The workplace will get worse before it gets better, Bruce Daisley

My Wildest Prediction is a podcast series from Euronews Businesswhere we dare to imagine the future with business and tech visionaries. In this episode Tom Goodwin talks to Bruce Paisley, workplace culture expert and best selling author.

The workplace is an ever-changing environment, with technological advances and shifts triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating this evolution. The topic is on everyone’s lips, with journalists and academics also digging into the question of evolving workplace cultures.

“My wildest prediction is that the world of work feels broken and it is going to get significantly worse before it gets better”, Bruce Daisley tells Euronews.

An expert in the workplace, Daisley’s book “The Joy of Work” focuses on improving workplace culture. It gained a prize as a bestselling business hardback and runner-up of the CMI Management Book of the Year. 

Redefining the concept of having a career

The Industrial Revolution may have represented a turning point in modern history, ushering in sweeping changes to the world of work, but the idea of building a career is a far more recent concept.

“The whole notion of a career was an invention created in the last 50 years. The idea that we make progress and take steps to greater self-actualisation is an invention of a system that’s been trying to breadcrumb us, make us think that we’re going to earn more money by becoming more capable,” Daisley tells Euronews.

Although many people care about building a career and working towards long-term goals, the pursuit of success is gradually being replaced by a search for purpose.

“Gen Z workers entering the workforce have also realised that they’re never going to be able to own property, they’re never going to be able to, in some cases, pay off their student debt. So they think, if I can’t get the thing I really need, then at least I won’t work for the tobacco-making company.”

The gap between the CEO and employees

The disconnect between company leaders and employees is a factor which can drive up employee dissatisfaction.

Frustration builds for employees, not only in relation to their pay slip but also out of lack of agency. “85% of people say that they don’t feel able to make decisions in their job.”

For many employees, this frustration is accompanied by clogged-up workdays. “This notion that our jobs can only be done with 40 hours a week of meetings, that everything has to be a meeting, is one of the things that contributes to this”, says Daisley.

“We’ve got this strange, disempowered version of work where people feel like they have to be present at meetings. You add the number of emails, teams, pings, slack, messages that they get, and you’ve effectively got the whole week accounted for. And yet most people feel like they don’t get anything done.”

The biggest factors in workplace engagement

It is not only what people do, but who they work with, which influences their commitment to the workplace. Daisley identifies two key factors which determine how much individuals will engage with their work, “the single biggest predictor is whether people have got a friend at work”.

Loneliness is a recurring theme in the modern workplace. One in 5 employees declare they suffer from loneliness, according to a survey by State of the Global Workplace. Loneliness is more prevalent among employees younger than 35 years old.

“If someone talks about loneliness you might assume that this is a second order of effect from working from home. However, figures were almost identical for whether people worked on site or whether people worked in a hybrid arrangement.“

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As for the second biggest factor influencing engagement in the workplace, “it is whether someone has received feedback from their boss”, he says.

Employee happiness drives up profitability

However, investing in employee satisfaction can in fact drive up profitability. “The most profitable firms aren’t the ones with the most sophisticated supply chains, but are fixated on creating a good work environment for their employees, a good culture”, Daisley noted.

“High employee turnover is ruinous for organisations because you get the constant sense that managers are filling the gaps. The work doesn’t get done, the standards go down, the productivity goes up anyway”.

“Most workers say the workplace culture is more important to them than pay and conditions, interestingly because one of the biggest manifestations of workplace culture right now is flexibility”, says Daisley.

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Learn more by listening to My Wildest Prediction.