In a feature published in The Washington Post yesterday (and posted by Boston.com), news of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ work on tracking productivity has businesses rightfully worried about their teams:

Employers across the country are worried that workers are getting less done – and there’s evidence they’re right to be spooked. In the first half of 2022, productivity – the measure of how much output in goods and services an employee can produce in an hour – plunged by the sharpest rate on record going back to 1947, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What’s incredibly interesting about this turn of events is that, just last year, these productivity figures sparked to their highest level in decades. The Post, in the August 2021 article, attributed these gains to better working conditions, enhanced access to remote and hybrid work models, and other factors. So…what changed?

A return to “normalcy,” even if it can be considered that (more like “semi-normalcy”?), is most likely a culprit after two-plus years of living in pandemic-led conditions. After all of the discussions in 2020 and 2021 (and into this year) regarding the permanent shifts in how we work, it is shocking to see figures like the ones the BLS revealed this week.

The one thing that we are missing here, apparently, is just how permanent the shifts in how we lead truly are. Were the transformations towards empathy, compassion, emotional wellbeing, and better working conditions just a mirage? Or were they for real?

Conscious leadership isn’t just a mindset; it’s a state of being that cascades into how our workforce is treated, how we value them, how we support them, and how we show appreciation. There’s an incredible gap today between the way business leaders are leading and the way they should lead, and that’s reflected in how we are more likely to hear about enterprises failing to provide sick leave, proper maternity or paternity leave, or dynamic support for emotional and physical wellbeing.

Leadership is often broken. And so are some of the ways we work.

Employee engagement is a real and powerful attribute of the modern-day enterprise. The concept at its core is so very, very simple: ensure your workers are engaged, and, in return, they will dedicated to the organization, which, of course…results in increased productivity. Unfortunately, however, we are not fully living in that world today. Worker burnout is all-too common in nearly every company. Emotional wellbeing is not being prioritized at the scale that it should be. Extended vacation and sick leave benefits only exist in a small percentage of organizations.

If a business puts more stock in a free company lunch than it does its overall workplace culture, it’s a serious problem. The issues with productivity, as found by the BLS, can be attributed to a seismic failure at the leadership level of businesses across the country. Does this mean that 100% of the blame falls at the feet of executive leaders? Well, no. Those employees and workers that have engaged in “quiet quitting” are certainly guilty of waning productivity due to taking their collective foot off the gas and producing the bare minimum.

However, there’s a reason for the vast majority of quiet quitting instances that does, indeed, link back to failures at the leadership level. Are leaders being unreasonable with productivity requests? Are there putting more and more pressure on already-stressed workers? Although not many organizations are the same size (or bigger) as Twitter is, the recent takeover by Elon Musk has reportedly resulted in the controversial billionaire asking engineers to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week to meet deadlines. Musk already created a firestorm during the process leading up to his ownership of the social media platform, and seems intent on bringing that attitude into its day-to-day operations.

Over the past two years, we’ve seen (and heard) high-profile CEOs and executives eschew remote work as “aberrations” and being wholly unsustainable. There’s been a major tug-of-war between workers and leaders over return-to-office plans. And, to top it all off, some leaders even believe that flexibility isn’t a foundation of their workplace culture.

There are certainly many workers out there that aren’t pulling their weight. However, there are many, many more workers that are burnt out, disengaged, and disconnected from their workplace’s culture and vision. This is a signal that the problem of waning productivity starts at the top, with business leadership needing even more transformation than it ever has before. Lost in all of this dialogue is the fact that workers are humans, and humans experience feelings, emotions, and desires that can be affected by toxic attributes of their roles.

While economists have no clear answers on why productivity may be tumbling, looking at the rollercoaster transformation of business leadership may be the first clue. It doesn’t matter if an employee works from home, works in a hybrid model, or is in the office full-time; having leaders that lead with empathy and consciousness is the linchpin to sparking real engagement…and avoiding dips in productivity.

The post Is Waning Productivity a Worker Problem…or a Leadership Problem? appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

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• The business implications of the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate, whilst expected to be effective in boosting lagging inoculation numbers across the United States, are already (as to be expected) creating plenty of questions for executives and enterprise leaders. Who’s on the hook for COVID testing? Will businesses offer more PTO for vaccine appointments and potential side effects in the days after injection? What are the OSHA implications of non-compliance in enterprises? How do businesses manage competing vaccine exemptions (i.e., multiple workers in the same unit)? There are so many potential issues here that are about to slip to the surface and it will be interesting to see how both businesses and states handle the weeks ahead, especially as more and more businesses begin to include vaccination status in job requests and job descriptions.
• The Gig Workers Collective has asked customers to delete the Instacart app from their devices in what could be the first of many similar moves for gig workers’ rights. The collective, representing a group of nearly 13,000 Instacart shoppers, is fighting for equitable treatment and compensation for Instacart workers. Nearly half a million contractors work for Instacart, a figure that is 2.5 times bigger than it was before the pandemic (and before on-demand food and grocery delivery became a necessity in the era of social distancing, lockdowns, and quarantines). Batch order payments and default tipping percentages are two of many demands from the collective, which had also pushed for better working conditions during the beginning of the pandemic (especially concerning PPE and paid time off). The group is also asking for occupational death benefits given the risks of working during a pandemic. As Instacart flirts with the idea of going public, groups like the GWC will fight even harder for equity, protection, and better compensation (and benefits) in the months ahead.
• “Worker burnout is not a mental illness” is a phrase that needs to be eliminated. Nearly every industry now faces worker burnout and fatigue, even without a pandemic backdrop. What the past 18 months have done, however, is transformed businesses in such a way that some sectors (healthcare, veterinary medicine, shift-based work in light industrial and manufacturing) experience workers clocking 50-hour (or longer!) work-weeks, with professionals in remote environments having trouble balancing an “always on” mentality with a laptop frequently within vicinity of wherever they are within their homes. Business leaders are not therapists, nor should they be the ones to diagnose mental health issues. However, worker burnout has become so prevalent that it’s time we reassess its validity as a true mental health issue and how exactly managers and other enterprise leaders can give their workers they support they need.
• Nearly 80% of businesses plan to transform their workplaces into more attractive destinations for candidates over the next year. New Future of Work Exchange research finds that the vast majority of enterprises are laser-focused on turning their offices into more alluring places to work. Given the personal, professional, and societal changes happening in the greater market, as well as the ongoing “Great Resignation” that started in the spring, businesses face a more expansive war for talent than they ever have before. While there is no cure-all to this transformation, enterprise leaders only have to truly listen to what candidates want to begin this process: flexible working environments, inclusive workplace cultures, clarity on career paths, opportunities to hone key skills, etc.

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