With International Women’s Day on the horizon, and Women’s History Month now in full swing, we have been reading The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It by Mary Ann Sieghart.

Sieghart spent 20 years as Assistant Editor of The Times and is currently a Non-Executive Director of the Guardian Media Group, Senior Independent Director of Pantheon International, Non-Executive Director of The Merchants Trust, Senior Independent Trustee of the Kennedy Memorial Trust, and Trustee of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation – in addition to extensive TV and radio experience. And she has channelled this lifetime of experience into an explosive and important book.

The ‘Authority Gap’ of the title is evidenced in the way women are continually undermined, belittled, and talked over in both their professional and personal lives. However, unlike the gender pay gap, it is harder to measure the authority gap as it is perpetuated by systemic unconscious biases.

Sieghart begins her examination of these biases by exploring whether there is any truth to the idea that women are ‘naturally’ less well suited to leadership in certain traditionally ‘male’ careers, and this is quickly disproven. She has pulled on a wealth of research throughout the book to highlight the hypocrisies women face in the workplace and the wider world, using a mix of academic studies, polling data, and dozens of interviews with pioneering women such as Baroness Hale, Dame Mary Beard, and Bernadine Evaristo.

All of this is combined to unearth the deep-rooted social conditioning that women are subject to from as young as elementary school age – one study cited discovered that elementary and middle-school boys were given eight times more attention by teachers than girls in this age group. Sieghart then opens up her field of enquiry as the book goes on, delving into the rise of online abuse as a way of silencing women, the double-standards of beauty and aging, and the multiple ways that bias against women intersects with other factors such as race, class, and disability.

After bringing all of these issues to light, Sieghart closes the book with her final chapter – aptly titled ‘No Need to Despair’ – where she highlights the changes that need to be made at individual, organizational, and legislative levels in order to close this gap. And the author even goes on to explain how closing this gap is beneficial not just for women, but for all; men in more gender-equal societies report higher levels of happiness and satisfaction in home and work life, and gender-diverse companies are more profitable!

This is an important book for all employers to read, as it expertly uncovers the unconscious bias and microaggressions that women still face at work – and sets out a roadmap for how to ensure this behavior is challenged and changed for the better.

If you would like to discuss how we can help support the diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies in your organization, please get in touch with us here.

And to grab a copy of The Authority Gap, head over here for the US and here for the UK.  

37% of people in their 50s and 60s in the UK have experienced age discrimination in the past year, most commonly in the workplace. And in the US around two-thirds of over-50 adults believe older workers are facing age discrimination at work.

Ageism has always been something that seemingly slips through the cracks. Throwaway comments and outdated assumptions continue to allow this discrimination to be perpetuated, but with a third of the UK workforce being over 50, and nearly a quarter of the US workforce being over 55, employers have a responsibility to be clamping down on ageism at work if they want to unlock the full potential of their midlife workers.

But in order to do this, employers first need to know what to be looking for. Our friends at Rest Less have identified seven common examples of ageism that happen in the workplace:

1. Stereotyping – this can affect both older and younger workers and is where assumptions or judgements are made about people based on their age.
2. Marginalisation – usually the result of stereotyping, and happens when someone is made to feel  less important than others in society. They’re essentially sidelined and made to feel small.
3. Microaggressions – theseare subtle, often unintentional, comments or behaviours that convey discriminatory messages. Both stereotyping and marginalisation can be examples of microaggressions.
4. Bias in Hiring Process – many over 50s looking to transition into roles that don’t directly align with their experience and skill level may also be branded by employers as ‘overqualified’ – and overlooked as a result.
5. Rebranding Roles – role rebranding isn’t unusual and is an example of ageism that sees older employees being informed that their role is being phased out because it’s no longer needed at the company…a company will then advertise the same role under a different title and hire a younger candidate.
6. Redundancy Selection – in situations where companies are making redundancies, some companies will make voluntary redundancy offers to older employees based on assumptions that “they will be retiring soon anyway”.
7. Harassment – age harassment can take various forms, including all of the examples listed above. But, in extreme cases, it may escalate to explicit bullying.

Employers that are well-versed in how ageism presents in the workplace are going to be the ones who are most prepared to challenge it. And by doing so, they will be creating a work environment where everyone feels like they are welcome and that they belong, and this is the type of culture where employees thrive.

This is all without mentioning the many positives that having an age-diverse workforce can bring to a company – midlife workers will have a lot of experience under their belt, as well as age-inclusive perspectives that will help expand their employer’s marketing horizons. This is why it is so important for older workers to also be offered opportunities to learn and develop, as they have so much talent to offer, it may just need to be re-contextualized!

If you would like to discuss how we can help eradicate age discrimination from your workplace and unlock all the potential of a diversely-aged team, please get in touch with us.

The résumé can be traced all the way back to the late 15^th century, when Leonardo Da Vinci sent a letter to the regent of Milan seeking a job and outlining his relevant work experience. It was then a few centuries later that this concept gained real traction, and by the early 19^th century, having a piece of paper that highlighted your experience, skills, and qualifications started to become a prerequisite to getting a job.

But are we seeing the era of the résumé starting to come to a close?

Maybe, but not immediately. Our latest LinkedIn poll highlighted that the first thing the majority of employers considered when hiring someone new was their experience (51%), followed by their qualifications (19%) and then finally their skills (14%). Now, this isn’t to say that all three of these things are not considered, but it was interesting to see that experience outranked all other factors. While this suggests that there is still a place for the résumé, with the working world going through exponential changes – catalysed by the pandemic and its fallout – is it time for employers to consider evolving their hiring strategy to remain in step with the accelerated pace of change?

Well, according to TestGorilla’s The State of Skills-Based Hiring 2023 report, the answer may indeed be yes. Of the 1500 employers and 1500 employees surveyed, 70% agreed that all forms of skills-based hiring are more effective than a résumé. 87% of employers said that they experience problems with résumés, most notably determining whether it is accurate, determining a candidate’s skills, and the struggle to easily rank potential hires to identify the strongest talent.

What we are starting to see is that employers are beginning to adopt a skills-based approach when it comes to identifying the best talent during their recruitment. This would see hiring managers doing away with résumés, and instead employing skills-based assessments to determine which candidates are best suited to the role. These assessments would include cognitive ability tests, role-specific skills tests and assignment or work samples – all of which were viewed as being more effective measures for identifying talented candidates over résumés.

And it is no wonder that employers are thinking this – moving away from the résumé and the ‘degree-inflation mindset’ allows organizations to gain access to a wider, more diverse talent pool, inviting in more opportunities for innovation. There is also a much lower chance of hiring the wrong person as employers would have seen their abilities in action, which helps to avoid the estimated cost of a bad hire (which ranges from five to twenty-seven times the amount of the person’s annual salary).

Experience and qualifications are still notable considerations when it comes to selecting a candidate, but employers who are expanding their horizons to skills-based hiring practices may yield the best – and most economically friendly – results in the years to come.

If you would like to discuss how we can help evolve your recruitment process by infusing skills-based assessments into it, then please get in touch with me at andy@orgshakers.com

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”

He may have achieved fame as a country music singer in the 1960’s, but Jimmy Dean’s observation could easily have been about the current state of organizational change.

The winds of change have been howling through the working world; the disruptive forces of new technologies, generative AI, the broadening scope of diversity, equity, and inclusion and the assimilation of hybrid and remote working have created a HR hurricane.

These changes are all potentially positive for business, but they are happening at a pace that has been exponentially accelerated by the pandemic. What would have been a gradual integration of the hybrid working format became a sudden and forced shift to remote working which companies either had to adapt to or be left behind.

And yet, although lockdown posed a situation where employers were forced to adjust their sails, the changes that we are seeing now can be best navigated not just by responding to the direction of the wind – but also by anticipating its patterns so to be one step ahead of it.

Here lies the big question: is your organization ready for change?

A recent report from Gartner discovered that 82% of HR leaders believe their managers are not equipped to lead change – and this is exacerbated by the fact that 77% of employees are suffering from change fatigue.

Change fatigue occurs when the volume and pace of change becomes overwhelming for employees. This can have detrimental affects on employee wellbeing and productivity, but despite this only 8% of workers feel confident in their plan to manage their fatigue.

The pace of change in the working world is not predicted to slow, so for those organizations looking to keep in stride – and get ahead of – this new pace, they need to be building change fatigue prevention strategies into their equation for organizational transformation success.

Currently, most employers will integrate change through clear communication paired with good training. But as we watch the corporate world evolve, so do our approaches to how change is implemented. Weaving change fatigue management into this equation ensures that managers are better equipped to coach their teams on how to effectively identify fatigue drivers, fix any that arise, and start to look at how they can be prevented altogether (this looks like normalizing rest, microbreaks, employee involvement, creating a psychologically safe space, etc.).

What is critical to these prevention strategies being successful is understanding that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to mitigating change fatigue. Different types of employees are going to need different wellbeing support – and if employers are able to look at wellbeing needs through an intersectional lens, then they will be able to efficiently support their people through the intensity of these changes.

An example of this is midlife workers; many of our established wellbeing programs are centred around younger workers (parental leave, childcare support, etc.) whereas older workers will have entirely different needs to this (menopause support, working carers support, etc.). Bridging the wellbeing gap will strengthen your efforts when managing change fatigue and ensure that the other 92% of employees feel confident in their ability to manage their change fatigue as they will have the right support in place.

This will see your business set sail on the high seas of profit, productivity, and employee satisfaction.

If you would like to discuss how we can help implement strategies around wellbeing and change fatigue, please get in touch with me at david@orgshakers.com

David Fairhurst is the Founder of OrgShakers. He is widely considered to be one of the world’s leading HR practitioners and is a respected thought leader, business communicator, and government advisor.

Pancake Day has become wildly popular in British culture over the years. What was once solely a religious celebration for indulging in something sweet before the beginning of Lent has now evolved into a fun and cultural staple that many Britons take part in.

When we think about pancakes, our minds tend to go one of two places – the thin, sugary lemon crepes of France, or the thick, maple-soaked stacks of North America. But what is so interesting to note is that the pancake – something that seems relatively simple in its creation – takes on so many different forms, flavours, and styles across the world. The Japanese have their savoury pancake, called okonomiyaki, the Swedes have grated potato pancakes called raggmunk, and in South India they have thin, savoury delicacies called dosas.

To me, this highlights the power of diverse perspectives. The pancake has been reimagined, reshaped, and reborn in so many different ways across the globe, and now there are so many innovative approaches to one dish. Now imagine applying this mindset to the working world – if employers foster and encourage diverse thinking, what are the benefits that they might be able to cook up?

Well, for one thing, a study published by Harvard Business Review discovered that teams solve problems faster when they are more cognitively diverse. Having a varied set of employees who have been enriched by different experiences in life will invite new ways of thinking and looking at something into workplace discussions. This paves the path for innovation and creativity, as well as being able to expand their customer base into new market territories that were potentially being missed previously.

But it is not as simple as hiring diversly – employers must also strive to foster a culture of inclusion so that each employee feels that they belong. This means encouraging open communication, embracing ‘taboos’, and challenging potential microaggressions that may hinder the assimilation of a diverse workforce. By creating this culture, employers will be able to unlock all of the opportunities that a diverse workforce has to offer, and there are many! In a recent McKinsey report, it was found that successful diverse companies outperform less varied organizations.

So this pancake day, opt to adopt the pancake mindset, and embrace the power of diversity and new perspectives by taking something and seeing its potential to be so much more.

If you would like to discuss how we can help your company diversify its hiring practices and foster an inclusive culture, please get in touch with us.

The evolution of AI and technology is more than just a trend – it is now driving a fundamental shift in the business landscape. Organizations aiming to stay competitive must embrace this transformation – starting with their People.

To begin with, organizations need to be redesigning their structures and processes – and working with someone who has expertise in this field is crucial for smooth and successful implementation.

This is where OrgShakers come in. We can help employers build a foundation to adapt and thrive in a tech-driven future by combining our expertise in leadership optimization, people strategy, and human capital risk management.

Focusing on strategic HR management in this way will see humans align harmoniously with the technology to unlock the full potential of this new opportunity. Our approach encompasses everything from talent acquisition to leadership development and is designed to foster a culture of innovation and adaptability.

And fostering this culture is not just about adopting new tools; it’s about strategic cultural and organizational transformation. This requires an approach which ensures that changes in structure and strategy are deeply rooted in the organization’s culture and values so to ignite a ripple effect that touches every corner of the company.

Embedding AI and new technologies requires a focus on learning and development opportunities surrounding this, as this training will mitigate any feelings of doubt or change fatigue that employees may be feeling when getting to grips with these new additions.

In 2024, staying ahead means embracing the evolution of AI and technology, with a focus on people and processes. Partnering with us offers organizations the expertise and support to navigate this transformative journey. By aligning HR strategies with technological advancements, companies can foster a resilient, innovative, and competitive workforce ready to excel in our hi-tech future.

If you would like to discuss our services in relation to AI and technology in more detail, please get in touch with me at sayid@orgshakers.com  

Inspired by Black History Month, we have chosen to read The Business of Race: How to Create and Sustain an Antiracist Workplace and Why It’s Actually Good for Business by Gina Greenlee and Margaret H. Greenberg.

Gina is a Black business leader with more than thirty years of experience in organizational development, project management, communications, and training. Margaret is a White executive coach and president of The Greenberg Group, a consulting firm that coaches executives and their teams to lead large-scale organizational change. Together, they have pooled their vast amount of knowledge of business and psychology to create a practical guide for employers and employees about how to address race in the workplace.

The core message of this book is that you can’t solve what you can’t talk about, and there is a power in the fact that the book is able to examine the delicate nature of talking about race from both a Black and a White person’s perspective, resulting in an honest and necessary read that really digs deep into the topic.

There has long been a taboo around talking about race at work, and in their book, Gina and Margaret highlight that organizations must be readying themselves on an individual and enterprise level before diving headfirst into such an important conversation. The individual work includes raising our awareness and creating new ways of being, and the enterprise work focuses on how employers must develop and implement strategies, policies, and initiatives to reimagine a racially equitable workplace. But these things are not ‘programs’ that can just be completed swiftly … they are journeys.

This book acts as a guide for starting this journey. It offers a number of practical ways that businesses – regardless of their size – can make positive, sustainable changes that will help to bring more racial diversity, inclusion, and equity into the workplace.

The reader is offered a range of tools to help them start these conversations, comprising a mix of new learning tools such as fostering a growth mindset, with more familiar tools such as strategic planning and project management. Woven amongst these are interviews from more than two-dozen business professionals across diverse industries, fields and organizational levels that bring voices to the challenges and opportunities businesses face every day.

And while this book offers accessible routes into discussing racial inequity at work, it is also honest about the fact that accessibility should not be confused with ease … this is hard work. But with the right set of tools, alongside strategic support from your HR team, employers can start having important conversations about race in the workplace.

If you would like to discuss the services that OrgShakers can offer with helping fuel your diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, please get in touch with us here.

And to get your hands on a copy of The Business of Race, head over here for the US and here for the UK.

It was recently discovered that a whopping 70% of UK staff are planning to find a new job in 2024, and over half (58%) of US employees were intending to make a major job change this year…so if you thought the war for talent was coming to a lull, this may prove you wrong.

Since the pandemic the working world has been in a state of flux – our practices are constantly evolving in response to the rise of the carpe diem mentality that COVID created, and the subsequent shifting needs of the workforce that came with it. With a constant flow of employees in and out of organizations, businesses have been keenly focused on strategies to attract, embed, and retain top talent.

And in 2024, this may mean looking beyond the pool of traditionally qualified workers. The 4-year degree as a job requirement is starting to be challenged in corporate America, and this is in part due to the precedent set by big name companies like IBM, Accenture, Bank of America, and Google doing away with a bachelor’s degree as a requirement for being hired. Now, recent data suggests that nearly half of US organizations intend to eliminate the need for a bachelor’s degree in 2024. And this trend is not just exclusive to the US – LinkedIn data discovered a 90% increase in the share of UK job postings that did not require a university degree.

With the current talent squeeze we are seeing, it’s no wonder that companies are starting to change their tune towards those who take a more untraditional path into the world of work. After all, fewer than 40% of Americans actually hold a bachelor’s degree, which leaves 70 million workers who do not have one being overlooked by so many employers.

But if degree inflation is finally starting to fall, what should employers be doing to ensure they are attracting the best talent?

The answer to this breaks down into two key factors – what the characteristics are for a desirable candidate, and what training pathways employers can offer to their employees. For the former, this will see hiring managers and HR professionals moving away from looking at traditional qualifications and instead measuring the aptitude of a potential hire based on their attitude, their acquired skills, and whether they can enhance the culture of the company. There are so many employees who are eager to learn and develop but for one reason or another have not gone down the 4-year degree education path. Companies that are moving away from the traditional stance of needing a degree are going to gain access to a larger and more diverse pool of talent.

The success of your new hires is then dependent on the training programs that companies have in place for them. One offering that is growing in popularity in the US is apprenticeships, which have seen a 64% rise over the last decade. Apprenticeships have proven to be a great tool for getting fresh talent into roles; for example, in Switzerland 70% of teenagers participate in apprenticeships after finishing high school due to their effectiveness for businesses and their biproduct of creating social mobility opportunities. They can therefore be a fantastic strategic tool for attracting talent, but also lend a hand in increasing retention rates, too, as they foster a sense of loyalty from the onset.

Similarly, employers can create in-house training programs that are specifically tailored to upskill individuals to their working practices, and enrol new hires in certain Bootcamps and external certifications to gain qualifications whilst learning on the job (we are seeing this begin to particularly grow in popularity in the tech world).

And much like Swiss employers, companies who are looking to move away from the degree requirement and create apprenticeship and training programs are going to be furthering their social agenda for their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategies, as they will be helping to create more social mobility opportunities.

So, if you would like to discuss how OrgShakers can help you with navigating this expansion of your hiring process and assist you in accessing wider pools of unexplored talent, please get in touch with me at randy.ynegas@orgshakers.com or contact us through our website.

Black History Month creates space for all to reflect on the struggle of Black Americans and Black people across the world to get to where they are today. Battling through constant, overt oppression to be able to have the same rights that were automatically extended to their white counterparts has made it possible for Black people to gain access to many more opportunities than were previously within their reach.

However, racism runs deep; while activists such as Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks paved a path for a better future, there is still work to be done now to continue to eradicate the oppression that black people face across the globe.

Just as the world has modernized, so has racism. What was once brashly overt has now evolved into more subtle, micro-aggressive tendencies.  The disconnect occurs because these microaggressions are broadly considered ‘less racist’ than things were fifty years ago, so it’s not seen as racism at all – which gives these behaviors the power to continue.

The workplace is a prime example. Many companies are more intentional about creating hiring targets to diversify their workforces – and this is great – but we’re also seeing that they are significantly pulling funding on their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. It seems that just as the workplace begins to take a step forward, it takes two steps back. Without a comprehensive DEI change initiative and commitment to link the initiative to the mission, vision, and values of the company, this creates an environment where microaggressions will emerge and those employees of color will not truly feel that they are valued members of the team.  

Microaggressions are indirect, subtle, or unintentional discriminatory actions against members of a marginalized group. Some examples of these behaviors are not introducing specific people in a meeting, praising an idea from one person and ignoring the same idea when presented by another, speaking with a condescending tone, consistently mispronouncing someone’s name, confusing a person of a certain ethnicity with another person of that same ethnicity…the list goes on. A recent study even discovered that 25% of black women have been sent home from work because of their hair. These actions may seem small if you do not regularly experience them yourself, but the racial undertones that they hold are problematic and create a tense and unproductive culture.

For example, Dr. Claudine Gay was the first black woman to be selected the president of Harvard University by the Harvard Corporation – comprised of 12 board members responsible for university affairs and three members of the second-highest governing Board of Overseers –  and yet not even a year later and she has been forced to resign due to incessant plagiarism claims from her academic dissertation from 1997. Upon further exploration, most of the “errors” that have been identified are pedantic. Additionally, the few that have been raised as cause for concerns were not only deemed understandable by those she quoted, they were also completely missed by the institution under which she wrote it, along with the Harvard PhD committee who failed to highlight these when awarding her the Toppan prize for the best political science dissertation in 1998. Regardless, Dr. Gay has come under fire, and the microaggressions in this situation are rampant; after all, we haven’t seen any other Harvard presidents be picked apart for their academic writings from two decades ago.

If this situation was copy and pasted onto a white man, it is very likely that the outcome would be entirely different, and it’s these systemic barriers that employers need to recognize and challenge to truly further the progress of the many Black transformational leaders who fought for civil rights and equality for all Americans. 

The first step to challenging these inequities is acknowledging that they exist in the first place. Nearly two-thirds (61%) of Black employees experienced racism in 2021, and this number is only going to begin to decrease if companies can successfully identify these microaggressions and uproot them. We know that diverse companies are more profitable, but in order for employers to unlock these benefits they have to successfully foster a safe and inclusive environment. This starts by acknowledging that racism is still an open wound in the world of work, and that putting a band aid on it doesn’t help it heal. They must clean it out, and slowly begin to sew it up – which requires organizations to break the habit of assuming that the wound has already healed.

If you would like to discuss how we can help further your DEI strategy and help foster a culture that unlocks the best out of all your people, please get in touch with me at marty@orgshakers.com

Working in a remote or hybrid setting has entered the mainstream for the world of work.  Navigating applications like Zoom and Teams has become routine, water cooler chats rely on DM, and family members or pets are a common sight while working. That said, there are still the occasional mishaps. For example:

A few years ago, a group of legal workers were discussing a civil procedure over video call when their colleague Ben rose from his seat to reveal that he was, in fact, stark naked. In a similar and more recent blunder, a Social Democratic councillor from Romania thought his camera was off and that he was muted when he took his laptop into the bathroom and began to shower…but he was sadly mistaken.

I found myself dealing with a similar instance not too long ago where an individual was in a team call, accidently switched his camera on, and revealed he was taking nude photographs of himself. While these instances may seem amusing and are sometimes laughed off, it does beg the question for employers: How do we respond? Is policy applicable? And if none exist, do we need to create one?

Since remote work was introduced on a mass scale in 2020, it has become much more normal for employees to dress comfortably and casually for work.

A poll from People Management confirms this, as it found more than half of respondents (56%) wore jogging bottoms or leggings while working remotely, and the average employee spends 46 days a year working in pajamas. 29% of employers surveyed, however, stated they had enforced a strict dress code in response to this change or would if they could.

Ideally, an organization’s dress code can be applied across a variety of work situations and locations. Companies that have embraced remote or hybrid work can mitigate risk and inappropriate behavior by ensuring their workforce policies make sense in multiple settings. Rather than having separate dress code policies for different workers, for example, an organization can have a single comprehensive policy that applies to different situations.

The way we dress to work has always had a big influence on personal brand, company brand, and productivity. It’s the old adage that dressing smartly makes you think and act smartly. Dress helps someone differentiate when they are in work mode and when they are not. Post-pandemic saw these lines blur; the home, which was typically a place for comfort, merged with the workplace. And while dress code expectations may have been clear for working in the office, have employers been clear in what the expectations are surrounding working from home?

When reviewing dress code policies for use in remote or hybrid settings, start by defining what a company deems acceptable as ‘working attire’ when working from home. Consider how ‘dressed’ a remote employee needs to be. If someone on a zoom call is clad in a shirt, tie and even blazer from the waist up, but wearing pyjama bottoms from the waist down, is this unprofessional?

It’s important for employers to partner with HR when determining employee dress expectations. Appropriate attire doesn’t necessarily mean forcing workers to wear business professional clothing at all times, as contextually this may not be beneficial for the desired result.

For example, if a team is brainstorming ideas, an imaginative and innovative process, some individuals will do their best creative thinking when they can dress (and feel) comfortable. In part this is because, psychologically, what we wear can have a huge effect on how we think. One study found that wearing a suit or smart attire made 52% of people feel more productive, 59% act more decisively, and 78% felt more authoritative. And yet, a different study at the University of Hertfordshire asked a group of people to wear a Superman T-shirt, and concluded they believed they were stronger as a result.

Context of the desired result is therefore key when it comes to creating policies around dress codes and video call etiquette. Having a set of standards on what is acceptable – and what is unacceptable – will help mitigate the blunders mentioned earlier. There also needs to be an element of flexibility incorporated into these standards based on the task at hand; creative tasks may require more comfort. After all, if wearing a Superman shirt makes you feel strong, being comfortable can make you feel comfortable, too – and this can encourage some of the best and most honest thinking.

It all comes down to being intentional with the dress code, which will help to ensure clarity around those blurred lines of remote working and home life, while also taking into account the fact that the way someone dresses can have a real effect on their work results.

If you would like to discuss how we can help your company create and optimize these policies, please get in touch with me at amanda@orgshakers.com

What is the office actually for?

What was once seen as a logical and efficient way of working has now been brought into question by the sudden and mass shift to remote and hybrid work.

So, to work out where we’re going – we first need to rewind.

The ‘office’ has always been in a shifting state, all the way back to its conception in the 15^th century, where medieval monks created ‘scriptoriums’ to copy manuscripts. From that point onwards these proto-offices slowly evolved as the introduction of artificial light, telephones, typewriters, elevators, and computers eventually spawned sky-scraping office buildings which defined the urban landscape.  

Then BOOM! Lockdown. And everything changed.

What had been a slow and gradual evolution was jolted in a radically different direction. Those that could, worked from home. And for many of these individuals, working life became more productive, and more rewarding, to the point where today nine in ten jobseekers say hybrid work is now as important as financial benefits.

These new expectations mean that employers now need to be considering how they can most effectively use their office space to optimize the productivity of their people when they are in work – while also meeting their wellbeing needs when they are working remotely.

The best way to do this? By focusing on policy, place, and purposeful leaders:

Policy – Clarity is key when it comes to creating policies for hybrid and remote work, and so is the consideration of time. Your policies will outline when you expect people to be in, and when they are permitted the freedom to choose whether they use the office or work from home.

How flexible are your working hours? Are there core working hours that everyone needs to be available for? Being clear about what your policies are and why you have chosen them is important when it comes to building trust and loyalty with your staff, as well as lending to your attractiveness as a company.

Place – Different people are going to want/need to use the office for different reasons. For some, they may want to be in everyday as they cannot find a quiet space to focus at home. For others, they may only want to come in once a week, as they can do their individual work from home but enjoy face-to-face contact for more collaborative tasks. The point of this is that you have to be able to offer a place that can accommodate for both.

Will you have a Superdesk in one area to encourage collaboration and cubicle spaces for those who need to concentrate? Or will you try and adopt a more creative approach, with nap pods and sofas scattered about?

There is no ‘best way’ to do it – a recent study found that actively trying to make creative office spaces could be stifling creativity, whilst another discovered that changing from cubicles to open-plan saw a 70% drop in face-to-face interactions.

It all depends on your people’s needs; let them guide how your office space takes shape, and this way, it will ensure the optimization of their productivity.

Purposeful Leaders – Your leaders will play a huge role in bringing these policies to life –  as well as ensuring that the office space you have is delivering a return on your real estate investment.

If you decide that you want all employees to come in once a week, then it falls to team leaders and line-managers to highlight why people should adhere to this. If you force your staff to come in only for them to do the quiet, concentrated, individual work they can, and would most likely prefer to, do from home, then you are not optimizing the space around you. These days should be dedicated to collaborative tasks, to nourishing the company culture and strengthening the relationships between colleagues. If this is done correctly, people will stop viewing coming into the office as a chore and actually start wanting to be there, but your policies can only be as good as your managerial facilitation.

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Employers need to accept that hybrid and remote work is, for the majority of workers, desirable and beneficial, and begin leveraging this opportunity to optimize productivity rather than seeing it as an obstacle standing in the way of ‘the old way of work’.

The purpose of the office is changing, so now it’s a matter of leading this change rather than being led by it. And this is where we can help – we can assist in optimizing your organizational effectiveness when it comes to hybrid work, helping to craft policies and coach leaders to ensure that your company’s individual needs are met, and simultaneously align with the needs of your workforce.

To continue this conversation, you can either head over to our contact page, or reach out to me directly at andy@orgshakers.com

The HR is focused on managing every aspect of an organization’s ‘human’ capital.

As the importance of this historically under-optimized resource has been realized, however, we have seen the role of HR grow exponentially, especially as the scope of diversity, equity, and inclusion continues to expand alongside the almost perpetual introduction of new and emerging technologies.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that a fifth (22%) of HR directors are feeling ‘very stressed’, and almost three in ten (28%) feel there are too many demands on their time. The survey by Barnett Waddingham went on to reveal that 17% were unable to keep up with the pace of change at work.

And this raises an age-old question for HR professionals: when we start to burn out, who is our HR?

The answer can differ depending on what type of HR professional you actually are.

For those in-house corporate HR leaders, there are likely going to be internal support networks at the company they work for which they will have access to. Just as they will assist in implementing strategies to help reduce burnout amongst employees, these same strategies can be used to help alleviate their own stresses. Additionally, those that are members of the CIPD have access to a 24/7 helpline for any support they need (and for those HR professionals over in the US, SHMR members are offered a similar service!).

What can also be extremely helpful for those working in corporate HR is the recalibration of their role expectations. The world of HR is always expanding, and so as new considerations begin to come under HR’s scope of operation, it is important for these professionals to re-evaluate their job role with their employer and determine whether the increased workload needs to be distributed differently.

However, managing burnout when you are an independent HR consultant can be slightly trickier.

HR consultancy continues to gain popularity as a way of working for HR professionals (76% of organizations currently outsource one or more major HR function) which is why I founded the Leap Into HR Consulting programmes back in 2019 …to help senior HR professionals make that transition from corporate to consulting life (much like I did!).

A key part of the support we offer is understanding what you can do to alleviate stress and ward off those feelings of burnout that can come creeping in.

For one thing, being a consultant can often be perceived to be isolating. You do not have a team of head office functions behind you – so everything falls to you.

Juggling these many roles can be overwhelming, and what I have found to be truly effective in mitigating this sense of isolation is joining a community of consultants (either online or in person).

Having a sense of kinship can do wonders for your mental health, and it is so important to upkeep this when working in a consulting position.

Which leads me nicely onto my next point – you need to be in tune with yourself.

Understanding your needs and what makes you feel happy, healthy, and stimulated are going to be imperative tools for when you do feel a sense of burnout incoming. Be honest with your capabilities and set appropriate boundaries around your work to ensure that a work-life balance is being maintained that prioritizes your health and mental wellbeing. And considering that independent consultants have the additional worry of client retention and their own financial wellbeing on top of the burgeoning responsibilities that now fall to HR, it is imperative to have a wellbeing strategy in place for yourself.

If you would like to discuss HR wellbeing in greater detail and what services myself and OrgShakers can offer you, please get in touch with us.

Sarah Hamilton-Gill FCIPD

Managing Director

Globus HR Consulting Ltd

sarahhg@globushrconsulting.co.uk

Sarah-Hamilton Gill is the Founder and Managing Director of Globus HR Consulting Ltd. With over 29 years of experience in HR consulting, Sarah is widely regarded as an expert in the field of coaching HR professionals who are taking the leap into the HR Consulting world.