Companies that focus on collaboration across departments to create a holistic experience for both customers and employees will create more value and engagement for all stakeholders, writes Jodi Starkman, the executive director of the Innovation Resource Center for Human Resources. Starkman writes that aligning mindsets, behaviors and business structures can create an ecosystem for success.

More than just listening, it is essential for leaders to master the art of organizational listening and equip themselves with important tools and techniques -- roundtables, surveys, chain of command, walking around, open door policy, suggestion box and metrics -- that they can utilize to build an organizational listening strategy, writes Bob Lewis, a senior management and IT consultant. To execute an organizational listening strategy, Lewis suggests that leaders must free as much time from their schedule as they can to make room for organizational listening and then, one at a time, segment, stage and gradually integrate the seven organizational listening tools and techniques into their weekly work habits.

Leaders can create a culture of good communication if they make it safe to tell the truth and are empathetic toward others but also have the ability to critically examine all ideas, writes John Spence. "A perfect example of a communication culture like this is Microsoft, where they expect you to poke and prod ideas aggressively," Spence writes.

In a hybrid working world, where colleagues can go years without interacting face-to-face, there is definitely room for embarrassing mistakes when it comes to name pronunciation. Slack has a fix for that.

Jeff Batuhan, chief people officer at Tinuiti, talks about why the agency instituted 70 days of annual paid leave for staff that includes three mandatory weeklong office closures. "It's not about the time at your desk. ... It's about getting the work done," Batuhan says, adding, "When you say you are focused on your people first, actually mean it and put actions to it."

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to mental health issues lies in identifying people who might need help. A pair of engineers, who dealt with their own bouts of depression, have designed an algorithm that they say detects depression in a person's voice because regardless of language or culture, people suffering from depression often speak with a flat voice.