A New Year can bring a bevy of resolutions on the personal front. You may want to improve your fitness or tidy up your work-life balance, and you are not alone there. On the business side, early January is also a great time to resolve workplace stressors, but in 2024, more labor-related activity is already on the agenda.
This year, many new union contract negotiations sit on the horizon. The NLRB is also doing everything possible to make organizing increasingly easier with streamlined processes aplenty. And union presidents are out there talking about four-day workweeks and making other wild promises to entice workers into seeking third-party representation.
The UAW’s Shawn Fain greeted 2024 while wearing his “Eat The Rich” t-shirt and drooling over his plans to organize over a dozen non-union automakers. He has also inspired predictions that the Big Three contract outcomes might lead to other significant strikes in 2024.
With that said, it’s time to clear out the bad energy and take stock of how you will manage your business and employees this year. There’s no time like the present to kick off the dust and weed out communication blockages where they exist. Just like overactive or underactive chakras can lead to physical unhealthiness in our bodies, the goal here is to allow positive energy to flow and break the cycle of union vulnerability.
Is this too new age-y? It’s just one of many ways to set new objectives for the New Year. Check out the links below for information relevant to the leadership principles embodied in each chakra.
- Root chakra: Located near the base of the workplace spine, this chakra can keep us grounded and allow us to remain aware of the survival tactics of unions and the recruiting toolboxes they use for organizing purposes.
- Sacral chakra: This chakra is the key to creativity and workplace emotions. Nurture it by promoting collaboration and ensuring your leaders are approachable.
- Solar plexus chakra: This level represents power, confidence, and the appetite for interpersonal success. It also helps managers to envision and manifest greater workplace harmony.
- Heart chakra: The focus here is compassion, empathy, and pinpointing practices that might cause workers to believe a union can solve their problems.
- Throat chakra: Truth and transparency are critical to this chakra. Open the lines of communication between employees and managers and receive those benefits in abundance.
- Third-eye chakra: Here is where it’s time to see the forest for the trees and stay open to messages coming your way by using data and intuition to lead your employees.
- Crown chakra: If you’ve made it this far, congrats. This chakra is where good and bad vibrations can be received from a higher power and where wisdom can eventually reign supreme. Unblock the earlier chakras, and this one will follow.
Now, it’s time to get to work for the coming year. Thank you for indulging in this round of fun with us. Ideally, the above areas of focus (and the leadership links) can help you prime your workplace for as little labor-related unease as possible. We will be back tomorrow with more typical labor relations news, and we look forward to seeing you at LRI INK throughout 2024.
