Feb. 14, 2022 "Employers set for a shock as hybrid work makes staff less loyal": Today I found this article by Emma Jacobs on the Financial Post:
The real competition for Netflix, according to its chief executive, Reed Hastings, is not broadcasters or streaming services — but sleep. “You get a show or a movie you’re really dying to watch,” he said five years ago, “and you end up staying up late at night, so we actually compete with sleep.”
As the hybrid mix of office and remote emerges as the future of white-collar work, could employers face a similar battle? The competition for workers’ loyalty might not be industry peers but friends and family.
After years of rhetoric about the need for staff to have a “passion” for work, finding that staff now care a lot less than they once did could prove a shock for employers.
In pre-pandemic days, flexible work patterns increased employer loyalty because that was a “privilege for the favoured few,” says Alan Felstead, author of new book Remote Working.
As hybrid becomes the norm, such loyalty may diminish. One flipside of the four-day week trend is that work might become transactional and less social in the name of efficiency.
The Great Resignation, which describes the high number of job moves in various sectors across the world, could turn out to be the future of white-collar work.
If workers spend less time together, their social ties will weaken, as will the attachment to an employer. Meanwhile, the bonds with friends and family strengthen.
Brian Kropp, chief of human resources research at Gartner, the consultancy, sees a potential “shift,” in that work simply becomes “less important” in our lives.
Before the pandemic, there was rigorous discussion on life without work, chiefly around post-work — a future where technology would eliminate jobs and plunge workers into unemployment or liberation, depending on one’s perspective.
It drew on anti-work thinking, notably the 19th century Marxist, Paul Lafargue, and the philosopher Bertrand Russell, which has received a boost over the past two years — strikingly, membership of the anti-work Reddit community has swollen to 1.7 million.
Posts about exploitative bosses make a strong case for a life without work. Felstead reminds me, however, that work “provides individuals with a wide range of benefits besides the opportunity to earn a paycheque.
A time structure to the day,
opportunities to interact with others outside the family,
and the means of establishing an identity outside of the home.”
Everything in moderation, however. Research by the universities of Cambridge and Salford in Social Science and Medicine found “that when people moved from unemployment or stay-at-home parenting into paid work . . . their risk of mental health problems reduced by an average of 30 per cent.”
This was achieved by just eight hours of work. They found no evidence that working more increased wellbeing.
It’s impossible to envisage an eight-hour working week. In their book, Out of Office, Anne-Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel argue that “work will always be a major part of our lives…
however, it should cease to be the primary organizing factor within it:
the primary source of friendship, or personal worth, or community.”
Some employers will ignore such shifts and force staff back to the office. Emboldened by buoyant labour market conditions, employees might quit. A report by Microsoft suggested that more than half of U.K. office workers would leave if forced back to the office full-time.
Other employers will adapt, putting resources into recruitment and alumni networks, as well as
job crafting — changing the scope and tasks of a post to fit employees’ ambitions.
They may try to create social and emotional connections that do not depend on the office, says Kropp.
He cites the example of an organization with an internal app to match employees with shared personal interests.
One founder, whose staff work remotely, told me that they enjoy socializing, peer mentoring, and career development from professionals.
It just does not always come from their co-workers. “A lot of organizations would find that threatening.” For those that loosen the leash, he says, “it will be scary. It should be.”
Employers set for a shock as hybrid work makes staff less loyal | Financial Post
Feb. 15, 2022 "Majority of white collar workers not eager to return to office full-time — poll": Today I found this article by Omar Adam on CSM times:
Only 3% of white collar workers want to return to the office five days a week once the coronavirus-related restrictions are over, according to a new poll by the UK-headquartered management consultancy Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA).
AWA surveyed nearly 10,000 employees of companies it advises worldwide, finding that the number of people seeking to work full-time in the office has dwindled drastically amid the pandemic.
Before Covid-19,
some 35% of white collar workers were happy to work five days a week,
but the number dropped to a mere 3% during the pandemic.
“That last two years have shown us that properly managed hybrid working is beneficial to both employers and employees,” Andrew Mawson, the managing director of AWA, said.
Now, some 86% of workers desire to work at least two days from home, preferring to go into the office mid-week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The same trend has been observed among all the age groups of white collar employees, AWA noted.
Forcing employees back into the office once the pandemic is over may prove to be a “potentially fatal mistake” for employers who would opt to do so, Mawson warned.
He suspects it would lead to mass resignations and the workforce drifting to more flexible opportunities.
“Talented people will choose the employers that give them flexibility and – as we’ve seen with the so called ‘Great Resignation’ – employees will quit jobs if their bosses force them back into the office all the time,” Mawson said, referring to the trend observed in the West – primarily in the US – last year, when people began quitting their jobs by the millions.
“Employers have to realize that the genie is out of the bottle. Workers have seen that flexibility can work and bosses who are not sensitive to their employees’ needs will suffer accordingly,” Mawson concluded.
Majority of white collar workers not eager to return to office full-time — poll - Breaking News, US, UK, Russia, Economy, Politics, Sport, Health, Science, Technology, History, and World News Update (csmtimes.com)
