It’s fair to say that a lot of people are working more hours than they used to. The ubiquitous, always-on connectivity of mobile devices and the sheer pace of change in the workplace means more and more employees are facing burn out as the boundary between work life and home-life evaporates. However, there is a real conundrum here as in many countries levels of workplace productivity are actually falling despite more hours being worked
My guest this week is Joyce Maroney Executive Director of the Kronos Workforce Institute. Kronos has recently done some research into these issues across 8 countries, and the results seem to suggest that they may be some radical solutions to the problems.
In the interview we discuss:
• The conundrum of longer hours and reduced productivity
• What are the key interruptions that effect productively
• How can employers improve the situation
• Is a four day week possible and/or practical?
• The role of leadership
• The logistics of offering unlimited holidays
• Do attitudes vary from country to country?
Joyce also offers her advice to employers on how they can use these insights to recruit and retain the talent they need.
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
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Matt Alder [00:01:21]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 160 of the Recruiting Future podcast. It’s fair to say that a lot of people are working more hours than they used to. The ubiquitous always on connectivity of mobile devices and the sheer pace of change in the workplace means more and more employees are facing burnout as the boundary between work life and home life evaporates. However, there is a real conundrum here. As in many countries, levels of workplace productivity are actually falling despite more hours being worked. My guest this week is Joyce Maroney, Executive Director of the Kronos Workforce Institute. Kronos have recently done some research into this issue and the results seem to suggest that there may be some radical solutions to the problem. Keep listening to find out more and to hear about the potential opportunities here for competitive advantage in employer branding and talent acquisition. Hi Joyce, and welcome to the podcast.
Joyce Maroney [00:02:28]:
Well, thank you so much, Matt, for having me.
Matt Alder [00:02:31]:
My absolute pleasure.
Matt Alder [00:02:32]:
Could you introduce yourself to everyone and.
Matt Alder [00:02:35]:
Tell us what you do?
Joyce Maroney [00:02:36]:
I am Joyce Maroney. I’m the Executive Director of the Workforce Institute at Kronos. The Institute is a think tank that we founded in 2007 to examine workplace issues and especially those that involve how employers can do well while also doing good things for their employees. We try to focus, or we try to add focus on hourly workers because we think that’s sort of an underserved domain when it comes to thought leadership around workplace issues. And we get a lot of our insight from surveys like the one we’ll be talking about today. But I’m also fortunate to have a board of advisors of Several dozen thought leaders, leaders around the world who are experts in the general domain of workplace issues.
Matt Alder [00:03:30]:
Now, you mentioned the surveys and the great research that you guys do. The one we’re going to talk about today is some research you did into a topic that I’m seeing sort of being discussed more and more out in the world, which is the, the idea of people working shorter weeks. Could you tell us a bit about the research and some of the things that you found?
Joyce Maroney [00:03:56]:
Ye. Yeah, absolutely. So we did research this summer, July and August of this summer in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Mexico, the UK and the US in which we were asking workers about their attitudes towards their jobs and towards their managers. And so we released a first piece of this research around September, wherein we talked specifically about how people feel about their workday, the length of their workday, how long it takes them to do their jobs, et cetera. And we found some interesting findings. Some of them maybe even seem a bit contradictory. But we found that overall, about 75% of the people we surveyed say that they have enough time in their workday to finish their work. But even though that’s true, nearly two in five work more than 40 hours each week. And 71% say that work can interfere with their personal lives. So there’s a little bit of a conundrum there. If they have enough time to do their work, then why are they feeling overworked? But that was probably one of the biggest headlines we saw. And in terms of that finding, about how long would it take me to do my job if I weren’t interrupted during the day? About 45% of our respondents said that if they were not interrupted during their workday, they could get their job done in five hours or less. So overall, these findings point to something going on that suggests that people could work fewer hours than they do or spend fewer hours than they do at work. Yet we still have a lot of people feeling very overworked or even burned out.
Matt Alder [00:05:59]:
I mean, that’s, that’s really interesting because, you know, I think the headlines that we see in many countries around the world are all about people working longer hours and their work life and their personal life kind of, you know, blending together. People sort of always being, always being on the clock, as it were. What are some of the reasons behind those conundrums that you found? You know, what type of interruptions are people facing? Why are we all working longer hours if we only actually have to work five hours a day?
Joyce Maroney [00:06:35]:
Well, because, of course, in just about any job, one doesn’t have the luxury of focusing solely on the tasks that you are responsible for. So we did ask folks in this survey, what was it that gets in the way of them getting their job done and what is chewing up these extra cycles. So what we found was that even though 71% of the workers in our survey, so this is in the aggregate across the globe, said they accomplished what they wanted to most days, almost 80% say they suffer from some level of burnout at work. So burnout being defined as feeling disengaged, feeling fatigued or even exhausted, losing interest in the work, in the colleagues, et cetera. So a great many people are saying I’m having these feelings that I’m on the road to burnout. The number one reason cited for burnout was an unreasonable workload. So people may be getting that work done, but that doesn’t mean they don’t feel it’s an unreasonable load. Very close to unreasonable. Workload was just not enough time in the day to get the work done. 24% said a lack of skilled coworkers. So it’s not about me, it’s about my co workers. And then another 24% said a toxic team or workplace culture. So I think that’s not new news. I mean, there’s a lot being written now about workplace culture and companies competing to be great places to work. The actual experience of being in that workplace every day and not feeling rewarded, recognized, collaborative with my co workers, sort of the flip side of a toxic culture. We’re hearing a lot about that through other research, but it certainly came up in this research as well. And then the final reason for people cited for burnout, and I have seen this in other research we’ve done as well as research done by others, was unfair compensation. So you might say, well, what does that have to do with being burned out? And I think the compensation piece goes to people really wanting to feel recognized at work. And compensation is a pretty tangible way that employers recognize people.
Matt Alder [00:09:12]:
So obviously one of the things that’s coming across there is really kind of around the level of productivity that people are achieving. So, you know, they’re spending longer in work, but actually, you know, not being as productive on their, on their, on their core tasks as they should be. What can employers do to improve the situation? Because I know that, you know, a few employers around the world have taken, you know, quite a drastic step of actually experimenting with having kind of a very, very specific four day week for people to work with. Is that the answer to the question, should more employers be doing that or what other ways are there that, you know, employers could be getting the most out of their employees but at the same time, you know, not making them, you know, work every, every available hour in the day?
Joyce Maroney [00:10:14]:
Well, I think that there’s, there’s a big, it depends factor when you talk about, you know, formalizing a shorter workweek. So there, there certainly are, you know, there’s stories out there. There’s one that got a lot of coverage this summer from New Zealand. You know, we know about the 35 to 35 hour work week in France, even though in our study French people still said they’d like to work fewer hours. So I think it’s a blunt instrument to say, could we just impose a four day work week across the board? We, we know that organizations are having, I mean, the good news is in a lot of developed countries right now, we’ve got pretty low unemployment. I mean, in the US our unemployment has not been lower since the 1960s. So, you know, organizations are really competing hard to get enough people to get the work done that they need to. So they might be very challenged to then turn around and say, well, the good news is you’re only going to have a four day work week. And there are a lot of jobs. In fact, the majority of jobs in the world require presence to do the job. So if you’re a firefighter or you’re a nurse, or you’re a retail store clerk, you have to be there to get the work done. And that may or may not fit into a four day work week. However, what employers can do, there’s several different strategies I think employers of any size can exercise. And that is first and foremost making sure that they are assessing whether or not the objectives they’re setting for employees are achievable. So, you know, as I mentioned before, a lot of our folks in this survey said, well, you know, my workload is just unreasonable. So making sure that they’re frequently revisiting what is it that we’re asking people to achieve here and are these goals actually achievable? Employers can also remove obstacles that get in the way of people being productive while they’re at work. So, you know, whether that’s investing in capital, improvements in, in newer, newer equipment, newer technology that help people be productive at work. You know, that’s something that, you know, organizations can choose to invest in or not, making sure that you are checking in in a rigorous way with employee attitudes within your workplace. So we mentioned the toxic workplace before as a reason that a quarter of our respondees cited for or as something that gets in the way of their productivity. So making sure that you are measuring employee sentiment on a regular basis and not just measuring it, but really digging into the results to figure out what are the things that are getting in the way of people feeling productive and feeling great about working for your organization. I’ll tell you a specific example. At Kronos, where I work, we have been on a many years long path to really rigorously articulate and improve our culture. And as a result we have won a lot of awards as a great place to work organization. And I think a lot of people would love to have those awards, but maybe don’t really put the hard work into digging in and saying. Sometimes when you ask employees how things are going, you’re not going to hear the answers you’d like to hear. And you’re going to hear answers that are going to require a lot of hard work to address one. Or I’m going to say a couple of changes that we’ve made that I think that other organizations could emulate. First and foremost was putting a big investment into supporting and improving the performance of our people managers. You know, it’s a very old chestnut to say that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Well, they leave companies too. But the impact that an individual manager has on an employee is huge. That’s your touch point to understand what your objectives are, how well you’re performing, maybe the trickle down channel through which you hear about what’s going on at the company. So we’ve not only invested in a lot of management development, but we also have something we call the Manager Effectiveness Index, where twice a year when we are surveying our employees about their experience at Kronos, several of those questions are rolled up into what we call an MEI Score Manager Effectiveness Index. And managers who are underperforming on that index are coached and supported to improve their performance as people managers. And if they can’t improve their performance sufficiently, they will be encouraged to seek positions that do not require them to manage people. And in some cases people will choose to leave the company. But we feel that strongly that everybody deserves a great manager. But if the company isn’t defining what does it mean to be a great manager and holding people accountable for being a great manager, then it’s an empty promise to just wave your hands around and say everybody deserves a great manager. Another thing we’ve done. Now bear in mind that ours is pretty much a white collar environment where people can do their work remotely. This is not true for everybody, but we introduced unlimited time off a couple of years ago, which means that you still need to come to work and get your job done, but it means that we’re not going to be counting noses. If you leave 3 o’clock every Thursday because you coach your kid’s soccer team, that’s fine based on you’ve had a conversation with your manager, you’re clear on your objectives and you are making sure that you can still meet your objectives. But we no longer have an arbitrary limit on how much paid time off an employee can take in a year. That limit for any given employee is established by collaboration between the employee and their manager to ensure that the job can still get done while the employee is getting the flexibility that they need. A lot of people look at that and go, oh, my God, how could you possibly do that? Like, are there just tumbleweeds blowing down the halls? Because everybody’s off all the time. And interestingly enough, the answer is no. Before we implemented the unlimited time off, people were not taking their full complement of paid time off, which at that time was essentially three weeks a year of vacation in additional to the federal holidays. Since we implemented this a couple of years ago, people are taking on average, two more days off per year than they were in the past. So although we have, I should have made clear, although we have unlimited paid time off, we do still ask people to track, to report that time off so that we have the metrics to know what’s going on. So in any case, people are taking, on average, about two more days off a year than they were before and still on average, less than three weeks a year. So, you know, sometimes I think a lot of this boils down to recognizing that most people come to work wanting to do a great job. And if you treat them like grownups and treat them with trust and respect and do your best to remove obstacles in their path, you’re going to build a better employee experience and you’re going to do better as an organization.
Matt Alder [00:18:24]:
You mentioned. Yeah, you obviously mentioned a number of different countries that you’d surveyed and the set working week in France and the average sort of time off that people get in the US Were there any interesting regional differences you found in the survey, or is this kind of a global phenomena where everyone is experiencing the same thing?
Joyce Maroney [00:18:55]:
Yes. So one thing that was different in the UK was we asked a question about. We asked everybody if their pay remained constant, if their pay remained the same, how many days a week would they still choose to come to work? The average across the worldwide sample, we did was 72% of employees would take the four day work week. It was 83% in the UK. So I think maybe the UK has a somewhat stronger pining for the shorter work week. We also saw that full time employees in the UK were among the most likely to feel they don’t have enough time in the day to get the job done. And this is interesting, not so much from this research, but we did some research in Europe about a year ago and looking at productivity differences between France, the UK and Germany and there’s, I know there’s been, I’m not as close to this news because I live in the US but I know there’s been a lot of concerns in the UK about productivity metrics falling and, you know, what could be done about it. I think it generally is also true in the UK that there perhaps has not been as much capital investment, so investment in tools, in systems that can help improve productivity. So, you know, I think that’s something to continue to look at. I know, I mean I think your, your government is all over this all already because you know, given the, the falling productivity rates in the uk, that has something to do, has a lot to do. I would argue with how engaged people feel when they’re on the job. People in the UK Again in this older research that we did, if I can find specific reference here, but we did find that folks in the UK were, I think, spending more time outside of work, doing work. Now that has something to do with the ubiquity of mobile devices, of people checking, doing things like checking email outside of work. But I think people, individuals also have to look at their own behavior at work when it comes to those same mobile devices. So you know, most people now are carrying the Internet in their pocket. And we found in this most current research, but we have found in prior research as well, people are spending 8, 10% of their workday on social media. So you know, if you’re spending an hour a day checking Facebook, texting with your friends, that kind of thing, you know, that’s also going to, you know, that’s going to hit your productivity, but it may also push you to end up doing, you know, the work that you didn’t get done during the day on your personal time, after hours.
Matt Alder [00:22:18]:
So final question, how you know. So based on the global insights you have from this survey, what would your advice be to employers in terms of sort of using these insights to help them sort of recruit and retain the talent they need for their businesses?
Joyce Maroney [00:22:39]:
I mean in a tight job market, I would say, you know, money, money is not enough. Money is table stakes when it comes to encouraging people to leave where they are and come work for you. And, you know, people who are strong performers where they are are, you know, likely going to be inclined to stay there. If they feel like they’re recognized, they’re rewarded, their efforts are appreciated. So I, I think that creating a culture where people want to stay can be extremely powerful. And culture has a lot of drivers in it. It’s giving people adequate tools to do their jobs. It’s holding people accountable for the way that they treat each other. And it’s really taking very seriously issues like flexibility. In our case, at Kronos, we have this unlimited time off that has a lot to do with giving people the flexibility to have a life outside of work. I mentioned going to the kids soccer game before, but people have childcare issues, they have elder care issues. They have, you know, a need to go and take care of a sick relative for a couple of weeks. So, you know, that’s something that may be a little easier in an environment where work can be done remotely. But even in jobs, and again, the majority of jobs in the world where people are doing shift work and have to show up to do their job, engaging people in conversations about what shifts are going to work best for them, which hours, what are the days that they really can’t work, paying attention to scheduling shifts too close together so that people end up fatigued or burned out. These are all the kind of things that when you really get to the root of the recommendation, it’s about acknowledging that people have a life outside of working for your company and the extent to which you offer them the flexibility to be successful in their personal life as well as in their work life is going to create a much more. A much better employee experience and more loyal employees.
Matt Alder [00:25:02]:
So where can people find more details on this research? If they want to delve into the topic a little bit deeper?
Joyce Maroney [00:25:09]:
Why, they can visit us on the web@forceforceinstitute.org and you will find there is a separate research tab where you can find links to these studies and the more detailed data.
Matt Alder [00:25:23]:
Joyce, thank you very much for talking to me.
Joyce Maroney [00:25:25]:
You are very welcome. Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Matt Alder [00:25:29]:
My thanks to Joyce Maroney. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts or via your podcasting app of choice. The show also has its own dedicated app which you can find by searching for Recruiting future in your App Store.
Matt Alder [00:25:44]:
If you’re a Spotify user, you can.
Matt Alder [00:25:46]:
Also find the show there. You can find all the past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com on that site, you can subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about working with me.
Matt Alder [00:25:58]:
Thanks very much for listening.
Matt Alder [00:26:00]:
I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
