What’s your work target this year?
Is it growth?
Growth of the top line, the profit margin, maybe the client list?
If you work in business, it’s not a shot in the dark to guess its growth: growth has been the key measure of economic success since John F Kennedy won his 1960 election bid on the promise of ‘5% growth’ – the subtext being that growth was good, for everyone.
And so for many people working in business, the expectation of them year on year is to drive growth, progress or expansion. A culture of continuous improvement in some way.
The dawn of mass working from home brought on by Covid-19 was not necessarily enjoyable everyone, but it did represent progress or gain in some form for millions of workers:
FINANCIAL: money saved on transport and lunch food bought out
TIME: same again, plus the option to undertake some chores during the day to save the weekend for leisure, such as changing the laundry over at lunch or doing a food shop during normal commute time.
AUTONOMY: gained freedom to choose where to work, given that post-pandemic many companies eased into a return to office, partly perhaps due to some lingering covid fears or protocols to maintain distancing, and probably partly due to knowing that an immediate return to office mandate, after many knowledge workers had sustained their businesses throughout the tribulations of covid from home, would have felt too much like a slap in the face.
Several businesses have now decided that enough time has passed to slap their workers with such a return to office mandate, including industry giants such as Amazon, Apple, Goldman Sachs and CitiBank. Some leaders seem completely unable to understand the frustration or resistance from some of their employees to return to working in the office as often as they used to.
Their pay packets were always designed to cover their transport and food, weren’t they?
Perhaps, but with the cost of living increases seen over the past 2 years, and salaries failing to keep pace, food and transport are a heavier burden on employee salaries than pre-covid. Consider additionally one of the worlds’ most well known phrases, that “time is money”, and the flexibility to work from home if they wish has monumental value to the worker, that some employers are now trying to take from them. Moreover, challenging market conditions often have leaders pushing their teams harden than ever to grow if not the top, at least the bottom line, further aggravating employees who are being asked to contribute more work and effort, in return for a loss of the option to work from home.
In the world of business, where growth and progress are the key mission that leaders are rallying their team around, the idea that workers will acquiesce something which has value to them, in return for nothing, seems entirely at odds with the ethos of business.
How often would a successful company accept to lose out in a renewed business deal for nothing in return? How happy would your leader be if you agreed business terms to provide more than ever before, without receiving anything back? If you don’t expect workers to fight for their own value, how hard could you expect them to work for the value of your business? Business leaders are asking their employees to behave in a way that directly contradicts how they would want them to conduct their business tasks.
If employers really do believe that a return to office mandate is key to facilitate greater in-person collaboration, improve team culture and fight falling productivity (all of which is up for debate), they should give some time and consideration to what they are able to contribute to this new deal in return.
As a favour, below are assembled some ideas for employer contribution outside of offering unlimited pay increases:
– Provided breakfasts / lunches, saving employees cash and time spent meal prepping
– Excellent coffee machine for barista style beverages
– Expensed transport
– If above out of the question, transport cards as a pre-tax salary benefit
– Flexibility around hours expected in the office, allowing employees at least some flexibility to work hours that suit them best, go to their 4pm gym session and avoid crush hour on the tube whilst still having core hours together