The impact on organisations

The impact on society will undoubtedly change the way we work, at least in the short term.  Organisations who cannot (or are too slow to) adapt, risk being left behind. These changes also affect the relationship between organisation and individual, with vast swathes of people looking to their companies, societies and institutions to support and engage them in new ways.

Firstly, working days will likely become less defined as we increasingly work from home.  In the same way, as we can’t help – and often welcome – disruptions from children, pets or household chores, we may find that work invades our free time.  The time we claw back from not having to commute will be reclaimed by the ‘always on’ nature of future work, resulting in work and home life being interwoven, the result of which may well be longer days and less ‘off’ time.

Individual preference for working styles will also be a factor.  In the same way as ‘introverts’ have been distracted by noisy, bustling office environments, ‘extraverts’ will likely be missing the dynamism and buzz of conventional work.

Communications teams will be affected as the same comms channels (email, Zoom) are being squeezed.  Learning & Development teams will be finding out that conventional knowledge transfer is unlikely to exist in its former guise.  With limitations around real-life collaboration, we’re unlikely to learn from each other in the same way.

Work relationships will suffer; with serendipitous collaboration, over-the-desk chats and coffee-area gossip being seriously curtailed.  Many will argue that’s a good thing for productivity, but a poorer one for a sense of team spirit, fun and enjoyment at work.

Lastly, the management model will need to change to adapt to the new world. Many global businesses still adopt a highly top-down management style.  Requirements such as having to punch in and out for work, with bonuses and KPIs tied closely to attendance will be shocked into reality – that the notion of trust and control will have to be carefully managed.

What we can do about it – nine top tips:

1. Focus on you and your team’s mental and physical health. Wellbeing teams will have to make sure that these skills are a fundamental part of each manager’s toolkit.  The organisation now has a duty to make sure the team are physically, mentally and emotionally well, by offering support, regular chats, time to exercise and broken-up working day.  Or as US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it this week: “recreation and re-creation are the same thing”.
2. Resource people properly. They’ll need a proper desk setup, laptops and phones, access to file sharing, video communications and collaboration tools.  You may need to re-shape IT, H&S and HR policies to do so, but make sure your teams are properly equipped to work remotely.
3. Make it fun. With lower levels of social collaboration, work can seem very… dry.  Create time for informal chats, celebrations and fun – in meetings, roadshows, conferences and training.
4. Keep your messaging tight. With any chaotic event, maintaining organisational values and goals is hard.  Keep re-stating the why of the organisation, reminding them and thanking them for doing meaningful work.
5. Follow strict meeting guidelines. Firstly, don’t over-invite people to meetings; give them the opportunity to say ‘no’ and limit them to those people that really need to be there.  Send recordings to the rest. Have sharp agendas and clear boundaries (i.e. nobody should speak for more than 60 seconds). Make sure you close them out with clear outcomes and responsible people.
6. Create a buddy programme. Knowing that the most effective ways that people learn (i.e. on the job, with people) will be impacted, why not create a less formal ‘buddy’ programme.  With clearly defined roles that are linked to performance ambitions, people can learn from each other with regularly scheduled catch-ups.
7. Trust people. With less clearly defined organisational structures, you may need to leverage a more matrix-style organisational design.  This means less control, more delegation, letting people play to their strengths and getting out of their way.
8. Set clear, regular boundaries. Early and often.  Clarity in expectation setting requires a particular set of skills and will be key in maintaining morale, productivity and momentum.  With the lack of formal performance management systems like appraisals, clear goal-setting can take away a lot of performance issues.
9. Don’t forget about people. Especially when people aren’t visible in the office, the temptation will be to communicate by cascading information from the organisation to many people, by email or video call.  But one-to-one is still crucial for maintaining morale and connection. Thank people sincerely, offer help, listen intently and check in on them regularly.

Please remember that people will remember.  The role that organisations play in the new world is not only good for the organisation itself, but for society as a whole.  Companies that treat people badly, forcing them to bend to their will, have not gone unnoticed.  Leaders who do not lead with integrity will be remembered for it… Organisations that are generous, supportive and value their people will also be remembered.  And with a shifting balance of power from organisations to people, can you afford to get it wrong?

Savvy businesses understand this (maybe due to the recent data that says that "the cost of a bad hiring decision can be as much as 2.5 times the employee’s annual salary"), often investing heavily into their recruitment strategy to ensure the right culture fit is established early on. This can be from simple behaviour-based competency interviewing - all the way to employing tech platforms that align corporate and personal value systems at the attraction stage.

Unfortunately, this myopic view of the recruitment function assumes that their role is to simply get the 'right' person on the boat; often forgetting that the expectation and psychological contract goes both ways - and lasts a long time!

The reason? Authenticity.

I’ve watched countless short values videos with professional voice-overs; or ‘fun’ ones where the board is forced to mime along to the company song whilst dressed in silly outfits. I’ve heard organisations shout about highly undeserved awards and I’ve read stiff, PR-agency-run Twitter feeds. I’ve seen many, many eloquently written and aspirational values statements, or the ‘about us’ page on the company website that reads like Donald Trump’s self-congratulating resumé.

Now don’t get me wrong: There’s nothing wrong with either having a clear Employer Value Proposition, or having a large budget. It’s the lack of authenticity! Spin, bluster and PR will only do damage to your chances of retaining quality people.

If you sold me a car, promising it was the most economical, stylish, fastest, easiest-driving vehicle the world has ever seen - I can only be disappointed when a few weeks later I notice that these facts start to unravel.

And the solution? Much the same with all honest relationships, admit your failings. Explain what you’re good at, and what you’re working on. Don’t swear blind that you’re true to your values when you’re not.   

Anyone can create the impression of your organisation being a great place to work. But often, it’s in the post honeymoon period where the new recruit realises that they might not have been the only one telling half-truths in the interview…

During the First World War, the Army replaced all the soldiers’ cloth caps with tin helmets.  The injury rate of those soldiers actually went up by quite a long way…  What was the reason?

What we measure

Statistics may be one of our most effective and efficient vehicles for communicating information.  It is natural for people to trust numbers over words, because statistics present numbers in an attractive format that everyone can follow.  In addition, numbers represent a wide variety of information – including election poll numbers, service level agreements & KPIs, net promoter scores, football results, engagement surveys, the retail price index …or of course profit.

This perception of reliability in the data is risky.  Looking at our children’s school grades to the cost of the Tokyo Olympics to the percentage of trains that run on time - what that data doesn’t tell us is how much our children are learning, how good the Olympics will be, or the quality of the customer's journey on those trains!

The problem with the numbers

The problems come when the data used to represent the outcome, becomes the outcome.  The numbers are not the means to the end.  Happy customers are the means to the end – the customer feedback scores are a representation of that means!  It drives me nuts that organisations focus so much time and effort on getting good feedback scores, rather than focusing that effort on just making them happy.

Another story is that of our old favourites – traffic wardens. For many years now, local press around the UK has been reporting that traffic wardens have been giving out bogus tickets because they have to fulfil a certain quota of tickets per hour.  Anything from buses, police cars and even tow trucks have been ticketed – but I don’t believe that it’s the traffic warden’s fault… If you were working in a culture that actually defined your success in your job by the amount of tickets you gave (and docked your wages if you didn’t meet that target), what would you do? 

What difference would it make to the traffic wardens if their success was defined as the lowest number of disputes?  What if success was defined by the greatest number of people re-educated with not having to give a ticket?  What if a traffic warden was rewarded for having to give out the least number of tickets (because people in their 'patch' parked properly?) How would that change their approach?

The trouble with focussing on the numbers is not the numbers. It’s the focus. In the gym you can focus on the number of calories you burn, or you can focus on your quality of health.  On Twitter, you can focus on the number of followers you have, or on the quality of those relationships.  At work, you can focus on your call abandon rate, meeting room utilisation, profitability or KPI adherence.  Or you can focus on delivering an awesome service for each and every person and let the numbers take care of themselves!

And the solution to my riddle? The number of injuries of those soldiers did indeed go up – but the number of deaths from head injuries went right down, saving thousands of lives. The piece of shrapnel would have previously killed them outright.

Cognitive dissonance theory states that people strive for internal consistence and psychological comfort. It says that people who are "psychologically uncomfortable" are able to actively change what they believe… if they are uncomfortable with two conflicting beliefs. Consider an example:

You look in the mirror, thinking to yourself “I really must lose some weight”. A matter of only a few hours later, you find yourself tucking into a doughnut that someone’s passed round the office. In a moment of panic, you realise that you’ve committed to yourself that you’ll be good – and now you’re a bad person for eating the doughnut. 

You’re psychologically uncomfortable, so what do you do? Your options are as follows:

1. Justify your behaviour: (“It’s Sally’s birthday, it would be rude not to”)
2. Ignore or deny the data: (“It’s probably a low fat doughnut”)
3. Add an extra clause to your contract with yourself: (“I was really good yesterday and I walked to work, so it’s okay once in a while”)
4. Change your behaviour (“Right, I’m throwing this doughnut in the bin”)

Unfortunately, the last one is by far and away the most effective, but also the most difficult.  It’s much easier to do any one of the first three and just change what you believe!  Rationalising and justifying incongruent behaviours are more common than you might think – from “I know I should give to charity, but I’ve been really busy recently”, to “Donald Trump is an alpha male, so it’s OK for him to make those comments”. And as human behaviour and organisational behaviour are identical, intrinsically linked and inseparable, the same things tend to happen in the world of business – to the detriment of us all!

Recently, Amazon drivers have admitted to driving dangerously and even urinating into bottles because of the pressure to maintain an unreasonable delivery schedule. The organisational cognitive dissonance could well be that “it’s OK to treat our drivers like that, because we believe that our customers should come first.”

Sports Direct has engaged in some shocking behaviour by fining staff 15 minutes’ pay for being one minute late, even though they’re made to stand in long security queues. The organisation’s cognitive dissonance there is likely to be “If they didn’t steal from us, we wouldn’t need to be so strict”

Bank bosses justified the dysfunctional behaviour that prompted the banking crisis by explaining that the regulations were too loose, and anyway, “you shouldn’t have let us get away with it”.

There are also hundreds of smaller, micro-dissonances that justify a range of behaviours at work. Consider “Steve’s a bit of a bully, but he really makes us an amazing profit!”. Or “it’s OK that we make people work really long hours, because they wouldn’t make an effort otherwise”.  Or “we know we should have more senior women in leadership roles, but there’s no good women around”.   Justifying or rationalising ‘uncomfortable’ behaviours (rather than challenging them), can lead to a culture of sexism, bullying and low integrity; among many other dysfunctional outcomes.

So, do you want to rationalise, justify and explain away the reasons you reach for the doughnut… Or do you want to take the tough choice and opt to change your behaviour instead?

Having read my two previous posts, you'll now know that the workplace industry is very focused on productivity at the moment. Well, I say "productivity", but that's a trap... So substitute that word with creative, or collaborate, or innovative, or awesomely smiley (delete as applicable).  We also know that a sense of purpose is the biggest factor to make them productive/collaborative/innovative/smiley. But how do we get there?   How can the Workplace industry go about creating exceptional workplaces?

Well, I'll give you a clue - the biggest effects are not in the design. Creating an amazing place to work equally does not come about because you've got ergonomic seating, a concierge service, good air and noise quality, an Italian marble reception, a fantastic coffee machine, efficient chillers, or an above-the-recommended-minimum square foot of office space per person. These certainly contribute, but I think that these are hugely over-inflated causes of workplace productivity.

For me, there's a bit missing in the middle. The pink, squidgy bit in the middle. That's right, the thinking, feeling human being... I believe that the physical workplace should be far more focused on driving the thing that's right in front of its nose - and that's human behaviour. A recent Forbes article has done some research into "The Top 15 traits in business" - the likes of autonomy, passion, hard work, cultural fit, presentation and collaboration. So - the big question - can the workplace industry help to engender the those behaviours in the people who work there - making them more collaborative, autonomous, passionate and hard-working?

According to the CIPD, "Nearly 50% of employees describe the culture of their organisation as a ‘formalised and structured place to work, where procedures govern what people do and hold people together’. 55% specified that they would prefer to work in ‘an organisation with a family feel, held together by loyalty and tradition’"  

Additionally, ClearCompany say that "39% of surveyed employees believe that people in their own organisation don’t collaborate enough", and an Ipsos Mori poll concludes that only "a fifth of people are proud of their employer's behaviour". So what part does the workplace play in making people more passionate, collaborative and engaged? I've recently seen a few excellent examples of organisations that have understood this sociological link.

• Sky's campus in Livingston have an area where you walk into the call centre that's decorated to look like a customer's front door - so they are literally 'walking into the customer's world' before they speak to them. Rackspace have gone one step further, theming their entire office like a customer's home
• Sea Containers House residents Ogilvy & Mather have deliberately removed power sockets from secluded areas, to discourage lone working and force people to work in shared spaces and collaborate more
• Red Bull Racing and Mitie have introduced technology which drives hundreds of tiny, incremental improvements that mirrors the needs of the drivers on the track
• Receptionists at Coutts do guest profiling for the VIPs, to make sure the welcome is personalised, making sure the visitors feel more important and prestige
• Lego have introduced 'activity based working' to their London HQ, which has flexible working spaces and no offices. This 'reflects the diversity of the company', and encourages people to learn from each other

There are also many, many other good examples of workplaces that not only understand and adapt to the humans that use them - but also that are able to actively drive the behaviours that the organisation is looking for. There's still plenty of work to be done in the interconnected worlds of FM, HR, Communications and Leadership - but I for one would welcome more cultural alignment between all parts of the organisation, with all parties trying to engender the behaviours that will make them succeed.

Productivity. First of all, I struggle somewhat with the word. The dictionary defines productivity as “the effectiveness of productive effort, especially in industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input”.  Inspiring stuff, huh?

But I’m not convinced that’s the purpose and function of the workplace. Producing widgets. Profit. Things. I’m sure that lots of workplaces care about producing more stuff, cheaper, with a better people-per-square-foot utilisation ratio – or that click rates, shipping targets and customer orders go up because the workplace is awesome… But a lot of industries define productivity differently! For some, customer relationships are key. For others, it’s about the quality of their publishing, effectiveness of their marketing or the reputation of their handbags. Does a charity care about productivity in the same way as a bottling plant might do? Probably not.

For me, “productivity” can be translated into “whatever success represents for that organisation”, and it’s a little naïve to assume everyone wants a high  work rate.

Part of the issue, I believe, is down to the sort of things that the Workplace industry measures. A lot of effort is put into quantifying the effectiveness of the buildings and environments (including visitor numbers, air quality, coffee consumption, call response times, energy usage, etc, etc). This effectiveness is naturally geared towards that which can be tangibly measured. I think the well-work aphorism, first uttered by Elliot Eisner works perfectly here, when he said “not everything that can be measured matters, and not everything that matters can be measured”. 

Just because you have data that will tell you exactly “the effectiveness of productive effort… as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input”, should that be the intended outcome? What about value and effectiveness of the brand and your reputation as an employer?  What about the quality of ideas and level of inspiration and engagement? What about trust, wellbeing and the feeling your team get when they walk in the door every morning? What about the experience of your visitors? What about the cultural alignment of the workplace to the organisation?

Could there be a good shout for reversing this trend? Should we be promoting that instead of the company interviewing the candidate – that the candidate interviews their prospective manager in equal measure?

I’d love to see a candidate grill a potential new supervisor on his/her ability to delegate, how many of their team have been promoted, and how often they dole out reward and recognition. Managers could be given a similar amount of time in an interview to explain why they are the right manager for the new recruit, explaining how they plan to develop and mentor their team, and how much time they regularly dedicate to 1-to-1s and feedback. Perhaps the manager’s CV should also be included with the job description?

Staff are effectively paid less than the minimum wage, because they are required to undertake security checks (read: they’re vigorously searched) in their own time. Conversely, if people are just one minute late, Sports Direct will dock their pay.  They also operate a “six strikes and you’re out” rule, for a range of ‘offences’.  This includes a December 2015 occurrence of someone giving birth in the toilets, along with four other “miscarriage or pregnancy related complications”, which came about because their staff feared disciplinary action. There were 72 other ambulance call-outs, including 36 of which were “life-threatening”. Apparently, it’s fine for staff to stay behind after work in their own time to be searched, but any other absences (even life threatening ones) could be punishable with losing your job. And Mike Ashley’s reply? “I’m not Father Christmas”.

These practices, with the review of any decent HR or Talent professional that I know of, would most likely be dismissed as unfair and over-the-top. These draconian policies were most likely dreamed up as a response to some perceived threat, and I’d like to think that no forward-thinking professional would consider them.

The effects of this “culture of fear” are certainly shocking, but I believe this is only the symptom of something much more insidious and disturbing. The thing that shocks me the most is how the mind-set of some organisations still exists in the industrial revolution. From the 1750s right up until the 1970s & 1980s, the ‘factory-line’ mentality worked very well, scaling down huge operations into bite-size, manageable, simple tasks. It was great for menial tasks that only required a human being to show up for work, on time, or the production line would stop. 

But nowadays in the post-machine, digital age, the means of production has shifted from employer to employee. If you want people to act like people (in other words to think, collaborate, use their initiative and solve problems), they you need to treat them like a human being and not a slightly better-smelling machine. 

Trust them implicitly; even if one or two of them might steal from you. Take care of their wellbeing and treat them like individuals; even if there’s hundreds or even thousands of them. Communicate with them, ask them what they think and then listen to the replies; even if some don’t want to talk. Develop them and grow them; even if some of them end up leaving the business. And recognise them, thank them and praise them; even if they’re only doing their job. 

In summary, I think leaders have a moral, ethical and legal obligation to treat people like people. The definition and concept of leadership has shifted in recent years, and I hope it continues to shift.

Profit is not the be-all-and-end-all, to be obtained at all (human) costs. Profit is a by-product of treating your people well. And for those people that dispute the connection between people-centric businesses and bottom line profit? Well, Sports Direct has just had an estimated £600m wiped off the company’s value, with untold more damage in reputation and brand. Imagine if just a fraction of that had been invested in developing a people-centred organisation.