Workplace culture is about: voice, affiliation, space and articulation

ALSO: Adam Grant's Future of Work conference / stunning numbers from the latest Gallup survey

Over the last week several hundred people have gained access to my free video content explaining Winning Workplace Culture in the Hybrid Era - it is instantly accessible for anyone who pre-orders my new book, Fortitude. The course goes through a clear and updated model of workplace culture. It explains the pillars of strong culture: voice, affiliation, space and articulation. It also goes into the classic errors that many businesses make and the number one thing that managers should be focussing on in the hybrid era.

Some early reviews of the course:

• ‘game changing stuff’

• ‘like a hybrid of podcasts and YouTube clips’

• ‘very consumable’

• ‘we’re developing a plan at work and the framework helped me communicate our ideas more clearly’

The course is a free creation designed to reward those who pre-order my new book about resilience, Fortitude. The book has received stunning reviews:

Nadiya Hussain said: "A much needed book that unfolds the surprising secrets of resilience."

Dr Pippa Grange, former Head of People & Team Development at The Football Association said: “Fortitude explores and validates what most of us who work with people feel in our gut when it comes to debunking doctrine about resilience and singular toughness. A fantastic contribution.”

If you want to access the course, this link will show you how to do it. You can pre-order the book or audiobook from any shop of your choice.

Do you want me to talk at your firm? I am doing a limited number of free virtual speaking gigs at companies who pre-order 60 copies of my new book Fortitude. I can talk culture, resilience, beating burnout… whatever you want. Register interest here.

Adam Grant is the world’s leading workplace psychologist. He was generous enough to talk to me and he told me that that he created the Wharton People Analytics Conference as his attempt to make sense of the changing workplace. This May he rebranded it as the Future of Work conference and it’s just been uploaded for free to YouTube. You can access the whole conference on this playlist.

During the course of the conference there was an emergent theme of experimentation - that organisations should be trialing new ways of working right now (and measuring them). I worked my way through the six hours of content to pull out the best picks for you.

Top choices:

• I know Zeynep Ton’s focus on low pay retail jobs might not be the sweet spot for most readers of this newsletter, but I think she’s doing some of the most important research in the world of work. Here she goes line-by-line through what workers earn and the impact on their mental wellbeing: her 10 minute presentation before the Q&A is utterly brilliant

• Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant talk about the idea of normalising discomfort as a means of developing a culture of diversity - this is a exceptionally high quality conversation

• Andrea Jones-Rooy presentation about using data was a masterclass in how to bring energy to a Zoom

Also worth checking out:

• Nick Bloom & Anne Helen Petersen (both former guests on the podcast) talk through the realities of hybrid working:

  • ‘working hybrid is worth the same as an 8% payrise’

  • demanding a greater return to the office is having big diversity implications (minority groups have higher quit rates)

• Allison Gabriel on dealing with Zoom fatigue:

  • being on camera is directly linked to feelings on fatigue (‘presentation costs’)

  • data shows more time on camera led to less speaking up in meetings

• John Amaechi & Alicia Menendez discussion on diversity hits the most interesting point when they discuss the danger of ‘bringing your whole self to work’ (it suits white men very well, everyone else less so)

• John Amaechi adds in a discussion with Adam Grant: ‘you can judge a culture by the worst thing they are prepared to tolerate’.

  • they discuss how to stop the office being ‘differentially toxic’ to different groups of workers

  • aggressive managers are more likely to get away with sexism

• Gallup released their latest State of the Global Workforce Survey. Some key findings:

  • 60% of workers are emotionally detached from work and 19% are miserable

  • Workplace stress is rippling into home lives in a Gallup study in Germany, ‘51% of actively disengaged workers said job stress caused them to behave poorly with loved ones'

  • Gallup studied the causes of burnout: first was “unfair treatment at work” followed by an unmanageable workload, unclear communication from managers, lack of manager support and unreasonable time pressure

  • Gallup say all of these things have one thing in common: your boss

  • ‘95% of people who are thriving at work report being treated with respect all day and 87% report smiling and laughing a lot’

  • And happy workers correlates with business success: ‘Business units with engaged workers have 23% higher profit compared with business units with miserable workers. Additionally, teams with thriving workers see significantly lower absenteeism, turnover and accidents; they also see higher customer loyalty. The point is: Wellbeing at work isn’t at odds with anyone’s agenda’

  • (read this as a Twitter thread)

• On the subject of good & bad bosses, this Twitter thread of the promises made by a good manager did some numbers

• A good article about the tracking devices used by Amazon warehouse workers where time unaccounted for is measured (and reprimanded). While it’s easy to think this is a warehouse only challenge, one employee at a management consultancy told me their laptop activity was measured (and brought up by her manager). Shout out to Danny Denham for the link (his newsletter often finds some gems)