It’s A People Thing
Human
There’s been a lot of talk about ‘rehumanising work’ over the past few years, it’s a phrase that pops up a lot amongst people who talk about creating better workplaces. Indeed, many people I know in the ‘progressive work movement’ (I don’t know if that’s a recognised ‘thing’ but it ought to be) have it as a core part of what they do, it’s often part of their purpose or branding, or both.
It’s not hard to see why. Work has become increasingly dehumanising over the past four decades, people feel they are little more than overworked cogs in an unforgiving machine. They feel alienated, disconnected and unvalued as human beings. Even if they enjoy their work, they often feel crushed and overwhelmed by the unending stream of it and the ever-increasing pressure.
The symptoms are plain enough to see. A lack of engagement, increased stress, depression, burnout. All of these are increasing, apart from engagement, which is simply flat-lined at a pitifully low level. So, it’s not all doom and gloom, is it? (Yes it is - Ed.)
I have said previously that this is due to the ‘Forces of Crapification’, which are:
Putting profits before people
Valuing efficiency over effectiveness
An obsession with process and measurement
The spread of mobile phones and the ‘always on’ culture
Tech replacing human interaction
Increasing work loads, hours and stress
I came up with these some five years ago and I felt that the downward trajectory of work would continue. Not only was work crap because of these forces, but it was going to continue to get crappier.
Then we had a global pandemic and everyone had to switch to working from home overnight. So that made it all a lot worse, right?
Well, no. For some, yes, it was appalling and traumatic, especially for those who lived alone or in crowded and chaotic home environments. However, for the majority, it proved to be better in many ways than the office experience. Which was rather unexpected.
What we learnt was that people really valued the autonomy and flexibility over their work schedule. That they responded positively to the trust and responsibility placed upon them to work it out for themselves, to co-create the ‘new normal’. That the extra attention on their morale and mental health made them feel valued.
Plus, they gained a lot of time and energy (and money) from cutting out the commute.
We learned that some form of distributed working (or hybrid, or remote or whatever you want to term it) actually mitigates some of the impact of forces of crapification. This is not simply due to the tangible benefits - the extra time, energy and money it frees up - but also due to the intangible changes in the relationship employees have with their work, with each other and their boss, and with the organisation. It makes them feel more trusted, supported, heard, valued - in short, it makes them feel more human.
I don’t think distributed work is the answer to how to rehumanise work but it’s the way into finding solutions. It’s part of the answer, it’s the first step. And that’s why I advocate for it.
If I Could Turn Back Time
So, what has been the response to this insight that had fortuitously landed in our lap? Has it been embraced by the titans of industry and been the catalyst that leads us to a new and more human world of work?
You know what’s coming next, don’t you?
A lot of big companies are trying to go into reverse on distributed work and get more people back into the office for more days. We’ve seen remote working pledges withdrawn, mandated days policies become more widespread and, for those that already have them, increased from 3 to 4, or even 5 days. We’ve seen threats of monitoring of entry passes, sanctions, even office attendance being a part of appraisal systems. They feel the loosening of the job market is giving them the upper hand and they are slapping employees right back in their place (which is at their desks in the office, it seems).
So, not exactly taking on the learning there.
I think this is deeply foolish on the part of these organisations. It’s already impacting engagement (in the US this has fallen from the high (!) it reached during the pandemic) and arguably depressing productivity. It’s certainly keeping up the interest employees have in moving jobs. “Aha!” Say the employers, “where are they going to go?!! Where are these jobs??”, as they continue in the belief that people are just going to have to suck it up.
However, the learning has been taken on board elsewhere.
A recent survey showed that remote working is now the default for startups. Some 80% of the companies (500 employees are less) were based on remote working.
What’s important to startups is getting the best talent; being flexible, agile and resilient; minimising costs to maximise their runway; sensing and responding quickly to their environment. Oh, and a strong identity and culture, high levels of collaboration and co-creation, and innovation. Remote delivers on all of these.
These startups are the market leaders of tomorrow. The incumbents who are going back to the office are just making the job of the startups to displace them easier.
Double Dutch
Did you notice that I said startups want ‘a strong identity and culture, high levels of collaboration and co-creation, and innovation’?
You know, all that stuff that the big boys say they need to go back to the office for.
Yeah.
Monster (What’s That Coming Over The Hill)
The elephant in the room in all this is scale. The argument against most progressive work strategies (and I include remote as one) is ‘that won’t scale’, that’s it’s fine for little companies but it won’t work for the big ones.
Matt Ballantine (a good guy to follow on Twitter) gave me an interesting perspective when we met for coffee recently. I’m interpreting my memory of what he said here but the gist of it was:
A ‘human scale’ organisation is less that 500 people because anyone in the organisation will be known to you or to someone you know.
At less that 2000 people, it still feels quite human because you can reach everyone in the organisation and you have something in common, the same organisational purpose or goals.
Over 2000, it’s basically a monster, not human at all. Often mechanistic and bureaucratic, disconnected from the people working in it. It has it’s own mythology, you might even say it’s own reality.
Matt’s question was, ‘If you’re in a massive organisation and it feels totally hostile to you, is the only answer to leave?’. I said I’d get back to him on that. I’m still pondering, because my immediate response was ‘yes’ and that’s not very actionable for many people. (I’ll be exploring this more in future missives).
An even more depressing thought is that there is a terrible inevitability to all this. As organisations grow, they dehumanise, they revert to the status quo. If you’re in a large organisation, it’s going to be crap and there’s nothing that can be done about it. It certainly feels that way some times.
My response is to point to Haier, a large organisation that is made up of thousands of ‘micro-enterprises’ of around 15 people, typically. Or at W.S.Gore, who famously operate in units of up to 150 (the Dunbar number). Or the Mondragon Organisation in Spain, the world’s largest co-operative. There are alternatives, we don’t have to build organisations in the monolithic and dehumanising way we have in the past.
There’s no reason why the emerging organisations based on remote working can’t grow in new and different ways and retain the feeling of a human-scale organisation. In fact, I think the likelihood is that they will.