Here’s what’s wrong with the debate on remote work

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Ever since the pandemic, the debate on remote work been both fascinating and frustrating to follow. 
 
Before the pandemic, remote work was practically unheard of. Some organizations allowed it do different degrees, but on the most part it was rare. Then when the pandemic hit everything changed overnight. People weren’t allowed into the office and all of a sudden work that had been considered impossible to do remotely turned out not only to be possible, but actually worked quite well. People realized, that working from home offered a lot of flexibility and now, post-pandemic, most employees don’t want to stop doing it – at least part of the time.
 
Employers, on the other hand, feel differently, which really isn’t very surprising. Research has shown that managers found remote work during the pandemic to be much harder than other employees did. They couldn’t fall back on old management routines but had to come up with new ways of managing their teams when team members were no longer right there in front of them.
 
Now, post-pandemic, organizations have been trying to call their employees back to the office with varying success and some have even abolished the possibility of working remotely altogether. Employers argue that face time is crucial for innovation and development as well as for new recruits, which is true, but getting people to want to come into the office is still challenging. Some organizations set rules for when you have to be in the office, but no matter what they decide, people still aren’t happy. 
 
The on-going debate has been very black and white. Is remote work good or bad? Should people be allowed to do it or not? Yes or no? There are arguments for both sides that are valid, but the debate doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere. That is because it’s missing the point.
 
First of all, one problem is thinking about remote work in terms of how we used to think about work when everyone came into the office. Yes, it is true that innovation suffers if people don’t engage enough with each other. But this isn’t actually a problem of remote work, but rather an issue of leadership. If people work remotely, we need to make sure we create opportunities for collaboration and innovation. This is fully possible. We need to make sure we have routines for including new recruits in the community so that they feel welcomed and become part of the team. It doesn’t happen automatically just because we’re in the same building, but it certainly doesn’t happen if we don’t consciously make it happen when working remotely.  We need new routines for leadership and organization. Just like during the pandemic, we – both managers and employees – need to do things differently to make it work. 
 
The other thing that frustrates me is how organizations go about deciding what their policy for remote work should be. It seems that no matter what they decide, people are unhappy. What strikes me is that most organizations fail to see that remote working practices and policies are a question of organizational culture and any changes made with regards to ways of working should be treated as any organizational change. 
 
In order to get people on board with change you have to involve them in that change. On the one hand, you have to allow them to create their own understanding of why the change is necessary and, on the other, you have to let them be a part of the solution. If they actually feel the need to change and have been involved in developing new solutions and routines, they will naturally also be committed to them. 
 
The same goes for remote working practices. Those of you who grapple with this, have you talked to your employees about it? Have you asked them what their needs are? Have you involved them in thinking about what it is you want to achieve as an organization or as a team and what they best way to go about it is? It’s not just a question of how many days to work on and off site. It’s a question of what needs to be done how to best create solutions to achieve that. 
 
Some say people simply don’t want to come into the office anymore, but this really isn’t true. It’s just that they don’t want come in if they don’t feel like there is any point. People have seen what a positive impact working remotely can have on their lives and their wellbeing. 
 
Experiences change us and we can’t go back to the way it was before the pandemic. We can only move forward. Remote and hybrid work are here to stay in one form or another, and that is not a bad thing. They are an excellent way to provide employees with more flexibility and to create sustainable lifestyles and solutions for work. Office work isn’t a thing of the past either. 
 
We can figure this out, but we need to think about work a bit differently than we’re used to.

It wasn’t your fault

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My husband and I were recently in beautiful Prague for a weekend getaway. One thing I love about spending alone time with him is all our interesting conversations. We have the best conversations. He is genuinely interested in what I think about things and I really appreciate his points of view. 

One particular conversation I want to tell you about was when we were in a taxi in Prague on the long ride from the airport to the city center. We were talking about some mutual acquaintances when I suddenly remembered an experience from years ago when I was still a student. I was at a party. It was before we were married, but my husband and I were already a thing then. Still, he wasn’t at that particular party. 

I remember it was fun party. I was surrounded by friends and people I liked and we were all having a really good time. Then, hours into the party, I suddenly found myself on the floor with a guy, one of the mutual acquaintances my husband and I were talking about in that taxi in Prague, on top of me. I was pinned down by his body and he was kissing me on the neck. When I think back, I think about how absurd the whole situation was. I’m not even sure how I ended up on the floor on my back because it all happened so fast. But there I was and I couldn’t move because of his weight. 

Luckily, this all happened in the middle of the crowd and not somewhere secluded in another room because people immediately came to my rescue and pulled him off me. And then the party just when on like nothing. But it did make me very uncomfortable. It was not my habit to make out with other guys at parties when my then boyfriend-now husband wasn’t there. And after that, things were never really the same between my then friend-now acquaintance and me. I would shudder whenever I thought about it.

I must have not ever mentioned it to anyone because fast forward almost 30 years, when my husband talks about this particular mutual acquaintance of ours in the taxi on the way to Prague and I mention it, he is shocked. I ask, haven’t I ever told you about this before? He says, no you haven’t!

So, I tell him about it. 30 years seem to make it easier to talk about, but I wonder why I haven’t ever mentioned it before.

Well, thinking about it, I do actually know why. I never mentioned it before because I was embarrassed. I wondered whether it was my fault. Had I done something to encourage this guy? Had I done something to suggest I wanted to make out on the floor in the middle of the party? Had I done something to provoke the whole situation? If I had, I certainly didn’t want anyone to know about it. I was mortified. 

Now, almost thirty years later, I know that it wasn’t anything I did or didn’t do. I was just being me and I was not responsible for this other person’s choices and actions. I thought he was my friend. I thought he was my husband’s friend. We were surrounded by a bunch of other friends and we were all having fun. I wasn’t asking to be tackled to the floor and slobbered on.

But this speaks to a bigger problem in society. The problem is that we almost never talk to men and boys about how not to assault women sexually. But we do spend a lot of time and energy telling girls and women what and what not to do, how and how not to act, how and how not do dress, and where and where not to go in order to not get sexually assaulted.

It’s like we think men can’t control themselves, so we work with the women instead.

So, when you think about it, when a woman or girl does get sexually assaulted it isn’t very surprising if her first thought is maybe it was my fault? 

Women can do and say all the ‘right’ things and still get assaulted. But even if they don’t. Even if they break all the so-called rules on how to act and dress in order to be safe, sexual assault is still not okay. 

Sexual assault is never okay. Sexual assault is always the responsibility and fault of the person committing the assault.

So, no, it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t anything I did or didn’t do. And I was lucky; it didn’t lead to anything worse because I was surrounded by people who helped me. Not everyone is that lucky. 

But if you’re reading this and wondering the same thing, please know that it really wasn’t anything you did or did not do. 

It wasn’t your fault. 

Nonsense work – let’s stop doing it! 

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I read an article the other day about nonsense work. This is the type of work that is completely unimportant and meaningless; work that no one notices or cares about. According to the article it can be things like selling products that no one wants or writing reports that no one needs. And it is very problematic because, as you can imagine, it is demoralizing, anxiety inducing, and chips away at your motivation and energy. 

Understandable. 

People generally want to live meaningful lives. No, you don’t have to love your job. A lot of people go to work just to get a pay check so that they can follow a passion outside of work. That’s fine. But if what you do is completely meaningless, it’s bound to have an impact on your sense of worth. 

It got me thinking. Nonsense work doesn’t necessarily only have to be about work that is completely meaningless. Also, for those of us with jobs that we find deeply meaningful, there can be elements of nonsense. But if there is a very big dose of it and if the degree of nonsense is disproportionately high, this nonsense work and the frustration it triggers really starts to get to you. 

One thing that I’ve learned on my own opting out and in journey, is that there tends to be a lot of nonsense work in the academic world. In Finland, we have very strict laws concerning universities and what they do. This means that there need to be operating procedures and routines that uphold the law. Unfortunately, as a result, a lot of academic organizations create routines that are astonishingly bureaucratic. 

This includes things like logging on to a program to click a button once a month confirming that you have indeed worked that month (preempted by an email from admin reminding everyone to do this plus reminder emails to remind those who forgot despite the initial reminder email). Then line managers go in and click to approve the initial click, approving hours that have been added by HR but are arbitrary because they do not reflect all the extra hours or weekend work that being an academic entails. And I’m sure there are reminder emails written for line managers too but that I don’t really know anything about because I’m not a line manager myself. 

Did I lose you? 

Don’t worry, understanding the minutiae of how I report my working hours isn’t the point here. It’s just one example of the nonsense work I do. 

Now, I do know that there are different ways of both interpreting and upholding the law. Things don’t have to be quite that bureaucratic in order to follow the rules. There are simpler ways (and this also includes reporting working hours). However, after about a decade and a half in the academic world, I also know that there isn’t much hope for me to change this in my own place of work. That in itself would be quite a formidable exercise in bureaucracy. 

But there is hope for you!

When faced with a task that takes time and energy, but that feels completely superfluous, question it. Does it really have to be this way? Is it really adding any value at all? Or is it just a complete waste of time?

If you answered no, no and yes, change it!  Let’s focus on more real work and less nonsense! 

Your people will thank you. Your organization will thank you.

Why are there so many bad bosses?

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Well, I can think of a few reasons. First of all, being a boss is hard. Leading a team or an organization takes skill. 

You may have heard the statement that people don’t leave companies, they leave bad bosses. Well that isn’t always true, but what is true is that a bad boss is one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, that people leave. And as we know, ever since the pandemic, people have been opting out in droves, and work-related mental health issues are at an all-time high. According to The Mental Health at Work Report 2022, three in four employees are experiencing mental health issues at work. 

But first, I want to say that there are a lot of really great bosses out there. For some it comes more naturally, and others have to work harder for it, but they are out there. The problem is just that there are a lot of bad bosses too, and bad bosses, without meaning to or even being aware of it, can really cause a lot of harm. 

So how do people become bosses in the first place? Often it is from being really good at what they do. A person without leadership responsibilities might be excelling at their job and then get awarded for that with a promotion to lead the team. So, a salesperson, for example, who is a wizard at sales is made head of the sales team because they are so darned good at selling. But being a wizard at sales is no guarantee that you are going to be any good at leading a team, or that you even like doing it. Do you see what I mean?

And there is a lot of prestige associated with leadership roles and having people report to you. So, people often accept the raise and the status without maybe thinking about what it really entails. 

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, but people do get leadership training to support them in their role. Yes, this is true, some do some don’t. And leadership training certainly helps. I encourage everyone who is in a leading position to get leadership training. 

But there is also something about our working cultures that doesn’t exactly foster the kind of skills and routines that you need to connect with your people.  In fact, studies have shown that there is a growing sense of disconnection in our workplaces and people are feeling lonelier than ever.

Organizational cultures tend to encourage us to push forward, be competitive and not show emotions. Business is business, right? It isn’t personal.

Wrong.

Business is personal. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s highly personal because we (employees) make up the business and we are all people. But because of this norm, we are encouraged to keep our personal lives separate and not show emotions at work, or at least only show the ‘right’ emotions. But, the thing is that what happens in our personal lives deeply affects how we act and perform at work. And vice versa, naturally. Also, when people aren’t allowed to bring their real, whole selves to work, it makes it really hard for them to realize their full potential. 

This is because we are whole human beings and as much as we are encouraged or would like to leave parts of our selves at the door, that’s actually not how it works. 

I just finished a book, HumanForce: The Power of Emotions in the Changing Workplace, and the author, Natalie Boudou, hits the nail on its head again and again. She talks about how we need stronger, more intelligent workplaces and how a strategy of greater emotional intelligence and openness is the key to successful leadership. It turns out that compassion and emotion, traditionally thought of as soft, fluffy bunny issues and words not generally used in conjunction with work, are in fact strategic issues that provide the key to healthy, creative, productive and competitive work places. 

Leaders simply need to be emotionally intelligent. If this doesn’t come naturally to you, and for most people it probably doesn’t, you need to work on it. It’s an acquired skill. And if you are a boss or a leader, you need to want to be around your people and connect with them. If you do, you will have a better sense of what they are going through and a better understanding of their needs, which will help you adapt your leadership style to different people in different situations. If you don’t, you’re not really being a leader. 

P.S. Read the book! You can find it here.

On working in places where practices go against your values, and deciding that you can’t

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People opt out for a number of reasons. Yes, the dream and pull of a new lifestyle that is more sustainable and where you can live and work on your own terms plays in. But truth be told, it is the push of a job that you no longer can or want to do, for whatever reason, that actually makes you take the step. 

In my research I have found that more often than not it is values, or the clash of values, that becomes the tipping point. It can be values regarding anything really, but I’ve found that it often has to do with the ethical treatment of others, both humans and non-humans. 

People come to a point when they realize that they just can’t stand for whatever it is their employer is doing. 

That was the case last time I left a job. Especially with the research I do and everything I stand for regarding sustainable work, ethical and respectful treatment of others, and wellbeing, I just couldn’t continue working for an organization that didn’t seem to care about any of that. 

I’m not going to get into the details right now because there are just too many for a blog post, but I had been mistreated myself and I saw how much suffering there was around me and I realized that if I accept this and just go on as if nothing had happened, it would be hypocritical. I can’t accept crap for myself that I tell others has no place in the organizational sphere. Or any sphere, really. 

So I left. And I’m no alone. A clash of values and a sense of disillusionment are reasons why many people leave. And the fact of the matter of is, values are important and they are just getting more so with every new generation that enters the work force. 

Research has shown that one thing that sets gen z workers apart from previous generations is that values play a much bigger role for them in relation to work and money. They generally want more than to just make money and also have higher expectations on their employers. They have sites where they compare notes and don’t want just any job, but one that is aligned with their values. 

Sometimes older generations will roll their eyes at this but I think they are right to expect more from their employers. I think one reason why so many work places are sites for so much suffering is that we haven’t expected enough. 

So don’t underestimate the importance of values.

Besides, research has also shown that ethical treatment of others – both those inside and outside the organization – is good for business. It’s good for the bottom line. But as I tell my students, using this as an argument to get organizations to act more ethically is really quite problematic. Because what if it turns out that it really isn’t a game changer? What if the bottom line is good enough without treating others well, is it still okay then not too?

A time of crisis is a moment of reckoning

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I think we can all agree that we live in a time of crisis. The crises we face are many, they are serious, and they are all interconnected. 

The environmental crisis – climate change – is perhaps the biggest of all because without a planet there is no us. It’s also arguably the first crisis that literally affects everyone, every country and every person on this globe, and as such it is a crisis that we have to solve together. This can be frustrating and difficult because everyone doesn’t seem to think that this crisis is serious, serious enough to give up comfort, economic growth or profit for, or that it affects them. But that is an illusion. 

It affects all of us regardless of where we live in the world, whether it’s about lands becoming unlivable, wars that are fought over diminishing resources, mass migration to countries that aren’t seeing the worst of it yet, or just bees dying which inevitably will mean that we won’t have food.

We’re also seeing a crisis of democracy. I think we’re all acutely aware of that, whether or not we think it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Because the world is exactly that polarized at the moment that there are people who really think it’s a good thing. 

The US is on everybody’s minds, lips and social media feeds at the moment, and the things that are going on there are hard to even grasp. This is also a crisis that affects all of us; it’s not just a domestic issue, nor is it a phenomenon that is unique to the US.

This rise of populism and easy answers to difficult questions is a phenomenon we’re seeing in many different countries around the world. Populist political parties are gaining traction mainly because a lot people are just sick and tired of the status quo. 

What’s going on in the US and in many other places around the world is in other words a symptom of something. We need to take it seriously, not ridicule and antagonize those who think differently, and do our best to understand why some people are just so sick and tired that they don’t even believe in democracy anymore. Because even though democracy isn’t perfect, it’s the best system we have and we need to protect it. It’s vulnerable and can be destroyed if we don’t stand up for it. 

Another crisis we’re seeing is a crisis of the work place. There’s a lot of suffering in the organizational and corporate world. People get sick, people die. People are also leaving their jobs and careers in numbers never before witnessed. There are a lot of people who just don’t want to do it anymore. They feel like the cost to their health, to their families, and to their lives is just too high.

So what do we do? Well, as I said, a crisis is a time of reckoning. It’s a time of change and reinvention, and a time when anything is possible. The balls are up in the air and we need to decided where and how we want them to land. It’s time to change the way we think about work. It’s time to change the way we think about a lot of things.

Change is hard though, especially when it craves a new way of thinking. That’s why it often takes a crisis for change to really happen. But I believe we can do it, if not for any other reason than that we have no choice. 

The pandemic showed us that we really can rethink things completely and change at a drop of a hat when we have to. And we are already seeing some interesting initiatives that redefine how we think about work. 

The four-day work week or six-hour work day is one example. When we have been doing something in a certain way for as long as we can remember we start seeing it as a truth. But truth be told, the five-day, 40-hour work week is actually a relatively recent phenomenon.

The four-day work week questions what we think we know about efficiency, productivity and dedication. Research has shown that we really aren’t very efficient or productive if we work very long days. It’s not the best use of our time. On the contrary, a shorter week or a shorter work day allows us to be more efficient because we don’t get as tired and we have an easier time combining work with other areas of life. This has been tested in a number of different countries and test results have been very positive. So positive that some organization haven’t looked back since. 

We live in a world where we idealize constant growth and efficiency. Still, resources are finite, both our personal and our planetary ones. We can’t always be efficient; if we don’t pace ourselves we burn out. If we do pace ourselves, it opens up possibilities for creativity, creative thinking and new solutions. Not to mention mental and physical wellbeing.

I know, in a world where organizations struggle to stay competitive, it’s hard to be the one leading the change.

But it’s time, it has to be done.  And we can do it!

P.S. If your organization is doing something different that challenges current thinking – anything, big or small – let me know, I’d love to hear about it!

You can prioritize people and still be very successful

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I’m working on a book again. It’s another book on opting out, but this time it’s out of an organizational perspective. More specifically, I’m writing about what organizations need to do to create working environments that people won’t long to leave. Because studies have shown that a lot of people do. A lot of people dream about opting out.

The situation isn’t all bad. There are of course organizations that do great things and there are a lot of people who are happy in their jobs, that’s true. But it’s also true that organizations can be places of profound suffering. In the past 30 years or so, mental ill-health has skyrocketed, the main reason being work-related stress. Main factors include constant cost cutting and reorganizations, as well as work that is dehumanizing and where people are disrespected and not valued. Did you know that there is something known as Blue Monday? Apparently, people are more likely to have what is thought to be stress-related heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of the week. 

So, this book that I’m working on right now is part of my personal mission to change working life as we know it. 

While doing research for my new book, I stumbled across another book that made a really big impression on me. It’s a book by Rob Chapman and Raj Sisodia called Everyone Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family.

Rob Chapman is the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, a large American industrial company. When he became CEO of the company, he “threw away” traditional management practices like the ones you learn in business school and replaced them with what he calls “a truly human leadership”.

This spoke to me right away because I spend a lot of time telling anyone who will listen that business is personal (contrary to popular belief) simply because it’s about people. And people are personal. Companies love to say that their people are their greatest resource, but honestly, it’s a bit problematic to think of people this way. It’s kind of dehumanizing if you think about. 

Chapman gets this. His thinking is, why do we treat people at work differently than we do people we care about? If we say things at work that we wouldn’t say to our own children, for example, why do we think it’s okay to talk that way to someone else’s child? Chapman’s point is that everyone is someone’s child and everyone should be treated as such. Everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and respect. 

According to Chapman, fostering a people-centric culture is to truly care about every human being whose life the company touches, be it employees, employees’ families, customers, suppliers, business partners… A people-centric culture is about including everyone (not just the very talented, everyone is needed and everyone wants to contribute), keeping them safe and sending them home fulfilled. It’s about respect, it’s about trust, it’s about listening to people, and it’s about treating everyone the same no matter where in the organization they are. 

This people-centric culture was implemented during a financial upswing and things were going well for company. Then when the financial crisis of 2008 hit it was really put to the test. Companies were laying people off everywhere to survive the sudden loss of business, but not Barry-Wehmiller. They were reluctant to do it because layoffs have a profound negative affect on people’s wellbeing. It’s affects them, their lives, their health and their whole families. Not only that, it also really affects the morale of those who don’t lose their jobs, which also affects business. So, they just really didn’t want to have to do that. 

What did they do instead? Well, they thought about what a family would do in a time of crisis. They wouldn’t kick some of the family members out to cut costs. Instead, they would all come together and pitch in in any way that they could so that everyone could make it through the crisis. And this is what they did. They treated the company like a family.

One thing they did was that they decided that everyone had to take a four-week furlough, including members of management. They had a system where everyone was allowed to take the time off when it suited them best. Also, if someone felt they wanted to or could afford it, they could take over some of someone else’s furlough if someone couldn’t afford taking that much time off without pay. When employees realized they weren’t going to lose their jobs, everyone pitched in and people felt committed to do what they could to save the company. They made it through the recession without letting a single person go and they came out of the recession strong, and also faster than the economy as a whole. Already in 2010, they made record earnings and decided to write every employee a check for the salary that they had given up to save the company. 

By the way, did you know that regular restructuring, downsizing and layoffs is a relatively recent phenomenon? It isn’t something companies started doing systematically until1990’s. I’ll leave you with this quote:

“Rightsizing, de-layering, business reengineering, streamlining… these are some of the other euphemisms for the now-routine business practice of eliminating jobs to improve profit. Downsizing has become a reflex response to business adversity…to preserve financial performance, raise investor confidence, and boost share price. We know of one company that deliberately over-hires when times are good so it can let people go and get a bump in the share price when it wants to… Simon Sinek puts it this way: “In the military, they give medals to those who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that other may gain. In business, we give bonuses to those that are willing to sacrifice others so that they may gain.””

                                                               (Chapman & Sisodia, 2015: 95)

If you want to hear Bob Chapman talk about this in his own words, google him. He’s all over the internet. 

If we all know something has got to give, then why is it so hard to change?

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All the years I’ve been researching, writing and talking about opting out and in, sustainable solutions for work and work place wellbeing, I’ve never come across anyone in the organizational world who doesn’t think all this is of the essence. I’ve been at it for a while now, and the whole time my work has been received as timely and important and with great interest. 

Still, even though there is a lot of consensus regarding this, people continue struggling with the same issues at work and more and more of them dream of opting out. 

Okay, before you say anything, I do know that not everything is the same. The pandemic showed us that we can change when we have to and there are a lot of organizations that now provide their employees with more flexibility regarding where, when and how they work. Also, some organizations have started prioritizing mental health more and now have routines and policies in place to support that. 

Nevertheless, there are a lot of organizations that don’t. Some may talk the talk but not walk it, and some – all too many – don’t even talk it. 

Why is this? Why is it so hard to change?

Well, one of the main problems is that the way we understand work; and what we know to be a ‘good’ way of working or organizing our work has become something of a truth. When things have been in a certain way for as long as we can remember, we tend to think that is the natural way for them to be and it becomes hard to even imagine doing things differently. It is simply the way things are done. 

But let me let you in on a secret. The way we understand work isn’t a truth. It isn’t a law of nature, it has been invented and implemented by us and not even that long ago. It’s actually quite a recent invention. 

The current career ideal was developed as a result of industrialization and the prosperity many nations experienced after World War II. Employees were expected to be loyal to one employer and career advancement involved an upward movement in the organization in a timely fashion, brought about by promotions. As mainly men started working in the industries, some argue that the career wasn’t created for one, but one and a half people: the man with the career and the wife who took care of everything he didn’t have time for because he was so tied up at work. 

Although a lot has changed in society since then, this is ironically still the career ideal today: the timely upward movement and the expectation of complete dedication and devotion to work. Anything else it considered suspect, at least if you want to advance to the upper echelons of corporate hierarchies. 

But guess what, we don’t have to organize work the way we do! There is nothing natural or predetermined about it. We can reinvent why we work, how we work and how much we work. 

The problem is just that in order to change we have to want to change. And not only that, we also have to realize that we need to change. We have to have that lightbulb moment. Until we do, and if it’s going well enough, it’ll just feel easier to continue the way we have.  

So how do we do that? How do we get people and organizations to see the light? Do we have to wait until things get so bad that there will be no choice but to change?  

Why are middle managers so unhappy? (And why is it so hard for me to write about?!)

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I’ve been trying to write a blog post about why middle managers are so unhappy for about a month now. I’ve kept the Word file open on my computer and every once in a while I’ll stumble upon it amongst all the other windows that are open on my screen (I’m telling you, I feel like I have a hundred things going on simultaneously at the moment), and it glares accusingly at me, reminding me that in my last blog post I promised you all that I was reviving my blog. And here I am, having not posted a thing since December.

It’s not that I don’t know why middle managers are so unhappy. I do. According to studies, they are the unhappiest group in the organizational world and the main reason is that they are just that – in the middle. They don’t generally make the strategic decisions, but they do have to implement them. They deal with and have to manage expectations from both above and below and are burdened with administrative responsibilities. They reportedly spend about 35% of their total working time in meetings. That’s more than a third!

This leads to a feeling of not having agency, that their hands are tied, which in turn affects wellbeing. I see this again and again in my opting out research. 

So why is this so hard to write about? 

The thing is, I already wrote the blog post, I had a version ready for publication, but when I looked at it I just thought it was boring. And if it bores me to read, I’m pretty sure it will bore you too. 

So, the other night I decided that’s it. I need to get this written. This is part of my book project on what organizations need to do to create work places that people won’t long to leave (because let’s face it, a lot of people dream of opting out), and the crass reality is that I need to produce texts. No words, no book.

I sat down at my computer and started reworking the post. I wrote and rewrote. I reorganized the text, moving sentences back and forth and back again. But no, it didn’t help. It didn’t make the post any more interesting. I just wasn’t feeling it.

And this is the thing, I need to start from me. I need to have a connection to what I’m writing, I need to feel it. I can’t just spew out text on command if I’m not feeling it and think anyone will want to read it. What I had written wasn’t a blog post, it was more of a well-formulated list of why middle manager are so unhappy. 

So today it hit me. I need to write down my experience. It’s ironic, but maybe understandable, that writing, which I love to do, which feels meaningful and provides me with such a sense of accomplishment, can also be so painful and angst-ridden. I was actually watching an Instagram live by an artist I follow, Philippa Stanton (@5ftinf), and she said exactly this (maybe not in those words, but that was the gist). Hearing it made me feel relieved and understood. Maybe it isn’t so weird. After all, writing (or any creative art form) is actually a very personal endeavor. 

But back to middle managers. Why is this important? Well, for one, every once in a while, I see stories and reports of how it’s become increasingly difficult for companies to get people to accept promotions if the result of that promotion is a middle management position. Despite the promise of a raise and a more prestigious job, people are increasingly saying thanks but no thanks. 

Then there is also the issue of people leaving. When I started researching opting out, it was more of an exception than anything else, simply because leaving is hard. But now people are doing it in numbers never before witnessed. 

So what do we do? Well there are a lot of things we can do to help the individual middle manager. But on a whole, we really need to look at organizational working cultures and practices. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, something has got to give. 

What about you? Are you a middle manager? Do you recognize any of this? Or are you in a workplace where you can thrive? Tell me about it, I would love to hear from you!

You can email me at theoptingoutblog@gmail.com. All emails are confidential.

PS. Those of you hoping for a list, here is one from a study published by The Harvard Business Review of reasons given by middle managers on why they are so unhappy (in order of importance):

  1. Bad leadership
  2. They see no career or promotion opportunities
  3. Their work lacks meaning and purpose
  4. They feel that they are treated unfairly compared to others
  5. They don’t feel valued or appreciated
  6. They don’t believe the problem will be addressed if they raise an issue
  7. They’re overworked
  8. They see the organization as inefficient and ineffective
  9. Their distinctiveness in not valued or appreciated

The Great Resignation, Opting Out, The Quit, The Great Reshuffle, The Great Attrition… What’s really going on?!

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It’s all over the media:

The Great Resignation! No no, no one is calling it that anymore, it’s The Quit. The what? No, no one wants to quit altogether, people need to make a living. The Great Reshuffle is more accurate. Although since it is something that is happening to workers all over the world, maybe The Great Attrition is the thing?

…and on it goes. Meanwhile, I’m still talking about ‘opting out’. 

What really is going on? What’s what?

I’m going to let you in on a secret. It’s actually all the same thing.

I started researching opting out in 2009. Yes, it’s that long ago. When I started, it was a debate that had been going on for a few years already, ever since that by now famous New York Times article The Opt-Out Revolution was published in 2003. And the truth is, although people were talking about a revolution, it really wasn’t that revolutionary at all. People have opted out to work on their own terms long before we knew to call it opting out. What was different in 2003 was that they were thought to be doing it in larger numbers than before. 

No one really knew, though, exactly how large the numbers were. No one was measuring how many people actually were leaving their jobs or careers to work on different terms. There were numbers on how may left the workforce altogether, but as I already mentioned, people do need to work, so not surprisingly those number weren’t very high at all, nor were they on the rise. 

But then COVID hit and suddenly everything became extreme. 

Companies started doing things they thought were impossible. Governments and organizations started cooperating in ways they had never dreamed of. Restaurants and entertainers fell on really hard times – harder than most of us can imagine. People actually slowed down enough to smell the coffee, except for healthcare worker of course who became the temporary heroes of the world (I say temporary because let’s face it, we have really short memories and now that things are somewhat under control I think most people have gone back to taking them for granted).

Things became extreme and people in the US started quitting their jobs in never before seen numbers. Hashtags like #quittingmyjob or #antiwork started circulating on social media. Terms were coined left and right to describe what was happening (see my first paragraph) and people started to feel a pressing need to measure what was really going on. And presto, now we have numbers:

About 40% of people are considering quitting their jobs and up to 70% (depending on what study you read) are dreaming of doing so. In addition, over 50% of the work force is burned out. These number are shockingly high!

But when you scratch the surface, it turns out that it’s always about the same thing: It’s about people. It’s about stress. It’s about feelings of insecurity. It’s about not having control over your life. It’s about exhaustion. It’s about lacking a sense of meaning. It’s about feeling that something has got to give. 

And all this is hugely important regardless of what we call it. 

There have always been people who have opted out. That isn’t new. But what is different now is the sheer magnitude of it. Up to 70% percent dream of doing it!

So yes, something has got to give.

I’ve written a book on women opting out, and another on men, and now it is high time to focus on what organizations need to do. 70% is not sustainable, organizations need to act and they need to do it now. We need work places people don’t dream of leaving, we need organizational cultures that make people want to stay. 

With that, I’m starting to work on my next book. I’m going to revive this blog (yes, it’s been relatively quiet here lately) and I’m going to use it to explore and discuss issues and aspects of my book. 

I hope you will follow me on this journey. In the meantime, I would love to hear from you. If you work somewhere where they are doing things right (anything, big or small), or if your workplace is a place you don’t long to leave, please tell me about it. 

What are they doing right and why is it good? You can email me at theoptingoutblog@gmail.com