Won’t get fooled again
Love and Affection
Employee engagement is seen by employers as a highly desirable thing and has been something of a holy grail for them since Gallup began charting it at the beginning of the century.
Yes, really, we’ve had over 20 years of employment engagement stats and they have consistently been at unremittingly woeful levels despite huge amounts of money being spent on improving them.
I can see the win for employers. Engaged employees are likely to contribute discretionary effort, show greater commitment and loyalty, be more aligned with the organisation’s objectives and arguably less critical of its actions. Free effort and better compliance for no extra money - what a deal!
But do they have any right to ask us to be engaged?
What’s in it for the employee? Where’s the reciprocity?
When I joined the workforce at the beginning of the 1980s, it was still in the era of ‘a job for life’ (just) and there was a social contract (in the UK, at least). Since then, all that has been stripped away as organisations increasingly reneged on their side of the deal, with waves of layoffs, cuts in benefits, reduced pensions and employee rights. Rather than being treated as valued members of the workforce, employees became replaceable cogs in the machine, obtained at the lowest cost.
The employment contract is now much more transactional. There’s no loyalty on either side, employers will sacrifice staff to meet short-term financial goals and consequently employees will maximise the pay they get for their efforts and not hesitate to move for more money.
I suspect this is what is behind the continuing lack of engagement. There’s lots of talk about it but both sides know the real transaction that’s going on. Engagement isn’t on the table because people see it for the con it is. So employers resort to increasingly coercive methods to get more out of their employees. (I generalise to make a point here, there are obviously some good employers out there!).
The funny thing is that most organisations would see an improvement in their employee engagement scores by simply proving to their employees that they actually give a shit about them.
But that would mean some commitment beyond the purely financial transaction of the employment contract. And that ship sailed a long time ago.
The Price Of Love
Another form of this effort to gain your discretionary effort for free is the idea that you should love your job. Even better, it should be a calling. Like a nurse, or a teacher, or a carer, professions that are routinely underpaid (in the UK, at least) for this very reason.
We’re sold this myth in all lines of work, that we should love our work and that it should be a reward in itself (to compensate for the shitty pay and conditions).
As Sarah Jaffe put it in her book “Work won’t love you back”, ‘Whether it’s working for free in exchange for ‘experience’, enduring poor treatment in the name of ‘being part of the family’, or clocking serious overtime for a good cause, more and more of us are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do work we enjoy’.
I took part in a discussion on LinkedIN this week about how non-profit orgs and charities often treat their people badly but excuse their behaviour because of the nobleness of their cause.
Unpaid internships have become the only way to get into many occupations, as you must demonstrate your real desire by sacrificing your financial wellbeing.
In corporates, you must demonstrate your fervour and ‘cultural fit’ by going above and beyond. If you really love your job, you won’t mind giving up your evenings and weekends to support the company’s objectives. (‘Purpose’ is a particularly useful tool here, being the ‘noble cause’ that you need to sacrifice yourself for).
These are all abuses that hide behind the idea that we should ‘love our jobs’.
We don’t need to love our jobs, we need to love our lives. Our jobs are a part of that but it is perfectly OK (and arguable more rational) if they are a less important part. As my brother always said “I work to live, I don’t live to work”. We can get fulfillment through our work but it’s not obligatory. Sometimes our job is just a means to earn the money to do the things we really want to do.
It’s fine if we do love our jobs too but we must keep a sense of proportion about it. We need to clear-eyed about what our contribution is worth and secure that first. Loving the job should be for our benefit, not the employers.
And don’t let them kid you any differently.
Family Affair
I think the most pernicious form of the gaslighting to con us out of our discretionary effort is the positioning of the organisation as ‘one, big family’.
This is a particularly nasty way to exploit our feelings of familial love to get free work out of us.
Your colleagues are not your family. Your employer is not your family. The ties that bind you at work are much, much more fragile than they pretend - as you will realise when you leave.
Your actual family love you, support you and stand by you, whatever the circumstances. They don’t ‘let you go’ when they decide they can’t afford you, or your medical condition becomes too difficult, or you get pregnant, or they decide to up sticks and move to the other side of the country, or the world.
Family is forever. They don’t make you redundant.
(I realise that I am talking about a healthy family environment here and some do not enjoy that good fortune. Some families are dysfunctional and unhappy but at least you don’t have to endure that AND pretend it’s all fabulous).
You can't choose your family but you can choose your employer. If they start giving you the ‘we are family’ bollocks, get out and find a new one.
Freedom
The Pirates of the Golden Age faced a similar situation. They were ‘fearless fighting men in the best Navy in the World’, serving Queen and country, until the wars were won and they were no longer required, when they were ‘let go’.
That was for the lucky ones who were not forced to serve against their will, treated cruelly, badly fed and underpaid. And then got rid of.
So they became Pirates, and created their own society that gave them freedom, fairness and opportunity.
Then the Queen needed them again, so they became ‘Privateers’ and proud Englishmen, fighting her enemies (the Spanish, mostly) under ‘Letters of Marque’ . Until she didn’t need them, removed their ‘Letters of Marque’ and made them pirates again, outlaws and enemies of the crown.
There are two lessons to learn from the Pirates.
Firstly, that you should never let someone else decide your status. Use your agency to define it for yourself.
And secondly, if you want to believe in a greater purpose and fight for that, you do it for yourself and how it benefits you, not for someone else’s gain.
Pirates fought for freedom, equality and fairness.
Aren’t they still worth fighting for today?