Decrapify Work or Die (never going back to before)
Office Perks?
The ‘return to the office’ furore continues with some spectacularly misjudged and tin-eared interventions from CEOs and other people who should know better (and probably do).
PM Johnson’s exhortation that ‘it’s time to go back to work’ is, frankly, deeply insulting to all the people in the UK who have managed to keep things functioning over the past year whilst juggling with dodgy wifi, working off the sofa, home-schooling, lockdown, caring for parents and the existential threat of a global pandemic. He added insult to injury with one of his typically unthinking asides that ‘people have had enough days off at home’ during the pandemic.
Add to this the inanities uttered by the CEO of WeWork (a real estate-based confidence trick that’s in recovery) that you can tell if people are really engaged because they come into the office, the veiled threat issued by The Washingtonian CEO that staff who didn’t return to the office would be replaced by contractors (which led to her staff refusing to publish the newspaper in protest) and the alpha-male blatherings of the CEOs of JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, asserting that staff would return to the office full-time because … well, they are telling them to and they’re the boss, right?
As someone commented on LinkedIN, “It’s a shame to see these DINO leaders standing in the water shouting at the tide when the rest of us are trying to catch a wave”. Whilst it’s disputed how long it takes to form a habit, from 15 to 60 days, there’s no disputing that a year is plenty. People have adapted to new patterns and integrated them into their lives and they don’t include dressing up to waste 2 hours a day commuting for the privilege of buying expensive lunches and using the company’s electricity.
Expect to see more and increasingly desperate attempts by these ‘DINO Leaders’ to restore the pre-pandemic status quo that served them so well, as well as those who have lots of money invested in making everyone schlep into cities on a daily basis. It’ll soon be “Get back to the office or you won’t get anymore coffee!!”
Although, to be fair, that would probably be more effective than what we’ve seen so far.
You're not the boss of me!
It occurs to me that there is a dimension to this argument that hasn’t been looked at. Again, spurred by a comment on LinkedIN;
“Hybrid has become the term for 'we still want to mandate a rule upon you' thereby appearing to be flexible.
You can work from home on a Monday or a Friday. That's not flexibility.”
This rings true because it’s the sort of stunt we’re used to seeing organisations pull (see CSR, Green-washing) and I’m sure quite a few will try this. But will it work?
You see, I think that people see through this stuff but normally they just go along with it. The ironists will point it out down the pub, everyone will laugh and take the piss out of the bosses but that’s about as far as it goes. Cynicism as a defence.
But this is different. This is about personal autonomy - sovereignty, if you like. And we know that people have a strong emotional response to that (I mean, that’s the fundamental reason Brexit happened). So I don’t think people are just going to roll their eyes and let it go. I think they’re going to be bloody angry about it.
Whether they kick up a stink or just vote with their feet, we’ll have to wait and see. Time for the pirates to stage a few mutinies, perhaps?
The coming wave of redundancies
There’s been a lot of discussion about the long term effect of the pandemic on mental health and the impacts we’ve seen already are quite horrifying, with big increases in levels of anxiety and stress and a rise in suicides. So far, many (in OECD countries, at least) have had their jobs protected by government intervention but as this is withdrawn, and especial as furlough tapers off (from July in the UK, ending in September) we are likely to see a rise in redundancies as companies either reduce their workforce or close down completely.
We’ve already seen a lot of redundancies during the pandemic and this is going to deliver a final kick in the teeth to many people who are already struggling. I have called redundancy ‘an everyday brutality’ because we have normalised the psychological and social damage that is done, which is often worsened by the impersonal and humiliating way it is done to people (all in the name of ‘best practice’).
Each redundancy is a personal tragedy for the individual involved. No matter how often they are told ‘it’s the role that’s redundant, not you. It’s not personal’, it certainly feels like it is personal. I was reminded of the research that redundancy negatively impacts the individual’s level of trust in the world (their feeling that things will work out OK in the end) not just in the first year but for up to five years afterwards (it may be longer, they’ve only been researching it for that long).
In addition to this, Gallup research shows that being unemployed for one year has more impact than the loss of a loved one, and the effect also lasts for up to 5 years.
It looks like there's a whole new wave of pain coming our way.
I don’t have any answers as to how we deal with this (and given our government’s track record on mental health services, which has spectacularly failed to live up to their rhetoric, I’m not hopeful) but on a personal level we can be aware, empathetic and kind to ourselves and others. We can also keep the conversation at the forefront and refuse to allow it to be brushed under the carpet, as has happened so often in the past.
Man of simple pleasures
They say that in every cloud there is a silver lining and so it has proved with the pandemic. In amongst all the pain, anguish and chaos of the past year, some positives have emerged. Some have had the time to reflect and re-assess their lives and priorities, spend more time with loved ones, taking care of themselves and others, find new ways of being.
For me, some of the positives have been really getting to know Epping Forest, which is literally at the end of my road, after only living here for 28 years (!); getting a lot of work done on the house & garden that would never have happened otherwise; the weekly highlight that is Drinking Dialogues and finding a fantastic community of like-spirited people around the world; ditto for the Be More Pirate community; and being able to watch all the West Ham games during their best season for decades.
The last one has been a delight because it was so unexpected after last season’s struggle to avoid relegation, and also because normally only a handful of their games are televised. It speaks to the eternal optimism of the sport’s fan but also reminds us that things can improve rapidly if we keep doing the right things. Let’s hope the world is in an equally improved position this time next year.
Oh, and ‘Come on you Irons!’