January 2008 – A year for common sense in the workplace

What are going to be the most pressing issues in the workplace this year? The beginning of January would seem as good a time as any to ask this question. I’m not convinced, however, that it’s the best time to find an answer.

What is the New Year anyway but an artificial punctuation mark in a continuum reflected in the oscillation of the seasons?

It’s not as if life experiences any dramatic change from one year to the next. Change is usually cumulative and its effects become noticeable as we look back. For this reason I always believe that a historical perspective is far more useful in assessing trends than any crystal ball.

But this is the time of year that we grow reflective and lay plans for the future so it would be churlish to waste the opportunity.

Recalling various conversations over the Christmas break it’s tempting to suggest that little will change in the coming year. The interview experience of one friend, seeking a senior job with the United Nations is typical. Among the banal questions she faced was this old chestnut: “What do you think are your strengths and weaknesses?”

She told the interviewers she was sure she had some weaknesses but couldn’t recall what they were. Good for her. Why should anyone with a positive attitude be expected to dwell on weaknesses?

She could, of course, have given the stock answer that “perhaps I work too hard.” It’s what such unimaginative approaches deserve.

Elsewhere I found myself agreeing with the teacher friend who wanted practical training and qualifications in schools afforded parity with the more academic subjects.

I also agreed with the college lecturer who thought it was high time that employers developed a more grown-up relationship with employers. His faculty head had asked him if he was willing to work longer hours in order to find the budget for an extra member of staff.

When the lecturer refused, the head appealed to his professional loyalties. “I have none. I come to work for the money,” said the lecturer.

“It felt liberating to say that straight out and it’s improved my relationship with the head,” he said. “It means that our conversations are not cluttered with claptrap about self-improvement or organisational agendas. I come to work to do my job and I go home. That’s it.”

His response is refreshing at a time that the concept of a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay has become so unfashionable. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if those at either side of the employment relationship thought a little more deeply about the expectations of the job in the coming year.

It didn’t need an occupational psychologist’s employee survey, for example, to tell us this week that a third of people are bored in their jobs – partly because the same psychologist was quoted saying the very same things about this time last year.

We know that a lot of people are bored in their jobs. Some of us may be willing to admit to boredom. A lot of boredom is created by the processes around work – the form-filling, the endless rounds of irrelevant emails, the deluge of dull mail we have to deal with and one senseless meeting after another.

I’m thinking it was ever the same. The difference today, however, is that the workplace has been invaded by stimulating internet-based distractions. One of the most telling symptoms of workplace boredom in the last year has been the explosion of online activity among office workers using social networking sites.

Of all the subjects I covered in 2007, social networking and its impact on the workplace drew the most email comments from readers, many of them negative.

The battle lines seem to have been drawn with management on one side and employees on the other, although this simplifies the picture somewhat. Most of the owner-managers I encountered during the year had adopted a hostile view of sites such as Facebook and MySpace, not to mention such popular repositories for video clips as YouTube.

The reaction among managers in larger organisations, however, was more mixed. Some had taken the plunge themselves and signed up to networking sites; others were keeping a watching brief. But almost every executive I met in the back half of the year had something to say about social networking online, even if they had little or no experience of the most popular web sites.

The most common off-the-cuff comment made time and again among the refuseniks was that the whole thing was a waste of time. Some regarded it as a passing craze, some worried about privacy and some were concerned about the potential for undermining staff relations and corporate reputations.

In the next 12 months I expect more companies to be reviewing their policies covering use by employees of such web sites. At the same time they should consider reviewing job content, seeking new ways to enrich the workplace experience for more people.

The Work Foundation’s Good Work Campaign has recognised this need and deserves to accumulate increasing support in 2008.

Any debate about good work, however, must go beyond working conditions and workplace relations. It needs to focus on the way that work is accomplished and the habits that we have acquired in undertaking work.

Why do so many people, for example, regard meetings as sacrosanct? There are important meetings and there are other meetings where everything you need to know or say is covered in the first five-minutes and the rest of the time is wasted.

But I hear far fewer objections to time wasted in meetings than I do about time wasted on social networking sites. The reason for this is wholly to do with custom and practice. The meeting has become embedded within the fabric of organisations, while social networking and other forms of online communications continue to be viewed with suspicion. Employers must begin to absorb the potential of all forms of communication and information gathering, promoting a healthy use of the internet rather than resorting to heavy-handed interventions.

The more enlightened employers are beginning to make the link between the surveys they carry out measuring employee engagement or commitment and the need for people to enjoy stimulating, fulfilling work. It’s difficult to expect one without the other.

These are significant concerns for employers that are seeking to maintain or improve their supply of enthusiastic and able recruits. To ensure high standards among candidates companies must deliver on promises of good work and career development and that means striking a balance between hard work and the lighter side of office life. People need space to enjoy their work. Whether it should be MySpace, or any other such website, is a question that needs to be debated.

See also: Knowing your employees: