For years, leadership teams have been convinced that creating fun, collegiate, open plan cultures was the key to employee satisfaction and therefore productivity. Most days I visit offices with sport/music/news playing in the background, with endless distractions and open plan layouts where people constantly interrupt each other. They chat but don’t talk. Have you ever received a message from the person opposite you asking if you have received the email they sent you five minutes before?
Most workplaces have some quieter break-out areas or pods for doing deep work. People tell me that they use them no more than once or twice a week and when they do they feel guilty about it. It feels indulgent. Just think about that. We are ‘knowledge workers’: paid to think, to use our brains, but that’s become the exception rather than the norm. It’s a treat to think.
I’m not saying that we should go back to the hierarchical days of the bull-pen and corner office but the way we work now isn’t working. We have become all yang (noise, passion, drive, aggression) and no yin (space to grow, be calm, restore). Now wonder UK plc struggles with low productivity, long hours, low engagement scores and high rates of burnout.
The benefit employees value most is flexibility: the ability to choose what work to do and when to do it, and to have reasonable control of their working hours and location.
The benefits that come with open plan ‘culture’, like smoothies, table-tennis, beers, music, workplace yoga are all just hygiene factors. Building a community at work is important but it’s not a substitute for strong leadership. We’ve got the ‘play hard’ bit cracked, but getting ‘work hard’ done has become a problem. If you don’t believe me, ask people how easy it is to achieve their daily priorities.
I’m not asking you to nail up partitions but there are interventions that leadership can take to create space so that the workplace is easier to actually work in. We come to work to make incremental progress towards our goals. Period. Provide that and you have motivated, engaged, happy, healthy, productive people. The fundamental building blocks are:
- A strategy that people buy into
- Clear job descriptions so they know their contribution to the strategy
- Transparent performance measures – am I doing a great job?
- Fair remuneration
- Adequate resources
- Reasonable deadlines
- Skills development, particularly training on new systems
- Shared, genuine values
- Efficient systems and processes – the simpler the better
- Psychological safety – a manager that has your back
- Space to think without interruption.
Tick those off, then get out of people’s way to let them do their best work, go home at a reasonable time and return fresh the next day.
Kombucha doesn’t create performance. Clarity does.
If you want to fix Crazy Busyness in your organisation and get some Focused Busyness instead, then please call + 44 7968 424650 or email me on zena@zenaeverett.com. I coach and run team events and off-sites, from 15 people to 500 +.