The nausea stemming from each side arguing the Pro’s or Con’s of the WFH debate feels like being stuck on a playground roundabout holding a bowl of beetroot soup – get me off! We may be hearing the other side but are we listening to the other side’s point of view. Perhaps it’s more than employer vs employee and instead everyone accepting a timely reshape of our labour dynamic as demanded from our constantly modifying living environment is craved? Is there a hybrid model out there we need to embrace?
Many workers argue that they’re more productive working from home than in the office. If so, then why is New Zealand at the bottom of the productivity rankings in the OECD? Irrelevant – WFH is a global conundrum. If it’s solely and selfishly about high productivity and the individual, then at what point does the pendulum shift to outsourcing the role offshore and getting that same productivity for half the wage cost? Is that a ‘I gotcha moment’!
Productivity aside, it’s the water cooler chat, the team training, the passing of client knowledge, industry knowledge, know how, workflow management, cross-selling, building culture, problem solving …. I’m getting dizzy… that could be the centre of complaint. It’s arguably fair in that sense to assume that we’re wasting business oxygen with WFH. Definitely a cost to the business, and is the cost to the employee their self-restricted career development and possibly wage growth by missing out on participating and adding to these forces in a workplace? If you’re not seen, then you’re not considered. That may just be the next chapter in this staff Sudoku.
What if we step change the discussion to generational work ethic. The Baby Boomers and Gen X have clear expectations which clash with those of the younger brigade. Labels like Gen Y-bother, Gen Precious, or Gen FOMO may or may not have merit, but disagree or not, that generation aren’t going away. I was fortunate enough to recently hear an analogy from a psychiatrist (clarification – it was to a wider audience) who made the observation around rewarding this new generation(s) for doing nothing. He told the story of gold stars on the fridge for cleaning your room, making your bed, emptying the dishwasher, walking the dog, and so on. When 10 stars were gained, you got rewarded with McDonalds (not really a reward), movie tickets etc. Rewarded for doing nuffing! Something the older generation got a kick up the backside for not doing! Now they’ve entered the workforce, guess what, they want to be rewarded for doing nuffing. Guess which generation poured petrol into their own diesel SUV? He then talked how the latter generations dislike micro-management, and how do you stop micro-management – by doing something!
Flip the coin for a minute. Baby boomers may have mastered driving a manual car, but which generation(s) are better drivers of spreadsheets, or anything IT related for that matter. What’s AI going to bring, and will this revolutionary disruptor compound our reliance on the younger workforce? Technology has created efficiencies, removed some headaches and clearly brought productivity gains. This should be and is mostly celebrated but what irks leaders is the shovel leaning when capacity is created and then left to waste. If we can conquer this productive divide, then perhaps frustration solved, but until then, it’s a game of ‘Cat and Mouse’.
Sometimes the soft side of labour management feels like the hard yards of labour management. It feels like the draconian thinking by our older (wiser?) employer around these workforce dynamics are akin to solving the Rubik’s Cube. That is, there are a few methodical ways to get there, and we need to finish each side first because this is what the rule book says. But perhaps the new labour puzzle is much like Minecraft, where nothings constant, the end game is yours to build, and nothing is finite. Progressive thinking is required and is this where we are asking our leaders to start leading?
The future of our workforce dynamic is and will remain uncertain. If we do continue with some form of the WFH model and accept generational ideologies differ but will linger, then we should expect that a competitive advantage and road to career growth is likely to include a degree of commerciality, learned through contact with a range of customer and work colleagues, but also from having a strong Social EQ enhanced from workplace interaction.
Perhaps I sign off and leave you to think about this Licorice Allsorts of our workforce riddle with the Henry Ford quote; “Don’t find fault, find a remedy. Anyone can complain”.
In our governance, strategic and advisory services, topics such as these are regularly socialized over and above our request for financial wisdom. If you want to learn more about what’s discussed around the boardroom table and bring these debates into your business, then contact the team at Bellingham Wallace or this writer at aaronw@bellinghamwallace.co.nz
