-year, this issue. I think this, this gets me thinking a little bit more about situational leadership stuff. because my question is where's the manager's involvement with all of this as well um I've worked with so many managers who I guess their style is a little bit more laissez-faire and they will go right um it's up to you know I I let I let my teams I trust my team I let them sort these things out I let them come up with the solutions yeah they're on it they know what they're doing that is great in some scenarios you know trust your team to come up with ideas have initiative you know have autonomy all of that stuff brilliant but there's just some scenarios where if you just go you lot work this out you just know it's going to end in problems and Christmas is the classic case because I think if you don't as a manager set some kind of expectation or system or process around something like that which really is a fundamental issue around fairness isn't it about what is fair here like and everyone's idea of fairness is going to be different so what's fair to me might feel differently fair to you too like I've got children I might say well it's only fair that I have the day off because I've got young children but you might go but I've worked hard all year and I've got family motives to see and I want to take that day off so what is fair really and it's basic it's a very subjective thing isn't it so there's something about actually how do you create a system that's fair rather than it being a subjective decision about what is fair in this scenario and I think when that is doesn't exist then it creates these debates and these arguments amongst colleagues it actually can waste a lot of time and a lot of energy and create a lot of anguish for people because the person who doesn't get that day is going to feel resentful and hurt by it.

57:51Well, sometimes you take that decision out of the equation, that debate between them about what's fair and go, right, this is the process. If you had the day off this year, the next person gets it next year or whatever, or if we've got a spare day, this is how we're going to deal with it in a fair way for everybody. Sometimes it just takes that argument out of the equation.

58:14Leanne:I once worked in a team as a manager where we had to we weren't seeing any any customers between Christmas it was a Christmas and New Year break we always had Christmas Christmas Day but all the kind of the public holidays but we had to have two people in the centre should anyone drop in or should somebody needs to be on hand for compliance or whoever else so we'd always kind of approach or I'd kind of approach it pretty early and go is there anybody who isn't bothered anybody who would rather work these really quiet days between christmas in a year well let's be honest you're probably going to sit in the sit in the branch and do scrape around for stuff to do and then probably read a book for you know there's not a lot to do is there unless something comes in so we'll ask for volunteers if anyone not bothered if you're not bothered which days would you prefer to work blah blah and that would usually figure out 80 % of it and then you kind of yeah you kind of go right well we need can we rotate it in a way so everyone has to come in at least once or you know you kind of figure it out in that sense and then And yeah, there might be an occasion where you go, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to, you're going to have to come in on that day.

59:17Leanne:So I think there's definitely so much of it can be figured out by just looking at it. Yeah, further away. And like you said, led by a manager, having a process and actually sticking to it. In terms of this person, but I would say we don't have children. and equally we have brothers and sisters who do have children from 30 right down to like 18 months two years we understand how special christmas is for families with young children we we've seen it we get to experience it still it's beautiful that doesn't make your christmas any more worthy than somebody that has adult children or just wants to go and spend time with their friends if that is a special time of year for them.

1:00:03Leanne:So I think there can be an element of entitlement, perhaps, dare I say it. And I think we just need to be a bit kinder to people in terms of if that day is also special for whatever reason, then that is valid enough. So you are well within your rights. If this is a special day for you to go, no, it's my turn. This is what's been agreed. I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have Christmas Day off. What I would say is if you're really not bothered and it might get you in the good books with Karen because she wants to have Christmas off with her kids, then yeah, you know, swap it. But make it like a, oh, I've not had a Christmas off for like four years, Karen.

1:00:40Leanne:Oh, okay, fine, fine. You know, like milk it so you can get kind of the good juju back. I love that. I love that. And also you heard it here first. Leanne thinks the parents are entitled. I said there was an element of them being entitled if they think their Christmas is more important because they've got kids. I look forward to them. It's how unfair, Nicole. Am I going to get cancelled? I know exactly what you mean there. I think that, look, this is why I said I can't answer that question to say someone deserves it over someone else. I don't think that's how you make the decision because it's so subjective and personal.

1:01:22And I love the idea of just get it out the way straight away. He doesn't care. Like he's not bothered coming in over Christmas. Like that is a quick, easy, that's low hanging fruit as a manager. You can just sort out straight away. And then you iron it out after that and put a process in place to deal with the days that aren't covered. Lovely. Thank you, Nicole. This has been absolutely brilliant. If you want to learn more about Nicole, then check out the show notes. We'll link to everything Nicole's doing now. Go and find her on LinkedIn. um this thursday we're joined by the awesome and slightly crazy nikita mikalov um he was brilliant interviewing him because he's just a genius we're gonna be talking about 50p wasn't it put 50p in him let him go literally yeah 50p and then i press record and that was it it was brilliant as we talk about the history of personality testing very controversial and how you can actually use it in your business and how you shouldn't be yeah so we will be back next

1:02:16Leanne:tuesday with and i'll actually just be alan i we're um we're just yeah i'm gonna gonna gonna we're just talking between ourselves don't say that love you can't pull it off and then the tuesday after that we're bill we're joined by uh mr linkedin mr bill yost yost yost sure yost i think it's yost but it just i call him yost i'm doing it wrong bill will be here if you want to join the conversation in the meantime come over to linkedin go and find nicole of course and follow her follow her research come and find us say hello uh we're putting loads more clips on linkedin now from previous episodes of Truth, Lies and Work.

1:02:52Leanne:So go and have a look at that and see what you think. If you enjoy the show and want to leave us a review or a comment on Spotify, it really does mean the world. If you have some constructive feedback, we will accept that in email form. Right, so bye for now. Bye.