Easy life? No, most of us want challenging, rewarding work
ALSO: how to find out what your boss is telling people about you
We value being given impactful work that we can learn from
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks immersed in the world of Employee Experience. The growth of Employee Experience as a department inside organisations is a positive trend and I was very grateful to attend an advisory session for The EX Space, an impressive membership-based community that shares best practice in the area. (Disclosure: I’m not paid by EX Space to say that, btw).
The discipline of Employee Experience reflects on all of the interactions that a worker has with their employer with a view to impacting engagement levels across the organisation. The thinking is that if a firm gets this stuff right they’ll create a workplace that people feel motivated and inspired to work in.
Of course, one of the pitfalls of systemising something like this is that it can end up creating a plethora of initiatives that are well intentioned but actually make work worse. Anyone who has been sent emails about ‘wellness webinars’ or has gone through tickbox online training can recognise that you don’t suddenly become well because someone put a 60 minute calendar hold on your Thursday morning.
The shaky science of badly implemented Employee Experience projects was exposed last month with the research that found that wellness programs are completely ineffective.
There’s interesting insight in this new research from LinkedIn, for all the talk about employee experience and what a good job looks like, one of the most important aspects of a job is to be offered the chance to do challenging and impactful work. Alongside this the importance of learning in our jobs shouldn't be underestimated. There’s some great data here from LinkedIn's 2023 Workplace Learning Report.
Amongst 18-34 year olds they value opportunities for career growth and the chance to learn new skills as the most important components of a job.
Those aged 35-49 are the group to whom work-life balance is a priority.
Finally those over 50 tend to give most weight to that challenging and impactful work. It's worth saying that all groups strongly value the idea of being faced with challenging work - something we often overlook.
(If you work in Employee Experience and want to tell me what your firm does I’d love to hear from you)
One thing worth knowing about Slack/Teams not being private
There's been a growing trend on TikTok of people sharing what their company knew about them and their conversations on company chat. Turns out that in many instances bosses can read everything.
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On this subject the old maxim remains relevant: 'don't say on chat what you wouldn't feel comfortable seeing in the front of The Times'.
But for UK/European readers there is another consequence of this. Under European and UK law a person is entitled to see everything that is digitally held about them by an organisation, even if that organisation is their employer. This means that anything that your boss can request to see, so can you.
You get hold of this data by filing a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR). What might this look like? You might ask to see everything held on the company’s systems (including email, Teams, Slack, Google Chat) that references you. Every firm needs to have someone legally responsible for this data, your first ask should be to find out the name of the company’s DSA Officer.
Your DSA request might ask to receive all mentions of you on the company’s computer systems, to include references to you by first name only, by initials or by nickname, it might come from your boss, from other managers or anyone inside the organisation. Generally you have a right to receive a reply within 28 days.
Sure, filing a DSA request might be a little punchy, but if you’re in a situation where it feels like information is being withheld from you, or you aren’t being told the nature of an issue at work it can level the playing field pretty quickly.
US firms are often oblivious to this law btw…
Former TikTok executive is suing the firm saying that women at the firm are expected to 'remain quiet and humble at all times’
The office provider formerly known as Regus is massively expanding. Why? Because companies are shrinking their property footprints and Regus believes they can fulfil needs both closer to home and for companies to expand into when required
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that growing the CEO paygap is causing problems in workplace culture - this paper shows further evidence of that - demonstrating that it serves to undermine a sense of shared identity which is the basis of good culture
After last week’s headline that company wellness initiatives don’t work, this week comes a further blow with the suggestion that mental health apps don’t work. (Aside: the people I’ve spoken to at work wellness apps say that one challenge is that people don’t use them once their company has subscribed to them)
Colleagues don’t want to come and socialise together? (As reported last week…) Well it might be a reflection that a third of young people felt happier during the pandemic (‘it was like an unexpected school holiday’)
WFH is creating economic growth (by bringing more women into the workforce). This is a brilliant counter to what politicians and the press would like us to believe. Would love to see this replicated for the UK
Soho House is “the All Bar One’ of members’ clubs” that will “eventually meet the same fate as WeWork” - savage analysis of the private members’ club strange financials
People working from home (acting as a deterrent) accounted for half of the 30% drop in burglary rates in the UK since 2020. (Full paper here)
A TikTok that is blowing up: “I quit my job on a company wide reply-all email” - a woman who replied to the wrong person and was put on blast by her boss resigned in the reply
On Eat Sleep Work Repeat this week I’m joined by Ellen Scott and Matt Cook as we talk all things workplace culture that have happened since the turn of the year.
Including:
Research from Oxford University looking at the (in)effectiveness of workplace wellbeing interventions at an individual level
Fewer and fewer of us want to go out in the evenings or weekends
Work is a human invention to serve human needs, but each of our needs are different. This piece raises the really important point about not assuming we know what someone needs from their work. We only know by asking them. Now that I'm in my 50s I can look back and see my changing needs over time - I'm definitely at that stage of wanting to create meaning by sharing my experiences with others, and helping them to succeed.