Work-life balance is a myth

This week on the Working It podcast, we talk about political and social divisions at work. How can business leaders minimise discord so that all types of people can work well together in a polarised political climate?

Since the murder of George Floyd two and a half years ago, we’ve seen high-profile efforts by organisations to improve diversity, equity and inclusion. What we haven’t seen is much evidence that money spent on unconscious bias training, for example, actually works. As far back as 2017, McKinsey, the consultancy, estimated that $8bn a year was spent on this sort of training. My guest on the podcast is Octavius Black, CEO of Mindgym, a consultancy that uses behavioural science insights to change corporate culture. Octavius points out that forcing staff to undertake unconscious bias training is likely to backfire.

It may be that less discussion of politics and more focus on disagreement about workplace issues — whether or not to launch a new product, for example — is the best way forward.

Next week we’ll kick off Working It’s first-ever mini-series, as Emma Jacobs investigates the UK’s four-day working week experiment. You’ll hear from bosses, workers and experts at companies taking part in an experiment which offers five days’ pay for four days’ work. Listen in — new episodes every day next week. (Isabel Berwick)

We’d love to hear from you for a future story: What do you consider the most important piece of workplace etiquette, post-pandemic? Is it keeping your camera on in meetings? Polite sign offs for all emails? Let us know at [email protected].

Top stories from the world of work:

1. Privacy at work and the rise of the ‘quiet space’: After two years of remote working, many white-collar workers are finding it harder to concentrate in open-plan offices. While the cubicle might not be coming back anytime soon, employers are rethinking office layouts and acoustics.

2. When your boss becomes your banker: Inevitably, employees bring their financial concerns into the workplace. And as financial concerns grow amid the cost of living crisis, more companies are finding ways to offer services such as loans or pay advances to their staff. What is the risk?

3. Best business books of 2022: FT senior business writer Andrew Hill selects his must-read titles of the year, including titles on the future of the workplace, corporate strategy, identifying talent and deep dives into General Electric and Tencent.

4. Tackling class prejudice in London’s financial sector: Just 36 per cent of senior leaders in London’s banks and other financial and professional services companies come from working class or lower socio-economic backgrounds. Square Mile’s governing body has asked the sector to raise the figure to 50 per cent by 2030.

5. Employee wellbeing requires a rich mix of measures: How to cultivate employee wellness is still not well understood. There’s no guarantee that what works well in one organisation will be effective in the next, but there are five main drivers that, when implemented together, can help fill in the gaps.

• Go deeper: Read the latest FT report to get the full picture on health at work — covering everything from long Covid, mental health and engagement to better management and office aesthetics.

Will hybrid working help companies survive a recession? Join FT columnist and writer of City Bulletin, Cat Rutter Pooley, in conversation with Iron Mountain’s CEO and Britvic’s CFO on December 9 at The Global Boardroom for a discussion on the future of work. Register for your free digital pass today.

Work-life ‘balance’ is a myth

If you work on consumer products, you run customer surveys. If you work in HR, you conduct employee engagement surveys. Getting concrete feedback is a non-negotiable before investing time and effort into deciding what most needs your attention. But for your own career — and life beyond it — how well do we truly know what other people expect of us? It’s a good idea to find out, especially if you’ve been feeling stretched thin.

A lot of us “feel like we’re on a hamster wheel, but we’ve never really asked people what’s important,” says Christie Hunter Arscott, a career adviser and author of Begin Boldly: How Women Can Reimagine Risk, Embrace Uncertainty, and Launch A Brilliant Career. Instead of trying to balance everything that you think is expected of you, start by challenging your assumptions. Achieving work-life balance, while aspirational, is an “an elusive idea”, Christie says.

Adapting the business practice of conducting stakeholder assessments for your own life and career is a concept pioneered by psychologist Stewart Friedman. Christie says this should be your first step in staving off burnout. One way to do this is to write your manager a weekly email about what you’ve been working on and what you have planned for the upcoming week. Ask them if anything is missing and if your work is aligned with their priorities. “This is a method of ensuring visibility, ensuring alignment on priorities, and you’re asking the question in a standard way,” says Christie.

The concept can also be applied to life at home. For example, chat with your kids about what kind of quality time they want to have with you. If their priority is that you’re available on Saturdays, but they don’t care as much about nightly family dinners, then you can let yourself off the hook about rushing home every day. “When we invest based on assumption, that’s what causes tension in our lives,” says Christie.

Getting this type of clarity might lead you to realise you’ve been worrying about too much, and that you can scale back to focus only on what actually matters to the important people in your life. But it’s also possible that you’ll feel overwhelmed by others’ expectations of you. If that’s the case, Christie suggests determining the “need to haves” and “nice to haves”. Ask your boss what they want you to focus on first. If you’re still feeling stretched too thin after clarifying priorities, “then the question is about resourcing and delegating,” says Christie.

Keep the conversation about priorities with your boss focused on work. “This isn’t the time to bring up your out-of-work commitments,” says Christie. Ideally, you’ve developed a relationship with your boss in which you’ve already shared with them what matters to you outside of work (and, if you’re a boss, encourage your employees to share that with you).

Once you know exactly what other people actually care about and expect from you, the next step is to properly allocate your time toward those priorities. Christie suggests thinking about your hours of the day as dollars (or pounds, or your currency of choice).

“By intentionally investing based on data, you’re getting the highest return on investment,” she says. This mindset is a shift away from the concept of work-life balance. “Instead of ‘how do I balance?’ the question becomes ‘How do I optimise?’” says Christie. (Sophia Smith)

The latest rounds of job cuts in tech could wound the sector for years to come, writes Brooke Masters — and they’ve also provided a case study in how not to fire people. FT readers share their own thoughts and battle wounds from dismissals past.

Reader Nixer65 recalls their torturous tenure at an investment bank during the great recession, and points out that sometimes being let go in the first wave can be a blessing in disguise:

I survived seven rounds of cuts in just under two years at UBS. I wish I had been let go in round one, when there were still jobs around and payouts were pretty good. People laid off in the seventh round hit a completely dry job market and the offers were considerably less generous. Those that survived had to keep the place together and in some ways got the rawest deal — no bonus, long hours and hanging on by a thread and nowhere to go.

Reader Doutora connects the dots between various aspects of modern business, reminding us that job cuts are just one part of a larger picture:

The cruelty of these types of lay-offs has huge knock-on effects, not just for those made redundant, but their families and communities — not to mention the guilt of “survivors” who remain. But the type of short-termism that Masters describes as “a natural consequence of decades of cyclical hiring and firing that sapped any sense of institutional loyalty” is due to more than just cyclical hiring and declining loyalty, but also many CEOs’ obsession with shareholder returns over a more holistic sense of institutional wellbeing. This is exacerbated by sharp increases in income inequality, oversized executive compensation, and the rising financial insecurity of younger employees. People increasingly view work not as a collective endeavour, but a tournament in which everything is framed as a zero-sum game. No wonder employee wellbeing has hit a nadir.

And, amid an uncertain market, reader Legal Tender focuses on what they can control:

Regular corporate restructuring and cost-cutting is part of life in many industries. There’s a bullet with your name on it somewhere out there — the question is ‘when’. The key is to be prepared.

Smart employees save a minimum six months expenses to survive lay-offs, network actively, are always in introductory conversations about new jobs and are brutally aware of their department’s strategic importance (or not) to the company. Most of all, be seen as likeable and productive internally. That may not spare one a redundancy, but that reputation makes finding a new job easier.

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.