This week’s round-up of some of the ‘lighter’ observations floating around HR considers new findings on management and productivity through the prism of a new buzz word and a noisy ex-president, and asks ‘must we care about out-of-office emails?’
Rather like Lord Voldemort in wizard society there are names that one simply doesn’t mention in polite HR circles. Perhaps the biggest of these is the former US president Donald Trump, a man who exists beyond the world of HR and its remit around rules, compliance, laws and wellbeing.
Sadly, a survey by employee benefit platform Reward Gateway has cleverly attracted attention to itself by featuring the unmentionable one.
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Employee Appreciation Day is finally here!
Asking employees what they think of their bosses is always top bantz of course but Reward Gateway’s revelation that one in 10 UK workers say their boss reminds them of Trump begs several questions, which sadly the survey doesn’t appear to tackle.
Is it the hair, his easygoing demeanour, ability to generously admit defeat, business genius, devotion to equality and fairness, admiration for Vladimir Putin?
The poll found a third of workers (37%) said they didn’t feel appreciated by their bosses. But many set the bar fairly low for recognition – 45% said a simple “thank you” would be enough for them to feel valued.
Nebel Crowhurst, chief people officer at Reward Gateway, said: “Genuine appreciation that is expressed through verbal gratitude, rewards, subsidies and benefits all go towards helping employees and making them feel valued. The power of appreciation is more about building bridges than building walls.”
Ah, “building walls”. Now that’s where Trump enters the room.
OOO – really?
The language experts at Preply have contacted Personnel Today to tell us that it has revealed that out–of–office emails may “actually” be the bane of many people’s working lives.
By using the word “actually”, however, one immediately feels that Preply itself may not really believe this statement.
The OOO email phrase the nation hates the most – sorry, not sorry”
Its survey set out to discover Brit’s attitudes towards OOO email responses, with over half of UK workers (50.4%) stating they have received an annoying or inappropriate automated response in the past.
The survey unveiled which OOO email phrases the nation hates the most, with “sorry, not sorry” coming out on top with a “staggering” 34% of Brits voting it the most irritating phrase to include.
Respondents stated that OOO emails are deemed inappropriate as a result of the content being too unprofessional (16%), being overly lengthy (14%), being irrelevant to work (14%), containing excessive use of humour or puns (13%), or including unrelated personal details or anecdotes (12%).
A quick poll of Personnel Today thought leaders found that a “staggering” 0% of us had ever thought about this. And 0.6% (half a person) thought they might think about it in future.
New buzzword alert!
Rishi Sunak may feel that the UK’s poor productivity record, despite (checks notes) 14 years of a Conservative government, is because of our sicknote culture (eds – I’ve started to feel ill, so may not finish this).
He’s wrong though. Poor workplace culture has in fact given rise to “resenteeism – the ultimate productivity killer”.
Those experiencing resenteeism will be less responsive and engaged day-to-day” – Jamie Aitken, Betterworks
According to Jamie Aitken, VP of HR transformation at Betterworks, there are several reasons people may experience resenteeism.
She says: “Feeling undervalued, lacking understanding about the impact of your work, and being disconnected from one’s manager and team can lead to feelings of discontentment and frustration.
“Often, those experiencing resenteeism will be less responsive and engaged day-to-day. They may also show up and do the bare minimum, lacking the motivation to take initiative and maximise their impact on the team and business.” So it’s a tiny bit more than quiet quitting. Angry Quiet Quitting. Or Quiet Angry Quiet Quitting (QAQQ).
Betterworks has a solution. Its research tells it that people who receive one-to-ones consistently are at least three times more likely to feel supported in their work, skills and career development. Its data also shows that seven out of 10 employees report feeling highly productive when performance management is deemed successful.
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We need to bear in mind of course that for one in 10 of us, one-to-one meetings with the boss are impossible because he reminds us of Donald Trump. So, sorry. But not sorry.
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