Young, old, or in between. Gay, straight, trans, bi, binary, non-binary. University-educated or a dropout. Experienced with skills, inexperienced with zero skills. Barriered or non-barriered. Full-time, part-time, or volunteer.
We are all different.
When it comes to working, though, we all share some basic ground rules. Workplaces may change. Technology changes. Generations change. Expectations change. The way we work changes. But underneath all of those changes are some principles that remain remarkably persistent.
These aren’t simply rules employees must follow. They are responsibilities we owe each other.
Because employment is not a one-sided transaction. Employees have responsibilities to their employers, co-workers, customers, and clients. Employers have responsibilities to their employees.
Every employee obligation creates a corresponding employer obligation.
That is where common ground begins.
Being Motivated.
You must be motivated to work. You, not your spouse, not your parents, not your friends, not your social worker – you.
Some work for money, some work because they have responsibilities, some owe money, and some work because of the intrinsic rewards they gain from working and making a difference.
Whatever the reason, you cannot succeed without motivation. Motivation doesn’t mean loving your job every day. None of us will. There will be mornings when you don’t feel like going to work. There will be days when the job is frustrating, boring, difficult, or disappointing.
Motivation means finding enough reason to keep showing up and contributing.
Employers have a responsibility here too. If an organization expects motivation, it should also understand what motivates its people and create an environment where people can see purpose in their work, understand what is expected of them, and recognize that their contribution matters.
Being Reliable.
Your employer has hired you to fulfill a need in their organization. They are counting on you to deliver what you promised.
Reliable means that when you have committed to being at work, people should be able to count on you. It also means consistently doing the best work you are capable of on any and every day.
But reliability is not a one-way street.
Employees need to be able to count on their employers too. Employers should communicate clearly, follow through on commitments, provide appropriate training and information, and create reasonable expectations.
Trust is built when both sides do what they say they will do.
Being Determined.
You cannot apply for a perfect job because they do not exist in a perfect form in the beginning. All of us must work at developing a good job into a better job and then into the perfect job through determination.
Sometimes the job we accept isn’t what we imagined it would be. Sometimes the organization changes. Sometimes our responsibilities change. Sometimes we change.
Determination means being willing to work through some of those challenges rather than immediately deciding that something isn’t right. But determination shouldn’t mean accepting harassment, discrimination, unsafe working conditions, or an environment that is fundamentally unhealthy.
Sometimes determination means staying and working through something.
Sometimes determination means knowing when it is time to leave.
Delivering Value.
Value takes many forms, but essentially, to succeed, we always strive to earn our spot each day.
You will have days and even weeks when you do not feel like working. Everyone will. Ensure during these times that you try to deliver value to the members of your team.
Value isn’t simply how much work you can produce. Value can mean solving a problem, helping a co-worker, making a customer feel respected, finding a better way, preventing a mistake, or making the workplace better for the people around you.
Employers have a responsibility to recognize that value takes many forms. If we only value people when they are producing at maximum capacity, we risk confusing human beings with machines.
Making a contribution.
Being employed isn’t simply about showing up and collecting a pay cheque.
We are part of an organization, and our actions affect the people around us. Sometimes contribution is obvious. Sometimes it isn’t.
It might be doing your job well, helping someone else, sharing knowledge, solving a problem, taking responsibility, or simply making someone else’s day a little easier.
We don’t all contribute in the same way. We don’t all have the same abilities. We don’t all work at the same speed. But everyone should be looking for ways to contribute.
Also, employers have a responsibility to create meaningful opportunities for people to do so.
Understanding the workplace.
Although standards vary widely, within every organization, its members must understand how to act, communicate, and behave appropriately.
What is appropriate in one organization may not be appropriate in another. The responsibility is to learn those expectations. But employers have a responsibility to make those expectations clear. You cannot reasonably hold someone accountable for a rule they were never told about, could not reasonably understand, or were never properly trained to follow.
We need to be careful about confusing different with inappropriate. Not everyone communicates, interacts, or processes information in the same way.
Professionalism does not require everyone to behave identically.
Deserving respect and dignity.
These are not just ground rules; they are necessary and an intrinsic part of our society and workplaces.
Your co-workers all deserve to expect you to contribute. You will have good and bad supervisors and managers in your career. As with your co-workers, each of them deserves your respect and to be treated with dignity.
Make the effort to learn about them and see yourself through their eyes. Customers and clients deserve respect and dignity too. But so do you.
Each of us has fundamental rights and should be free of harassment, violence, and discrimination. You deserve to feel like you belong.
Respect, however, is not the same as obedience. Respect does not mean accepting harassment, discrimination, bullying, humiliation, or abuse. Respect must travel in both directions.
Two-way communication.
This may be one of the most important ground rules of all.
Tell people when you are going to be late. Tell people when you don’t understand. Tell people when you have made a mistake. Tell people when something isn’t working. Tell people when you need help. Tell people when expectations aren’t clear. Tell people when something has changed.
Communication doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be honest. Too often, we don’t communicate. Instead, we make assumptions.
Silence creates assumptions. Assumptions create stories. Stories create conflict.
Employees should not have to guess what their manager is thinking. Managers should not have to guess what their employees need. Communication is everyone’s responsibility.
Advocate for yourself.
Learn how to ADVOCATE for yourself within your organization’s parameters. For those of us experiencing barriers, we must learn to ask for reasonable accommodations.
We also have a responsibility to participate and contribute. Advocacy isn’t complaining. It is understanding what you need to be successful and learning how to communicate that need.
Employers have a responsibility to listen. An accommodation isn’t giving someone an unfair advantage. It can simply remove a barrier that was preventing someone from demonstrating what they are capable of doing.
We also need to recognize that behavior can be misunderstood. Someone who doesn’t make eye contact isn’t necessarily being disrespectful. Someone who processes information differently isn’t necessarily uninterested. Someone who needs instructions in writing isn’t necessarily incapable.
Intent and impact are not always the same thing. Sometimes we need to ask before we judge.
While you are at work, work.
It is a reasonable expectation that you will be ready to work when your shift begins and that you will continue to work, except for breaks, until the end of your shift. Your cell phone should not be a distraction; you should focus on your assigned work and help your team achieve its collective goals.
But being prepared is a two-way responsibility. While employees need to arrive prepared to work, employers need to provide appropriate training, tools, information, equipment, and direction so people can actually do the work they have been hired to do.
You cannot expect someone to succeed at a job you have not properly prepared them to perform.
Accepting criticism well.
None of us is perfect. We all make mistakes, and we may not understand an assignment or instructions.
Eventually, we are going to be criticized. Learning to accept and incorporate criticism positively is a key component of becoming better and succeeding. But there is a difference between criticism and cruelty. Constructive feedback should help someone understand what happened, why it matters, and what they can do differently. Employees need to listen.
Employers need to learn how to give useful feedback, and all of us need to learn how to do our part. You don’t have to be responsible for everything that happens, but you should be responsible for your part of what happens. If you made the mistake, own it. If you misunderstood, say so. If you contributed to the problem, acknowledge it.
Accountability isn’t about accepting blame for everything. It is about being honest about your own contribution.
Learning how to fail.
As a society, as a culture, and as people, rarely do we appreciate failure as something that should be encouraged.
Our ability to grow, learn, and adapt depends on our reaction to failing, as does our resilience to regroup and try again. Failure doesn’t automatically mean incompetence. Sometimes failure means we tried something that didn’t work. Sometimes it means we misunderstood. Sometimes it means we made a mistake, and sometimes it means the system itself needs to change.
Employees need to learn from failure. Employers need to create environments where reasonable mistakes can become learning opportunities rather than reasons to immediately assign blame.
Always getting better.
The workplace doesn’t owe us a permanent version of yesterday. Technology changes. Customers change. Jobs change. Organizations change. Skills change.
The people who remain employable aren’t necessarily the people who know the most. They are often the people who remain willing to learn.
We cannot expect the world to stand still so that our existing skills remain relevant forever. Employers have a responsibility to provide opportunities for appropriate training and development. Employees have a responsibility to take advantage of those opportunities and continue developing themselves.
Following and questioning rules.
Employees should follow the company policies even if they do not agree with them. When you agree to join an organization, you agree to abide by its legal rules, but disagreement does not automatically permit you to ignore a policy.
At the same time, employees should not be expected to blindly accept every policy simply because it exists. Good organizations make their policies clear, reasonable, accessible, and understandable.
While employees have a responsibility to follow them, employers have a responsibility to review them.
Sometimes policies need to change. Sometimes conventional wisdom needs to be challenged. Following a rule and questioning whether the rule still makes sense are not necessarily opposites.
Sometimes asking a difficult question is exactly how an organization gets better.
Integrity.
Stealing encompasses more than the theft of money or products. Theft can involve time, trust, and even reputation, as well as money, products, or property. So is taking credit for someone else’s work.
Integrity matters when people are watching. It matters even more when they aren’t.
Asking for help.
If you are stuck, confused, or experiencing issues, know there is no prize for struggling silently. Ask for clarification. Ask someone to explain. Ask for help.
Asking for help doesn’t automatically demonstrate weakness; often it demonstrates good judgment.
Employers should strive to create environments where people can ask questions without being embarrassed or punished simply for admitting they don’t know something.
Our collective goals should be to help people contribute as successfully as they can.
Nobody owes you a living.
One of the hardest things for us to accept is that a job is an opportunity, not a guarantee. It is earned through contribution, reliability, responsibility, and trust. An employer has to earn the commitment and trust of its employees too.
Disagreeing with this point doesn’t change the reality that organizations hire people because they have needs that need to be met. Despite our social safety net, appreciating that we have to rely on ourselves, our family, our friends, our coworkers, and our employers to survive can provide a necessary sense of humility.
But this works both ways. An employer doesn’t owe someone a job simply because they need an employee. An employee doesn’t owe an employer their life simply because they have been given a job. Employment is an exchange.
Both sides contribute. Both sides benefit. Both sides have responsibilities.
Changing jobs.
Employers may expect us to follow their ground rules, but that does not excuse them from following the same rules. A job is not a life sentence.
People grow. People acquire skills. People change. Priorities change. Organizations change, and people will change jobs. Employers understand this reality.
Sometimes leaving a job is failure. Sometimes it is the smartest decision a person can make.
Knowing the difference is part of growing.
Losing a job.
Sometimes people are fired. Sometimes people are laid off. Sometimes companies close or downsize. Sometimes technology changes the job. Sometimes people fail to meet expectations. Sometimes the job simply isn’t the right fit.
It happens.
There are employment standards organizations must adhere to, but there are no guarantees that any job will last forever. Losing a job can be painful. It can be frightening. I know, I have been there.
It can also become an opportunity to reassess where you are going and what you want next. Employment can end. Your ability to learn from it doesn’t have to.
Life isn’t fair.
Bad things happen to good people. The wrong people get promotions. Some people start in better situations. Some people have advantages others don’t. Some people face barriers that others will never understand.
Regardless, we all have to define our purpose and what our role is; no one can tell you that. While these statements are true, it doesn’t mean that life isn’t or can’t be good, nor do they preclude you from making a difference.
We should acknowledge unfairness without allowing it to become an excuse for giving up, and we should acknowledge privilege without pretending that everyone starts from the same place.
Both things can be true.
So, what is the common ground?
Some will argue that older generations need to adapt to the reality of younger generations. Others will argue that younger generations need to learn from the experience of those who came before them.
Unsurprisingly, what has been common to every generation is that this statement has been made repeatedly throughout time. Every generation believes the generation before it doesn’t understand them, and every generation believes the generation after it doesn’t understand them.
Perhaps both are right, and perhaps both are wrong.
The workplace has changed enormously. It should and will continue to change, but the underlying need for people to communicate, contribute, respect each other, learn, adapt, take responsibility, and be treated with dignity has not disappeared.
The ground rules have changed. The responsibility hasn’t.
If we expect employees to be motivated, employers need to create workplaces worth being motivated in. If we expect employees to be reliable, employers need to be reliable. If we expect employees to accept criticism, employers need to learn how to give it. If we expect employees to ask for help, employers need to make it safe to ask. If we expect employees to communicate, employers need to communicate. If we expect employees to respect others, employers need to demonstrate respect. If we expect employees to deliver value, employers need to recognize value. If we expect employees to learn from failure, employers need to learn from failure too. If we expect employees to adapt, organizations must be willing to adapt.
That is the common ground.
Employment brings together people who may have almost nothing else in common. People of different ages, different cultures, different identities, different abilities, different experiences, different expectations, different ways of communicating, and different ideas about what work should look like.
We don’t have to become the same to succeed; we don’t even have to agree. But we do have to find a way to work together. Employees have responsibilities. Employers and managers have responsibilities.
All of us have a responsibility to recognize that the person standing across from us is a human being before they are an employee, manager, customer, client, applicant, supervisor, or co-worker.
Perhaps that is the most important ground rule of all. Employment isn’t simply about what one side owes the other.
It is about what we owe each other.
We just have to be willing to find common ground.
Good luck,
Paul.