Workplaces need to go back to basics

A man uses 3D virtual reality glasses during the Mobile World Congress in Shanghai on February 23, 2021. (Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP)

Virtual reality headsets, wellness activities during work hours, free breakfasts, free night-time rides: these are just some of the perks being offered to employees to entice them back into the office following the world’s largest work-from-home experiment, courtesy of COVID-19.

Of course, workplace perks are nothing new: many companies, especially in the tech space, shower their employees with perks such as free dry cleaning, massages, haircuts, even unlimited leave. And while it sounds cool to be able to tell your mates that your work offers a free massage at your desk, these perks more often than not come at the expense of far more important policies, such as paid parental leave, flexible working arrangement and time in lieu.

In her latest book Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, Buzzfeed journalist Anne Helen Peterson attributes the rise of perks over benefits such as stable hours, healthcare, days off and a liveable wage to the steady erosion of unions and significant shift in financial goals — “from long-term, gradual, stable profits to short-term spikes in stock price”-- which she says “helped create the increasingly shitty and alienated workplaces”.

And while Peterson’s world is perhaps more precarious than ours, Australia is not immune from the creep of insecurity. According to a recent report by the Centre for Future Work, the rebounding of Australia’s economy in May 2020 was driven by an explosion of casual and insecure work, with casual jobs accounting for 60 per cent of all waged jobs created. Part-time work made up nearly three-quarters of all new jobs.

So in a world where precarity rules, companies looking to grow and find top talent don’t need to reinvent the wheel: all they need to do is offer prospective employees some stability, good remuneration and, well, respect for their labour.

Stability

It may sound unsexy, especially at a time when the buzzword is remote work and flexibility, but workplace stability is actually a major factor in levels of employee morale. People who work together for long periods of time get to know each other, and a workplace with no paranoia about lay-offs and job loss is a much more pleasant place to spend time.

But in the race for innovation and digital transformation, the idea of stability has been somewhat lost in the mix. If you want to develop an environment where contributors thrive and where talented people want to work, your workforce must be able to count on some basic things — such as role clarity, timely and constructive feedback, adequate resource allocation, and attention to how our work is structured.

Recent figures indicate that government jobs are back in vogue among new graduates, who are increasingly valuing positive values, good working conditions and job security over flexible, contract roles.

Stability isn’t just limited to regular shifts and parental leave: it also means psychological safety, defined by professor of Organisational Behavior at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, William Kahn, as “being able to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status, or career.” Creating a space where everyone feels safe, heard and respected is worth far more than a free lunch — and employees know it, too.

Fair renumeration

While we know that it takes more than a huge paycheck to attract top talent, in a world now ruled by instability, lay-offs and snap lockdowns, asking for money has again become a hot commodity.

To be honest, money has always been a drawcard, despite the proliferation of the “job as a calling” culture. The problem with selling a job based solely on worker passion is that it tries to render expectations of fair compensation obsolete, which works in the company’s favour but eventually leads to burnout in employees if not addressed.

The millions of Millennials who were raised on lofty, romantic and bourgeois ideas of work are now realising that loving what you do is not always comparable to a good paycheck.

And while this mindset may flip again post-Covid, until then, people will be seeking a good job that pays well and offers a pathway to development and promotion.

Money may not be everything, but in a climate this uncertain, a good paycheck — and, of course, work stability — goes a long way, and should not be underestimated.

Autonomy

Last year, we underwent one of the world’s largest ever social experiments by mandating remote work for a majority of occupations. Since then, it has been shown that working from home is not the enemy of productivity that managers have long since thought: indeed, not only is productivity up, but a recent global study by Atlassian revealed that almost seven in 10 Australian workers say their job satisfaction and work-life balance has improved since the shift to remote work.

By design, mico-managing is much harder when the bulk of your employees are working from home, causing some to speculate that remote working will shift the focus on employee autonomy.

We know from research that employees with higher levels of autonomy report positive effects on their overall wellbeing and higher levels of job satisfaction, and that productivity actually goes up when workers are trusted to do their work in peace.

At JobAdder, we’ve found that engineers working for smaller organisations tend to have more autonomy to innovate and experiment with — and within — their work compared to employees in larger organisations, which tend to have smaller remits and a narrower focus.

So, for companies wanting to attract good talent in the COVID climate, it’s worth going back to basics: good pay, stable job and trust — which leads to autonomy — may have publicly fallen out of fashion, but for most people, knowing that they can put food on the table for their families is what matters most.

At the end of the day, employees — whether they have been with the organisation for years or they’re just coming in — want to enjoy life, and part of that is enjoying a degree of stability.

Michael Osmond is Head of People and Culture at global recruitment software solution JobAdder