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September 2021 Edition

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Read on for Tero's Take. Want a deeper dive? Keep scrolling for bonus information, resources and application tips.

 

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Pre-pandemic, tipping wait staff in the U.S. was customary and expected, with ranges from 15-20%. Tip expectations and norms were increasing. St. Louis Magazine dining editor, George Mahe, shared that in 2018, “25% is becoming the new 20,” with 20% perceived as “respectable” but not “great.” Due to the fact that salaries in the service industry were lower, the tip was expected to close the gap and create a decent take home wage for wait staff.

Did the pandemic affect tips?

According to an article by Vox, “a survey of 1,600 tipped workers from UC Berkeley and the nonprofit One Fair Wage showed that more than 80% of workers reported that their tips actually declined during the pandemic, and 78% witnessed or experienced “hostile behavior” from customers when asking them to comply with Covid19 protocols.“

Ofer Azars, an economics professor at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, researches tipping. His research indicates the various historical reasons people in the U.S. traditionally tipped. Here they are:

  • 60% tip out of guilt
  • 44% tip out of embarrassment
  • 85% tip due to social norms
  • 67% tip because wait staff depend on it
  • 14% tip to ensure future service

Did these reasons, like most things, change due to the pandemic?

Covid 19 and its aftermath created differences in how wait staff could connect with customers. Pre-Covid, interpersonal skills displayed by wait staff positively affected tips.

  • If wait staff introduced themselves, their average tip is 53% greater than those that do not.
  • If wait staff lowered themselves while talking to the customer to increase and level eye contact, tips increase from 15-18%.
  • If wait staff wrote thank you, or drew a happy face on the bill, they receive 18-20%.
  • If wait staff simply smiled, tips increase 14%.

Masks, social distance, and paperless menus resulted in less interpersonal interactions between wait staff and customers. The tipping decrease occurred even though the job of wait staff hardly became easier due to ensuring sanitary standards and Covid protocols.

An interpersonal response to the decrease in tipping might be to add another reason for tipping to the list researcher Azars identified. Respect.

Respect is a demonstration of our values. It has nothing to do with the other party. It indicates how we show up and relate to others in the world.

The pandemic-induced tipping decrease creates an opportunity for us to consciously figure out how to close not only the pay gap in the service industry, but the gap in how we as customers treat and value those who serve.

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When you have a team that includes people in the office combined with people on a virtual platform, there is a risk. Does every team member feel included and engaged?

Although trust is a foundation for any relationship, it plays a particularly important role in hybrid team dynamics. When we have some people in the office, and others showing up remote, our responsibility to team mates and the function of the team escalate. Here are four tips to make the most of your hybrid team experience.

1. Figure out the kind of team you need to reach your goal.

There are function teams, which address business operations and are ongoing. There are project teams which form to work on a specific project over time and have a clear objective. And there are task forces, teams that meet to accomplish a short term goal like a recommendation for a particular issue. Knowing your purpose and recognizing scope is the first step to forming a team that understands its accountability. This allows a team to set parameters and begin to communicate in the mode(s) most useful to achieve the goals and support all the individuals whether remote or in-person.

2. Give some thought to values and mindset. Make a team charter.

Discuss what team members need to value to ensure we reach their maximum potential? What kind of mindset will be most conducive to reaching the goal? Creating a charter specifying the roles and responsibilities necessary to achieve goals as well as traits to ensure the demonstration of supporting behaviors is essential. Aspects such as how to handle conflict, how to create predictability and adaptability, and how to maintain accessibility is worth taking the time to determine. The charter creates a level playing field for all team members.

3. Are you dealing with risk? Is what you are trying to accomplish complex?

Risk and complexity can unseat many a noble idea or action. If your goal involves either, you will need to over-communicate in order to maintain trust. What does that mean? Every step of the process will need to be communicated well, opened for discussion, clarified, and checked for understanding with all team members. Your team will benefit from one-on-one opportunities to share, as well as opportunities to weigh in with the group. All teammates must understand and respect the need for consensus on decisions and security in direction. Creating contingency plans as safety nets will allow the team to trust the process, the proposed product, and each other more readily.

4. Be willing to go back to square one.

Hybrid teams require even more trust than solely virtual or face-to-face teams, as the ability to have varying communication channels and the development of misunderstanding and alienation is intensified. If you see problems cropping up, circle back to discussions with the entire team around how best to communicate in order to give and get trust. Use some team time to reformulate. If you don't, your team will not reach true goal potential.

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A Fast Company article titled “Fearing a Chaotic Post Pandemic Workplace” sites the disruption of the pandemic added an additional challenge in what builds up employee motivation.

This potentially dramatic dip in motivation is another reflection of how people’s relationship with work, along with their needs and expectations, have changed.

Why is this important to us as we reconstruct the workplace after the pandemic?

For employers to understand what motivates has never been more critical.

Drs. Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria of the Harvard Business School published a book: Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices. According to these authors' research, people are guided by four basic emotional needs, or drives, that are the product of our common evolutionary heritage."

According to Lawrence and Nohria, the four drivers of motivation are: to acquire, to bond, to learn, and to defend.

These drives are fundamental to everything that we do; these are innate, universal, and hardwired in the brain.

Could employers motivate more authentically by understanding these? Let's look at what each represents.

Drive to Acquire. "This is the drive to seek, take control, retain objects, and gain personal experiences." Employees like enhancement in status, being promoted, gaining social power, and recognition from co-workers and superiors.

Drive to Bond. To form social relationships, bonds, connections within, and with other professionals outside the organization. Businesses after the pandemic should become people-friendly built on mutual support systems. Companionship, goodwill, teamwork, and collaboration should be encouraged to enhance personal and professional success.

Drive to Learn. The drive to grow, gain new skills, knowledge, and take up challenges. A job should be challenging; work should be stimulating. Assignments should be designed to make employees feel that they are making meaningful contributions. Employees should be assigned a wide variety of tasks and responsibilities to enhance their confidence.

Drive to Defend. To protect oneself against threat and injustice. People like to preserve their status and defend their position. An organization should provide a support system by making sure that the working environment is fair, open and transparent. Open communication and opportunities to state grievances should be encouraged.

According to Nohria and Lawrence, social drives trigger the same part of the brain as the satisfaction of physical needs. "Just the prediction that there will be a reward be it through learning opportunities, collaboration and new tasks would enhance dopamine levels in the brain and provide an incentive."

All too often motivating employees results in plans to incentivize using a very narrow scope such as solely monetary gains.

Given the research, the best employers will widen their scope of how they think about motivation and use what we know from research about what drives people to perform and engage.

 

Want a deeper dive into these topics? For more information, resources and application tips, keep reading.

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