We are not Robots – or do we think we are?

We are not Robots – or do we think we are?

By

Glenn G Jones

GGJ Global Consulting Limited/DBA Student

[email protected]?/?[email protected]

Note: Parts of this article are drawn from the book?Human Resources Changes the World?by Glenn G Jones. Furthermore, aspects of this article will be covered in the DBA research that Glenn Jones MSc ChFCIPD ChFCIPP is undertaking. Incidentally, if you are a CEO or a CPO/CHRO/HRD of an FTSE350, please contact Glenn if you are willing to undertake a 45 min interview (strictly controlled by the University of Derby Code of Ethics and Anonymity) between Sept 2022 and March 2023. So far, I have 2 CEOs and 4 CPOs.

We are not Robots – or do we think we are?

Following a poll that I did on LinkedIn recently, in which I asked:

What do you think the effect of working a reduced working week in days will do to you? Please be honest as this doesn’t help otherwise

This article aims at blending in the results, my?personal?insights, professional observations, and academic research, plus a few definitions and quotes here and there. It is not the finished article; I think there's enough to start the ball rolling.

I have also cc’d some genuinely great and inspirational people in the article and post, so please do let me know if you would like your name removed.

Introduction:

If anyone knows me, they will hopefully say I am a passionate HR/People professional. They will see that I am coming from a place of improving the profession (not bashing it) and people’s working life, plus raising the bar on multiple levels. If there is any implied criticism, it comes from a good intention.

Definition - Insanity

“Doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get a different result!”?(Allegedly, Einstein, ?)

You may ask why I am bringing in this definition straight away.??My main reason is that HR is mainly reactive to the world.??I would love to see us as a profession take a huge breath and step away from the puzzle of “Working from Home”, “Reduced Days”, etc.??In doing so, to come up with a human answer that is well thought through, credible, makes excellent commercial sense and improves the way we work, how we are paid, and the bi-products of increased morale, energy, quality, efficiency, plus many more including retention and attraction. Dave Ulrich and RBL are pre-eminent thought leaders; however, we cannot rely on the team to come up with everything; we will touch on their work on “Resources to meet demand” later in this article.

Now for the results of the survey.”

Effective - 43%

No Change - 22%

Less Effective - 13%

Fall Over/Burnout - 22%

I was first surprised by the poll results; however, the number of votes (23) circa 0.55% of the number of views was 4140. Perhaps I made the poll too complicated, or it was just too controversial, or are people generally afraid to answer???

What surprised me the most was that I thought the swing of Effective vs Burnout would be the other way around. However, consider this, if a quarter of your workforce worked increased hours, had increased stress, and potentially fell over, what would that do to your bottom line, broader employee base, share price etc.? Ramp that up to include the next group of being less effective, and you have circa 35% of your employees potentially falling over!

A personal view – for a few years, I served with the Royal Military Police Reserves, and one of the exercises that we would do quite often was sleep deprivation. One thing I learned doing amazing and stretching stuff like that was that your body would carry on far longer than your mind. I recall being up the Brecon Beacons on the SAS assault course and seeing trees come to life. It taught me a valuable lesson that sleep is essential, and we can only stretch the elastic band so long before it breaks.

Toker and Melamad (2017) captured the significance of long working hours, the lack of sleep and the function-ability of humans, and it’s well worth a read:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118993811.ch10

War for talent and the implications of Burnout Syndrome

Most of the academic research into “Burnout Syndrome” tends to be in the medical environment, e.g., Doctors, nurses etc. Ironically, even though this research has been completed on multiple levels, the medical sector has still not worked this out. I don’t read the news; however, I talk to Doctors and Nurses who are way past Burnout. One essential item that kept coming out through my primary research was that not tackling Burnout led to issues relating to retention and attraction. Furthermore, the study stated a direct correlation between working long hours, stress and customer service/patient care.??

My favourite Richard Branson quote:

“Clients do not come first.?Employees come first.?If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”

The following is an extract of the comment from Dave Ulrich to my poll:

“Figuring out what “engages” an individual is complicated and ultimately quite personalised based on the employee, job, organisation, and other factors. We have found a simple model of demands vs resources to help personalise mental well being. when increased demands are balanced by increased resources, employees stay fully engaged”. See:??

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/enabling-your-personal-response-coronavirus-dave-ulrich?(Ulrich & Ulrich, 2020)

He also very kindly shared the following resource model too:

https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6954774788502396928/#

I’ve asked this question before but let me ask it again. If you were working for a company that did not consider your wellbeing and another company was advertising for a new role, would you stay or go if everything else was the same?

Could a solution be?

I do not consider myself a thought leader, and I am totally sure that the following has been spoken about multiple times. Instead of asking/making people work longer hours, could we employ more people and have a shorter working day or give people a choice (not putting people into automatic boxes):

One of the reasons why I am suggesting we revisit this is the positives of this would be:

1.?????The reduction of stress due to working fewer hours and gaining a better non-work-life balance

2.????Optimal efficiency and concentration for a lesser period.

3.????More people at work

4.????Less waste from errors, rework and inefficiency, thereby reducing financial costs.

5.????We have increased morale, energy and connectivity with employees.

6.????Attraction and retention would be increased by a factor of x.

The one big negative and the elephant in the room could/would be:

1.?????Employing more people optically suggests more costs, or does it? If employees work fewer hours, salary reductions may offset additional employee costs. This will require a culture and mentality change; this needs to be tackled instead of the constant procrastination and lack of forward drive.

Finally, I have recently read @Cathryn Buchan’s great book titled “The five keys to Burnout Recovery”, and if you find yourself in this position, please do read the book. Not only will it give you great tips in recovering, but it will also help you to put in place?

Conclusion

Burnout is a real thing, and whilst several reactive things are being undertaken in the workplace today, it’s time that someone took an authentic, commercial, people-orientated and credible professional view on how to address this phenomenon. I don’t believe that simply moving people to a four-day week is the golden pill. I think it will make the situation far worse for some employees. Professor Ulrich’s and RBL’s work suggests the resources that could be employed. I have learned that it’s not only the thought leadership that improves things but also how it’s implemented and operationalised. Further Academic and Practitioner research is required, but let's get in front of the wave instead of under it.

The difference between humans and robots is that robots don’t get Burnout unless they short out!??

Bio

Glenn is a global freelance People and HR Director, HR Transformation Director, Consultant and Doctorate Student. He has worked with Bank of America, HSBC, Ecolab, Imperial Brands, AXA XL, ISG, White & Case and Org in multi-disciplined diverse strategic and operational roles worldwide. Before this, he was employed by Eversheds LLP, Accenture, Koorb (NZ) and EON, as well as numerous other companies. He is working his way to his DBA, becoming a future Managing Director or CEO and evolving his HR?consultancy business?to ensure that he continually adds value to his clients, now and in the future. Glenn is passionate about people, coaching, emotional intelligence, the value add of HR/People functions and company evolution. His book?‘Human Resources Changes The World’?aims to disrupt the HR field and change the traditional approach to who becomes a CEO. Megan Jones