In today’s "tight talent market" – forgive the quotations as you will see why, organisations have been focusing on strengthening their employee experience and corporate initiatives as ways to attract and retain talent. The problem is that there is no such thing as a tight talent market. Simply, what it comes down to is that empty gestures and grandiose ideologies and talk about ‘doing the right thing’ are simply not enough to motivate employees to work.
Since early 2020, all businesses have been required to make rapid changes and make unprecedented decisions. Business practices, habits and models have been recalibrated to accommodate changes in the workplace. Despite shifting focuses, organisations across the globe have suffered mass casualties as employees decide to ditch their workplaces in favour of roles that give their life more meaning. According to Workplace Intelligence, more than 15 million people have resigned from their roles in the past 12 months and many HR professionals expect to see turnover increase within their organisations in the coming months.
In this time of war, companies decidedly launched a counterattack by deploying initiatives to appeal to their employees. Yet, despite ‘valiant’ efforts, employees have realised their worth and there has been a huge shift in their mindset when it comes to their skills and what they are willing to put up with.
No longer afraid
Many employees are now no longer afraid of voicing issues that matter the most to them and are increasingly taking to social media to call out businesses and their leaders who fail to understand the actual real-world challenges they are faced with. The rise of the anti-work movement makes clear; there is no such thing as a shortage of talent. It is not a case of ‘no one wants to work anymore’ rather it is a case of ‘no one wants to pay workers what they are worth.’
On a higher level, there is a sense of delusion that sending emails on the benefits of mindfulness or offering a yoga class will simply alleviate employee grievances, reduce turnover and make employees more engaged. Throwing resources at the problems or jumping on the hype train without actually taking on board what issues employees are facing and taking concrete steps to address them will do little to alleviate attrition or improve employees’ experience.
Some tone-deaf employers shift the blame to their employees and blame their lack of engagement and stress on the fact that employees have simply not practised enough self-care, done enough mindfulness, not taken advantage of the ‘well-being webinars’ or practised yoga on the newly-distributed, company-endorsed yoga mat.
Preventive measures or extra responsibilities?
The problem with the push for self-care is that it often burdens employees with an additional source of stress as it demands that they take time away from the work they were doing or life responsibilities they had that might actually fix the problem. With constant changes in expectations, combined with several ongoing external crises including the cost of living, war and a still prevalent pandemic, encouraging employees to take time to practice self-care often feels like a set of extra responsibilities rather than a genuine effort to alleviate the problems employees are faced with.
Aside from that, some well-being initiatives might do more harm than good. For example, mental health sharing sessions that force employees to share more than necessary about their mental health on a regular basis creates sustained pressure on them to share their mental health status with team members. All it takes is for one person to jump in and over-share everything from what medication they are on to the most recent conversation they had with their therapist to create an environment that forces others to contribute well beyond their comfort zone.
Furthermore, organisations risk being overly intrusive into employees’ personal lives. Scheduling intimate one-on-one sessions might seem like a fantastic idea from both employee well-being and brand building perspective, yet there is no need for employers to know everything about an employee’s emotional, financial or spiritual well-being. Some things are simply best kept outside of the organisational orbit.
Without a doubt, mental health advocation and well-being need to be organisational priorities however, in tandem, there needs to be a careful balancing of how these initiatives are carried out and careful consideration from all perspectives on the implications of the initiatives.
Out of touch
Moreover, the push for well-being and performative activism is increasingly out of touch with the reality of many employees’ day to day life. Let’s take a single working parent for example. They may work a demanding front-line job that requires labour-intensive shifts with a constant need for unpaid overtime. When they get home after their extended workday, they are responsible for the care of a five-year-old child with disabilities. When are they supposed to find time to practice their self-care? On their commute? On their break? In the shower?
If you answered yes to the above questions, perhaps you should reconsider your management approach.
What employees feel most frustrated with this bloated sense of corporate self-serving activism is that employers are not focusing on the things that could actually make an improvement to employees’ lives and mental health. Paying an actually liveable wage, providing quality health insurance, ensuring workloads are reasonable, elevating annual leave packages and enabling access to childcare support are all ways to uniquely position the organisation and address employee issues.
Yet for some, it will remain easier (i.e. cheaper) to send out those emails or offer that new yoga mat or bubble bath. Continuing down that path in the face of fierce competition will prove to employees how nominally the business values them and only then will they experience how serious their turnover problem really is.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
