Personnel Today has received fresh insights around workforce mood and culture. It appears a certain degree of confusion is afoot …
Last week there was a muddle in a football match, Spurs v Liverpool to be precise (this detail may matter to some people). The referee thought a goal had been disallowed by the video assistant referee who thought it had been allowed by the referee.
No, wait. The linesman thought a Liverpool player was offside who then went on to score. The video assistant referee didn’t know the linesman thought this and was under the impression by saying “check over” he was allowing the goal whereas the referee thought that when the video assistant referee said this he was allowing the game.
Are you following all this? Maybe you had to be there. In short, it was a muddle caused by misunderstanding and talking at cross purposes. Routine stuff and quite comic in its own way. But it was a football match so it was all TERRIBLY IMPORTANT, even a CATASTROPHE.
In truth, it was really a perfect example of the confusion that exists in much of our daily lives that we usually don’t acknowledge.
We’re seeing signs of a very muddled workforce; it seems that nobody quite knows what they want from the workplace at the moment” – Jacques Quinio, Right Management
At Personnel Today we have access to all manner of surveys, studies and polls whose results often appear contradictory. Rarely do these snapshots of workforce mood and employer thinking admit to any doubts. Everything is perfectly clear. No muddle whatsoever. When CEO’s say they expect everyone to be back in the office for five days a week, it’s taken as read. They are perfectly clear-sighted, not confused at all. Or are they?
Well, we finally have new research that admits the true picture: we are all in a muddle. Global talent consultancy Right Management has conducted research showing “there is much confusion and contradiction sitting at the heart of the British workplace”. I can imagine various Premier League officials nodding sagely and perhaps weeping a little as they read those words.
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The research found that UK workers and managers say that happiness and boredom are the most common emotions they experience at work, closely followed by … pride. Yes, pride.
There’s more: 70% of UK employees feel they work better as a team in-person, but only 1% claim face-to-face time with colleagues contributes to their wellbeing.
Jacques Quinio, leadership solutions director at Right Management, analysed the results then resignedly concluded the UK has “a muddled workforce”.
The Right Management research also finds that 91% of leaders believe they have earned their right to be in their position. It states this is “unsurprising perhaps. But if this is the case, why is imposter syndrome currently so rife amongst leaders?” Clearly they are in a muddle.
Leadership development muddle
Breaking it down further still, one in five company leaders believe that because they are self-made they do not need to take part in leadership programmes designed to develop and enhance their skills. Ah, but then, sizeable numbers of CEOs and directors said they would consider paying for their employees to join a leadership development programme with one in five admitting they would not be the leader they are today if they hadn’t been on leadership development programmes. Muddle.
Quinio adds: “We’re seeing signs of a very muddled workforce; it seems that nobody quite knows what they want from the workplace at the moment. Employees are telling us they’re happy and bored at the same time. Younger employees especially say they’re experiencing boredom in work but their generation has been a key catalyst for social media trends such as acting your wage, quiet-quitting and Bare-Minimum Mondays. The majority of leaders meanwhile tell us they’re confident they’ve earned their position at the boardroom table, and yet we know from other research including a YouGov survey last year, that one in five leaders admit to feeling like a fraud in the workplace.”
Perhaps we should embrace the muddle as part of the human condition. We seem to be capable of believing at least two contradictory things simultaneously. We’re all VAR officials at heart.
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