A garden is never finished, nor are you: Become, I think, a garden again, and never, like a garden, ceasE

 Allowing managers to put off difficult conversations, or to delegate them to subordinates or the HR department, exacerbates the problem. It can lead to  leaders who are deeply uncomfortable providing negative feedback on performance reviews or asking for improvements in behavior—let alone doing so both stringently and tactfully. “I see this over and over again,” says C-suite advisor Anu Gupta, senior client partner at Korn Ferry. “They’re worried about saying one wrong word, or hitting the wrong tone.” 

 Make meetings memorable.

Ditch the office or the typical lunch or dinner when meeting in person, says Anu Gupta, a senior client partner in the Life Sciences practice at Korn Ferry. In the aftermath of the pandemic, meeting face-to-face has transformed from standard business procedure into a special occasion, so make it one, he says. “There is a strong desire when meeting face-to-face to not just be locked in a sterile conference room all day,” Gupta says. Recently, he recalls, a client suggested meeting at a local park. Gupta brought along the client’s favorite Jamba Juice drink and they “walked and talked for almost 90 minutes and had a much more productive meeting than would have happened in an office over PowerPoint,” he says. 

 Anu Gupta, senior client partner at Korn Ferry, also suggests early rounds of interviews should be conducted by firm executives with high functional skills around AI. Behavioral interview techniques are also useful. “You keep digging deeper,” says Gupta. He suggests asking about a time that a particular skill was used, whether it was used by a teammate or the candidate, and what, specifically, the candidate did. “You have to get down to granular detail. Otherwise, the interviewee is blowing smoke, and the interviewer is blowing smoke right back.”  

 For managers, the challenge comes with the many previously unscheduled developments during the workday: perhaps they needs quick edits on a document, or an answer on a project’s status. Employees may commonly make themselves readily available to bosses, but can forget to extend the same courtesy to teammates. Some says that in-person gatherings have also become less organized. “We’ve taken up bad habits,” says Anu Gupta, senior client partner at Korn Ferry. Previously, workers would batch tasks and plan for an in-person stand-up meeting with the boss every Wednesday. “Now we’ve gotten lazy, so when we do get into a room, we waste time.” 

 In a new survey of 400 US CEOs, fully 90% said they’re willing to reward office-based employees with favorable assignments, raises, or promotions. Experts say that CEOs seem to have realized that threatening employees might not work as well as tempting them. “It looks like the CEOs are blinking first,” says Anu Gupta, a Korn Ferry senior client partner who works with a variety of life-sciences and healthcare firms. 

 Pre-pandemic, workplace dress codes were loosening, due to both the hoodies of the tech industry and the casual leanings of young employees. Then came two years of largely remote arrangements, and employees’ tolerance for discomfort shifted further, particularly among young employees. Many of them don’t necessarily see a reason to pull on a different top for a video meeting. “This generation is going to be a lot less formal,” says Anu Gupta, a senior client partner at Korn Ferry. 

 Conflict threatens healthy workplace relationships, and, in turn, productivity. “Managing relationships with board members, peers, teams, suppliers, and customers is key to keeping productive capacity high,” says Anu Gupta, a Korn Ferry senior partner in its Life Sciences practice. 

 The engagement drop among workers also may be a reaction to their own changing priorities, says Anu Gupta, a Korn Ferry senior client partner. The pandemic continues to make people reconsider what they want out of their careers and personal lives. If their current job isn’t helping them meet those priorities, they become less engaged. 

“We thought we had made big pandemic shifts to support mothers, but we haven’t,” says Anu Gupta, senior client partner at Korn Ferry. “Nothing much has changed.” 

 Absent specific rules around transparency, you might consider treating AI as the equivalent of “a great intern,” says Anu Gupta, a Korn Ferry senior client partner who works with life sciences and healthcare clients. A capable intern can do a lot of preliminary research, write up presentations, and even offer options. Bosses and colleagues would probably appreciate knowing that their workers are delegating such assignments to interns. They would likely feel similarly about the use of AI tools.