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The new employee deal - post Covid 19 and beyond

As businesses and individuals start looking ahead to what the future may hold for them, we wanted to explore what this means for the employee deal and how we can capture some of the positives from this crisis to make sense of the way we work in the future.

Through the session, we shared some thinking with you from ourselves, from our friends Rich and Andy from RAW brothers and Karen Ward, a highly experienced practitioner and author who is currently Transition Director for People Services at the Open University and also a valued part of the Art of Work community. We also heard from you about your experiences and views about this important topic.

In particular, we focussed on the following:

  • What are the forces at play during this challenging time and what impact are they having?
  • What has happened to the psychological contract during this time of extreme change and what might we do to forge a new way of working?
  • How and where will we be working in the future and what does this mean for the workplaces of the future?

We also shared our new Go Human initiative – a social enterprise designed to help support organisations to bring more humanity back to the workplaces. More on this later!

We set the scene by recognising that, although we were all in the same ‘storm’ we were not all in the same boat. That while we explore this topic we need to be aware of the very different circumstances facing those in our working population right now; from those who’ve been furloughed or made redundant through to those working harder than they’ve ever done, those who’ve experienced the trauma of loss during this time and those who’ve found it rejuvenating, through to the different impacts the sudden change to homeworking has had.

With this in mind, the RAW Brothers invited you to explore the four forces of change that they identified as having the most impact on the employee deal right now. Just as there are four forces in flight we believe there are four force in the employee deal and these forces are at work continually. They are – flexibility, profitability, visibility and believability. These forces are active in conscious and subconscious interactions between employers and employees. The four forces are the push and pull between things like employers wanting employees in the office and employees not wanting to lose the freedom they may have found in lock-down. The tension between reducing cost and treating people well or trusting people to work well away from the office. Much of this revolves around the force of do I really believe in what I am doing and how can organisations inspire their teams in this new and challenging era.

The discussions covered topics that included;

  • How the sense of purpose in some organisations has been lost as a result of the drive for productivity
  • The impact of home working (both positive and negative) and how that may translate into a more flexible work mix in the future
  • The impact of working ‘at a distance’ and the need to make ourselves and our contributions more visible
  • The pressure to work longer and harder (either driven by organisations or by individuals wanting to ‘prove their worth’) which can lead to ‘toxic productivity’
  • The rise in importance of wellbeing as uncertainty about our personal safety and job security is on the rise
  • The splits occurring in some organisations between those working, those furlough and those at risk of redundancy
  • The concern about how, and in what way, we return to our offices and the need for trust on both sides

We moved on to hear from Karen who gave a fascinating insight into the model used by some organisations to look at physical locations in terms of the function they serve in order to find a new more flexible way of working. She talked about how the ‘hub, club, home and roam’ approach could be used post-COVID to help create workplaces that support social as well as work-based activities, and the idea of organisations collaborating to create shared workspaces to enable employees to work from a wider range of locations as needed.

We then discussed the psychological contract, which, when balanced, with agreed and transparent expectations on both sides, can be a powerful force binding us together and creating something mutually beneficial. But in times of change and crisis, we often discover how fragile it is. We explored how Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs suddenly has more resonance again, as the impact of the pandemic has meant that the basic needs for safety and a basic income are, for many, suddenly in jeopardy. This impacts on how we view our psychological contract and where we need to pay attention.

To see what happens in times of change, we need to look at the psychological contract in more detail. It’s not simply an exchange between an organisation and an individual. It’s based on a complex set of relationships and expectations at different levels in the organisation. And in times of change, this structure can be hugely impacted in a number of ways;

  • At the individual level, we can feel our identity and values can feel compromised – maybe as a result of having been furloughed or made redundant
  • At a hierarchical level, the trust between manager and employee can be damaged – for example, the shift to virtual working has impacted the mutual trust demanded of both managers and individuals
  • At group level, the breach can happen if we perceive we are treated unfairly in comparison to our peers – and this sense of parity and fairness becomes hugely sensitised in times of crisis
  • And at organisation level, if something changes in our mutual expectations that can damage the relationship or even become a ‘deal breaker’. In the current climate, Maslow’s basic needs can mean irrevocable damage to the contract, if we don’t trust (for example) that the organisation will provide us with a safe environment to work in.

Finally we shared our thoughts about what we believe this means for organisations and individuals as we emerge from the crisis and start the long haul to some kind of new way of working. Firstly, we believe that the existing contract is under threat for many individuals and organisations post-COVID. The external drivers that Rich and Andy talked about are part of the picture, as well as just the significant changes that have happened to how and where we work as experienced during lockdown. We also believe that breaches that aren’t attended to will have long term consequences for us all – the damage that could be caused by perceived breaches of trust and a breakdown in working relationships could be significant so we ignore it at our peril. We believe that universal basic needs must be addressed first – and this is where the trust can start to be developed. Only then can we harness this unique opportunity to create new deals that are more nurturing and fulfilling . And we can heal many of the rifts by focussing on the whole person, the ‘human’.

A second opportunity to discuss this in groups provided some thought provoking and fascinating discussions about the psychological contracts in times of change. This included reflections on;

  • The long-term psychological effects of the pandemic and how we equip line managers to have the ‘whole person’ conversations
  • How the different factors at play for individuals outside as well as within the workplace will impact on how they see the ‘deal’
  • The opportunity leaders and HR now have to create a different and improved new deal for employees
  • How to manage building the new deal in light of potentially difficult and unpleasant decisions to be made and having to manage the relationships remotely
  • How the landscape or risk has changed, possibly forever, and that this could affect employee/employer decision making
  • The importance of creating psychological safety to enable the right conversations to take place
  • The need for a shift in management attitude to new ways of working
  • How we encourage employees to feel able to speak up about breaches in the psychological contract when there’s anxiety about losing jobs or being penalised.

We concluded our session by launching our new initiative – Go Human – a social enterprise which is a collaboration between The Art of Work and RAW brothers. Our new venture aims to capture all the positive experiences and potential from this unique global experience and use it to create more human and humane workplaces. We’d like to invite you to be part of this from the start by taking part in our survey and sharing your stories and experiences with us. Here’s the link to find out more and complete the survey: www.go-human.co.uk

We hope this forum provided you with lots of food for thought and some new perspectives. We will be continuing to develop our thinking on this and will keep you informed of future events and, of course, our progress with Go Human.