Could your business model be a threat to wellbeing?
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"Covid has moved the flexible working agenda on years. As we recover from lockdown there's lots we can do to keep the freedoms people have gained to set their own working patterns."
So said an anonymous government minister in The Times the other day. The article outlines how the government plans to strengthen employees' rights to work from home or to ask for different hours.
Great that the government has been paying attention, but I’d suggest the horse has already bolted on that one. As usual, it’s market economics (plus a year of enforced remote working) rather than policy that has driven the change.
In principle, of course, flexibility is a good thing for both businesses and employees. Much like the ongoing discussion about whether to have an office or not, though, I worry that we're basing what ‘flexible work’ looks like on the 'least bad option' of mid-pandemic life. I’d prefer we all showed a little more imagination since we have this unique opportunity to overhaul work completely.
As my guest on Take My Advice (I'm Not Using It), Christine Armstrong, said on the podcast last week:
"The place to start is not with flexible work… it's with your entire workforce and how you put in boundaries between their life and their work. Most companies have avoided doing this because they think it's in their interest for them to work as many hours as possible."
There's rightly been much more discussion in recent months of 'boundaries' – it must be up there with 'hybrid' in the buzzword bingo charts, at least in terms of the conversations I'm having with people who work at organisations of all shapes and sizes. There's a section on boundaries in the CIPD's recent report, too, for example.
As Christine alluded to, though, the truth is that getting to grips with establishing boundaries between life and work is one of the easier challenges related to flexible/remote/hybrid work and life. While you can't stop people from spending their spare time immersing themselves in acquiring new knowledge and skills, it's straightforward to set clear expectations about working hours with better communication, management and, in some cases, smarter use of technology.
The more significant challenge comes when an organisation is geared towards an 'always available' culture and even more so when its whole business model relies on billable hours and days.
Most people understand that we're in an experimental phase. We need to be comfortable testing new ways of working at an individual, team and organisational level.
The FT reported last week that professional services firms have a solution to the potential problems created by overwork and 'blurred boundaries' – perks and golden handcuffs. Something tells me that the bean-counters have done the sums and worked out that although providing a new Peloton bike will set you back a few grand a year, it's a whole lot cheaper and easier than spending some time rethinking job design and team workflow.
Now, don't get me wrong, I've become obsessed with my Peloton bike over the past six months, and it definitely helped me through the dark days of the Winter 2021 lockdown. I'm under no illusion, however, that it's the magic bullet when it comes to alleviating stress and improving productivity.
My question is whether 'billability' being critical to your business model incentivises over-work?
Are these businesses inherently disadvantaged in creating an environment that promotes wellbeing?
Well, not necessarily - there are obviously plenty of professional services firms who are at least attempting to make the work of their employees better.
As you'll know from previous newsletters and my conversations with Alex Soojung Kim Pang, author of Shorter, I'm an advocate of the general principle of working less in pursuit of achieving more – both in terms of overall productivity but more importantly, the quality of the work. I, therefore, follow experimentation around the shorter working week very closely and was intrigued by how YLAW, a law firm in Vancouver, Canada, has approached the reduction to the four day week over the past month.
Something positive that immediately stands out is the transparency with which they've approached the process, making it very clear that it's grounded in improving employee wellbeing and improving the level of service for clients. The latter point is crucial here since concerns, over how clients might react to a team's availability is the primary reason most companies reject the idea.
In the case of YLAW, it's had some immediate benefits, including feedback from staff such as:
"Having the one day off in the middle of the week allows for a much needed recharge which allows for me to focus and have a lot more energy on the days I am working."
"I have more energy – emotional, mental and physical – working 1 day less in the middle of the week. I am able to spend more time with my children. I am able to accomplish things that I otherwise don't have time to do which has been life-giving."
While the business anticipated seeing a reduction in billings of 5%, contrarily, they've seen it increase by 13%. The reason in their case is that the staff feel able to work for longer on the four remaining days, which means billable hours have increased. Almost 100% of the team have given the 4-day week five stars out of five, and 80% of them said there's nothing they don't like about it. If you consider the two objectives I mentioned above, while it's early days for YLAW, the experiment appears to be a success so far.
However, I wonder whether the longer working days result in an improvement in quality. Indeed, those at YLAW with concerns focus on the requirement to perform the same total number of hours in fewer days.
So, whilst I'd certainly encourage any business to explore the effect of reducing the number of working days, does this goes far enough?
Is a time-based approach to work fundamentally flawed, whether in the form of employment contracts or professional services firms that bill by the hour or day?
Do projects with clear outcomes, for example, deliver more value and optimise expertise and efficiency?
In the case of subscription or membership businesses, does the need to deliver a consistently positive experience ensure that the emphasis is always on creating value, not on the amount of time worked?
All of which brings us back to the problem that comes up frequently in my conversations on how to redesign work – if you're don't measure time, what should you measure?
There are no shortcuts - you have to start by really understanding the problem your business solves for clients and the part each person plays.
Hybrid working requires you to rethink what aspects of an individuals’ job and team workflow are best achieved either at home or in the office. Likewise, you have to take a systematic approach to make flexible work a success – what I call 'structured flexibility'.
Read how the JOINT framework can help with this in my articles from January.
I'd also love to hear from you about whether you've encountered any businesses that are shaking up traditional business models and what that means for improved work/lives.
As ever with innovation, you don't need to turn things upside down straight away. A steady, incremental approach to experimentation is often most effective, and that's true of introducing new modes of working. The positive news is that we've already started. The past year has forced us to begin the process. The priority now is to be intentional in the way we continue to test.
Have a good week,
Ollie
Any Other Business:
These first few are behind paywalls, but if you have free articles to read or a subscription, check them out.
More on hybrid working, this time from Andrew Hill in the FT - The way to avoid turning staff into lab rats in a hybrid work experiment: Carrying out a small series of trials and assessing their impact on workers is the best way forward.
According to The Economist, love them or hate them, virtual meetings are here to stay.
This article on the ‘false promise of quick-fix psychology’ in the Wall Street Journal is fascinating. Jesse Singal writes how power posing, grit and other trendy concepts are scientifically unproven but have become enormously popular by offering simple solutions to deeply rooted social problems.
You know I like a good book recommendation, so here’s a list from someone who’s seemingly ubiquitous at the moment (he has a new book out), Adam Grant.
For a little bit about NFTs and more about Work-From-Anywhere, take a listen to this Danny in the Valley podcast. Danny Fortson has Alchemy’s co-founder Nikil Viswanathan on to talk about the former, and HBS professor Raj Choudhury to talk about the latter (skip forward to 42 minutes for this bit).
And finally, I most definitely share Basecamp CEO Jason Fried’s views on employee surveillance. Worrying that this trend seems to be accelerating. F*ck that.