So let me ask you, is what you do at work worth taking years off your life? Research continues to indicate that long work hours do a lot more than leave us feeling burned out, they are actually leading to earlier deaths.
I do believe a lot of people are burned out, not just from work, but from everything else going on in the world, on top of work. Then they look at their workplace and ask a simple question, does this job make burnout better, or worse, and if it’s worse, what are my options for changing that.
Not continuing to work in that place, is one option that many are opting for.
Can we blame them?
AI is not without bias, and maybe the best thing we can do is know that going in, instead of assuming that technology would solve this problem.
I feel like I can just share the titles of these two articles and make my point. But I will add this one thing. As work moves to a more remote, work from anywhere, model, you have a choice on how to manage your people. You can define the work they need to do, explain how it will be measured and trust them get it done, or you can treat them like children.
Which one do you think will make for better engaged, mentally healthy, employees?
Do the calculation yourself. What do you ask employees to tolerate versus what they get from the job, and consider what you’ve asked them to put up with during the last year versus what they get from the job. The calculations have changed. As it turns out, those employees were watching you, and watching how much you valued their health and safety.
Consider the possibility that you didn’t show them what they wanted to see, and that’s why they’re not coming back, and why no one else wants to work there too.
Maybe they’ll come back to work when they have no other options, for a short time, but they’ll never be committed to you again. You’ve lost that, and in many cases, you deserved it.
Of course, the reality is, and everyone who has ever been passed over for recognition and promotion by someone who “looked” like they were getting a lot done when they really weren’t, know this, most managers who relied on “seeing” their reports while walking around were never really that good at identifying who is doing the best job.
But now, that people will continue to work all over the place, and using collaborative workspaces that have data available about who is doing what, and who is communicating with whom, it’s going to be all about the data. The tools are there. Will managers use them, and get better at managing talent?