Living at work

Despite the fact that flexible and hybrid working has been widely welcomed, there is disturbing evidence that it is leaving many people exhausted and overwhelmed. Equally worrying is that it may be  leading to poor management practices and a fragmenting of organizational culture - far more rapidly than we suspected. In this episode, Stephen Barden examines the data so far and advocates that leaders need to completely re-think the way they run their companies and institutions.

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Transcript

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Working from home – especially the hybrid model – has been happily clutched to all our bosoms it seems - by employees, senior managers, HR, (especially HR) coaches and consultants in all their forms. Plenty of commentary I think has gone into the question of whether it affects productivity, and even whether people approve of it – or not. 

But how much thought has gone into the impact this has – and will continue to have - on our relationships, both workplace and personal, and on the culture of our organisations and our communities?  

While more flexible working is a very good thing, my concern is that many organizations think that it’s an add on. They can simply add a wing onto a creaky old building, without looking at what it’s doing to the whole house. It reminds me of those country mansions, which start off as Tudor, then they add a Georgian portico in all its glory, then a couple of Victorian wings and finally a Grecian column or two. The whole pile looks, feels and is a mess. 

The UK’s Office of National Statistics has been conducting research on remote and hybrid working, since mid-May 2020. In the three months ending the last week of July 2024, nearly 40% of employees in the survey, were working either entirely from home or a mixture of the two. And those are conservative figures. Other research studies put the figure for hybrid working at 44%. The consistent majority of remote and hybrid workers have been those between the ages of 30 and 49, followed by the 50 – 69-year-olds. Differences between men and women are negligible. 

So, a really significant number of people in the UK work at least part of the time from home – remotely. 

In the US it’s even more dramatic. According to Statista.com, in the second half of 2024, 53% of US employees reported working in a hybrid way, although the US Bureau of Labor Statistics put that figure at closer to 35%. That’s relevant because there is still a significant variation in reliable data in this area. Another issue that affects consistency, I feel, could be that there’s still a rush to interpret incomplete data depending on one’s views and interests.

But it appears that, so far, people are so happy with flexible working that they – according to some of those surveys –would rather resign than lose that flexibility. 

But let’s look at some other evidence that’s emerging. 

Earlier this year Harvard Business Review published an article which was a roundup of 69 other articles that had appeared in management and psychology journals on the impact of the pandemic, and of remote and hybrid working, on organisations between 2020 and 2023. 

One of the findings was that in this new flexible culture, there was heightened anxiety -particularly among conscientious, higher performers.  This was accompanied by weakening team bonds.  Both were apparently eased when people were able to talk to their team mates in person – rather than remotely. 

So, I dug a little deeper to see if there was any other evidence that work-related anxiety was rising. ComPsych – which bills itself “as the world’s largest provider of mental health services” issued a report in April 2024 in which it said that anxiety is – and I quote – “the No. 1 presenting issue reported by U.S. workers, topping depression, stress, relationship issues, family issues, addiction and grief.” In 2017, work related anxiety, they go on to say, wasn’t even in the top five.

In May of 2023, the Society for Human Resource Management, (SHRM) based in Virginia  and with a global membership of 325,000 -  conducted a survey amongst 1000 workers. Around 30% of those said their job was making them feel overwhelmed. Around the same number talked of feeling anxious at least once a week.

Now hang on. What’s going on here? We love remote working but we’re feeling increasingly anxious? Yes, it could be, as the CEO of ComPsych was reported as saying, down to the conflicts in Gaza and the Ukraine, the pandemic,  dkvisive political rhetoric and a major election year in the US and other countries. 

But it doesn’t explain this huge surge in workplace anxiety. After all they weren’t saying that they were anxious about personal, social or political issues, they were very clearly saying they were anxious about and in work. And the SHRM research attributed this to workload, as the biggest factor, followed by pay, understaffing and poor leadership – stroke – management.. 

Another bit of research, I’m afraid: This time, Deloitte’s “Gen-z and Millennials” Survey in May 2024, with a sample of 23000 participants in 44 countries. 

Both these age groups saw their work as intrinsic to their identity – second only to family and friends. And over a third of both groups -Gen z a little more so- said that their job plays a key role in their stress. What got them all anxious? Overwork, not being recognised, not being supported, unfair decision making.. Very similar to SHRM’s research. By the way, just to get it in proportion:48 % of Gen z hybrid workers complained of long working hours. That’s 48%. And the Deloitte research found that 50% of GenZs and 45% of millennials agreed or strongly agreed that they felt burnedout at work 

So, where have we got to so far? A large percentage of employed people are working all or some of the time from home. 

The majority of those are so keen on flexible working that, we’re told, they would rather resign or change jobs than go back to the office permanently. 

However, coinciding with a surge in flexible working, there has been another surge – in workplace anxiety and mental health issues. And Millennials and Gen Z, seem to be really feeling the pinch more than anyone else: About half of those, who during those first lockdowns in 2020 would have been anything between the working ages of 18 -39, are feeling burned out, and with very little say in their own destiny.

Where does that leave us? 

Well, it initially prompted me to ask the obvious question – which is, “is there a correlation between that surge in remote and hybrid working and the rise in workplace anxiety?”

Then I realised that actually, asking that question, trying to prove a statistical link, is diverting us from asking the more valuable human questions that may at least point us to much needed solutions.  

1.    What happened to us when we were in lockdown? What was going on when we were shut up in our attics  and in our heads and only emerged to talk remotely to colleagues and friends?

2.    What is  happening now to workplace behaviour, relationships and people management – both as a result of the pandemic and of flexible working?

Ok, what did happen when we were in lockdown and what may still be happening now? We certainly know that children, particularly those approaching or in adolescence, found their social skills atrophying. Just as they were exploring their sense of self - their place in the world - that world was closed to them. 

And a number of studies show us that the impact on adults was almost as dramatic. Language skills deteriorated, and people reported difficulty in actively engaging in and ordering complex discussions.  In an article in the New York Times dated August 28 this year, Matthew Shaer says, “we emerged from quarantine with less ability to make eye contact or conduct ordinary conversation with acquaintances.”

We had spent such a long time in our heads and in the heads of social media that that chatter became central instead of peripheral. 

Interacting on a face-to-face basis calls for evaluating, adapting to and interrelating with others at a very immediate level. In an article from the Baylol  College of Medicine, Professor Eric Storch of the department of psychiatry and behavioural sciences, says exactly that very specifically:  

“Face-to-face interaction is key for developing social skills. 

It allows someone to practice who they are and get pretty immediate feedback. That helps us learn how to effectively navigate the world and interpersonal relationships.”

The only face to face interaction we had during lockdown – if we were lucky enough – was with the bubble - family and partners. What we lost, or at least became very rusty at, was the ability to “navigate the world” – to interact with people of very different opinions, thoughts and emotions. And most important, we didn’t have to contextualise our interactions. In the physical world we constantly use and adapt our social skills, not only to the person but to the context. We behave differently in a restaurant, in the boss’s office, at PTA gatherings or client meetings. But in quarantine, we had only one context, our homes. Our virtual work meetings were not only locked in a false context, but they were also, close to monothematic. They were transactional. They were held by managers or team leaders to get something done, or to review what was being done. 

Managers mistook this new remote world as one which they could continually invade at all hours of the day.  While their subordinates, on the other hand, were in the schizophrenic position of feeling both invaded as well as obliged to respond to those demands. 

(No wonder so many of the least experienced of our people, complain that they feel burnt out.) 

It would have been much more difficult for managers to make such demands in the physical world. And their subordinates, would have had the experience and/or the support of their organizational culture to moderate excessive demands. One of the values of Organizational cultures is that they create norms and temper demands outside those norms. That tempering -the context – is not present when you’re alone in your kitchen office. 

So people emerged from the pandemic, not only with their social norms and boundaries being eroded but less able to empathise, to navigate, to negotiate, to adapt.  And of course, many of the millennials and gen-z (who entered the workplace during or just after lockdown) had little or no experience of any other workplace norms. 

And what did they emerge into – after the pandemic, when we had apparently gone back to normal? Workplaces in which transactional virtual meetings were still the dominant force; where the only regular, consistent encounters are those outcome-focussed video conferences. Why? Because where you have hybrid organisations it is statistically likely that at least half of its people will be working from home in any one day. That means that it is possible, even probable, that you may not physically see some of your colleagues – or even members of your own team – for weeks on end.  

What’s wrong with that? Well, let’s go back to the importance of context, this time with specific regard to good management. When I as your manager only see you when we are in transactional mode, then I won’t know what you are like when you’re dealing with others. I certainly will not know how you deal with your own team; I won’t know how you behave to other members of staff. I won’t know what you’re like as a colleague – as a member of this community. So, I won’t know whether you would be a good successor, or whether you need to adjust your behaviour – until it's too late.  

We learn as much – if not more -about the people we manage, and the people we work with, when we have the time and space to see them interact with others throughout the organisation; how they are as a part of the community, not as my manager or direct report.

But, you may be thinking, surely we can do that in a hybrid organisation? After all, on average we’re still in the office more than out of it.  Ye, we can – and I’ll deal with that a little later. The issue is not the flexibility. It’s when the centre of gravity shifts: from the office to the home; as well as from cultural, the organisational, the holistic, to the transactional and the individual. 

Globally, companies are shrinking their office space – and will continue to do so. With Hybrid working they don’t need to accommodate all their people all the time.  So, the days where people felt they had -literally – a place in their organizations are gone in these companies. 

Yes, a number of corporations try and organize so called “anchor days” when everyone is expected to be in the office once a quarter or so, for training, catch-ups, seminars and socials get togethers but these, even if held consistently, are not the norm.  These are attempts at reminding people that – in the past – they belonged with a coherent working community. 

This is not an attack on hybrid organizations and flexible working. It has huge advantages, not least the reduction of that hideous waste of time – commuting. We also know that Hybrid organizations have not lost productivity levels – in fact, many report increases. And that’s not surprising, the dominant focus is on those transactional, results focused, meetings.

But there is no doubt that staff turnover – particularly amongst managers - has increased significantly as have staff disputes and conflicts. ACAS, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service in Britain – that traditionally did most of its work on disputes between employers and trade unions (so-called collective disputes) suddenly found in 2023 that individual disputes – grievance, disciplinary, whistle blowing and discrimination - outnumbered those collective conflicts by 6%. All in the space of one year. 

HR consultancies and advisors, as well as dispute resolution specialists, urge that organizations be alert to issues and act early to head off conflicts. That’s far too late. It’s a little futile to spend your time adjusting your steering to every time you find yourself heading for a crash. It might be better finding out what is it about your car or your driving that’s pushing you in that direction. 

Corporate, institutional and organizational leaders – and I mean at board level – need to think deeply and radically about what their organizations need to thrive - for the future. If you start off with what the organization needs, you will – unless you’re hanging on to old interests – start the analytical cascade that examines in ruthless detail all of its essential ingredients: its   purpose, objectives, channels, resources relationships and so on. Take this opportunity. Really dig down and align the architecture of your organization to what it is there to do. Only then – once you’ve modelled your infrastructure can you build your superstructure and soft furnishings as it were: your anchor days, seminars, catch ups and so on. This is not a difficult process – but it is a deep one. And it needs to be championed at the very highest level, with innovative and courageous inputs from all levels.

In the meantime, while this is going on, step up your mental health capabilities. Really find out what happened to your people in the pandemic and what is going on with them now.  Unless we know where people are coming from – the state of their sense of self and their assumptions, particularly about communicating and social skills, -we will have little idea of how to interact with them. Get people together – in one room – to find out what would make it easier for them, in this hybrid environment to enjoy doing a good job for the organisation; what is it that’s making them anxious or burnt out or in conflict. 

Organizations – particularly in business – once housed the most innovative of minds. Minds that introduced radically new ways of thinking, new products, new services and new technologies. I hope that those minds, if they are still there, realise that they have to turn that creativity to reshaping the organizations, their relationships and their people to ensure that we thrive. And continue to thrive.  

But, to end on a pessimistic note, I strongly doubt that they will. I fear that, those minds have become fixated on keeping what they think is an even keel. Nothing to rock the boat after all the disruptions of financial crashes, pandemics, unstable governments, Brexit and so on. My advice is: the keel needs fixing – and if you don’t do something about it soon, keeping it even will be the least of your problems.