Malusi Ndlovu 00:04
Welcome to Big Business Insights, the Old Mutual Corporate podcast where we discuss issues that concern all businesses, from startups to established corporate enterprises. Each episode focuses on one topic to bring you insights and answers to help you make the best informed decisions for your business, your employees, and yourself.
Malusi Ndlovu 00:28
I'm Malusi Ndlovu, and in today's episode, I'm going to be talking about something that has been worrying the HR fraternity for well over a year: the great resignation. My guest is Dr. Roze Phillips. Dr. Roze is well known as a workplace expert, a leadership coach. And what excites me is that she is a futurist. Hi, Dr. Roze.
Roze Phillips 00:49
Hello, Malusi, honoured to be here.
Malusi Ndlovu 00:51
Great to have you. Please tell us, what is a futurist? And how does a futurist's work relate to the world of work?
Roze Phillips 00:59
So, the first thing I must say is that a futurist is not a crystal ball gazer.
Malusi Ndlovu 01:05
Okay, that's clear.
Roze Phillips 01:06
Yes, please, I don't live in a caravan. I cannot predict the future. But what I like to believe and that's what all futurists believe, is that we can create the future. In fact, the best way to predict the future is to create the future. And the notion of a futurist is somebody who looks at the future, not as one thing, but as alternative futures, that you can create together with the right people in the room, such that you can come up with a preferred long-term future that is environmentally sustainable, socially sustainable, is sustainable for the organisation, and is a future that everybody wants, so it is inclusive. So, that is the work of a futurist.
Malusi Ndlovu 01:51
Wow, it sounds like such a timely conversation that we're having, then, when we’re talking about the great resignation. This term first cropped up in May of 2021. So, it's not a very old term. Were you surprised when it cropped up? And how has it affected companies in? Is it like Covid? Is it something that is going to remain with us for a while? Or is it something that is yet to stay for longer?
Roze Phillips 02:22
I think the only thing that Covid really has done is given it a term called the great resignation. I think the great resignation is something that has been with us for a long time, it just hasn't been called the great resignation. Many employees have really worried about feeling engaged inside an organisation. And we in the HR fraternity, we talk about engagement scores, right. How engaged are your employees? And there was a recent study that was done by a management consulting company that says that your top employees actually contribute significantly more than your lower performing employees in terms of company contribution, something in the order of 800% more. So, you can understand why as an HR professional, you'd be focusing on employee engagement. The challenge is that employee engagement is what an employee gives you. It's your gift, it's a gift to you, my engagement is a gift to you. You can't extract my engagement, what you can do is provide experience. And on average, over many, many years, employees that get the best experience, are giving you the best engagement, it is on average, something between 20 to 25% of your employee group. The rest of your employees are disengaged. We do employee engagement scores, etc. So, we know this. What's happening now is those that are disengaged are just no longer prepared to just stay there. Of course, there are the ones that do stay, right, you've heard of the term, quiet quitting. Those are the ones that are staying. But the point is that engagement is going down, has been going down, and continues to go down. And what Covid has just done is created a scenario where people say enough is enough.
Malusi Ndlovu 04:16
Are organisations listening? And touch on quiet quitting as well, which you've brought up. And I think it's such an important thing for us to grapple with now in the time of low engagement.
Roze Phillips 04:28
I think that organisations are panicking. I'm not sure entirely then that means that they are listening. So, if I think for example, about two things. Number one, let's think about how we are dealing with remote work. So, we're thinking that to deal with the great resignation, maybe what we need to do is focus on culture. Most CEOs, the thing that worries them the most, keeps them awake at night, is really employee engagement and culture. But the response to the culture issue is to say, okay, let's create more certainty for our employees. Let's be very clear, everybody must come back into the office, that provides a level of certainty. So yes, I am suggesting that we are panicking because we are coming up with solutions to the great resignation. Maybe people are feeling disconnected, let's bring them back into the office, they will feel more connected. But in fact, the solution is making the problem worse, because what employees are looking for, or have come to recognise as important in their lives, because they've done that over the past two years, because Covid has been with us for two years, right. So, we've created new norms, new rituals. Going back to the office is actually a massive change journey for employees. So, the response that our employers are providing, the response that we are providing as HR professionals, is inappropriate for the need of the employee. Employee wants flexibility, we are offering them certainty. That's not the way we're going to solve our cultural challenges. So, are we listening? No. Are we responding and reacting? Yes. And unfortunately, I suspect, it's gonna firstly make the great resignation worse. And secondly, the second pandemic, the biggest pandemic, the pandemic of mental health, that's going to get worse as well.
Malusi Ndlovu 06:24
So, the place where this often gets solved is at the leadership level, or with the HR fraternity, right. Let's start with leadership. What is it that leadership is missing? What are the blind spots? What are the things that leaders are just not seeing in reacting, as you've said.
Roze Phillips 06:43
Interesting you should use the language of blind spots, because there are actually four blind spots that leaders have, from the CEO, to the board, to the leadership teams, you know, exco level, exco level minus one. Or pretty much anybody who leads a team because everybody is a leader in one way or the other, right. So, the first blind spot is the strategic blind spot. And the strategic blind spot is a blind spot that says that the world of the old is the world of the new, so we're perfectly suited to the world of the old, a world of certainty, a world of predictability. That is a strategic blind spot, because the world is changing very rapidly. So, we can't actually afford not to have an engaged employee group, because we don't have all the answers any longer. We have better questions. In fact, we have to ask better questions. So, that's a strategic blind spot, recognising that in fact, you need more from your employee other than them just arriving as a widget, parking, and then parking their car. So, that's a strategic blind spot. The second one is the cultural blind spot. And the cultural blind spot are the ones that suggest that you have the old way of thinking of how organisational culture works. Everybody is in the office, everybody sees one another. We have everybody looking homogenous, we don't have diversity and inclusion. That's a cultural blind spot that leaders have, in terms of thinking that we can still operate in the old. The third blind spot is the personal blind spot. And the personal blind spot is the one where leaders surround themselves by the same people. Group think, what you had in the old is what you have now. And you can continue to do that. And then the last one is the operational blind spot. And the operational blind spot is really just the one that says the way that our organisation was structured before, which is very hierarchical, career ladders, everybody wants the corner office, that that is the way that the world continues. But in fact, the world is operating much more on the basis of smaller teams, distributed leadership, people are concerned about being linked more than they are concerned about being ranked. The job is not the most important thing. It's part of an entire life journey that you're going through. People want different things out of work. So, what is the meaning of work? Now, that is not what people used to think about in the old days as leaders, because as leaders, you thought actually everybody is part of the hierarchy. I'm in control, I have the answer. So, command and control no longer works. So, those are the four blind spots that leaders have. And what ends up happening is that the design of the organisation, the choices that gets made, the cultural decisions that get made, the incentives that are provided, the remuneration decisions that we make, the succession plans that we have, is still very much based on these blind spots. The way to deal with blind spots is surround yourself with different people, think more innovatively.
Malusi Ndlovu 09:54
Diverse thinking diverse perspectives. Lots of voices in the room.
Roze Phillips 09:58
Precisely.
Malusi Ndlovu 09:59
Wow. Okay, so we thought we were done with Covid. And we could take a breather and come back to normal. Turns out, it's not so normal, after all. It's a different world, needing different competencies, skills, and ways of leading.
Roze Phillips 10:13
Yes, in fact, I'm actually quite surprised that people think that we could go back to normal. This is normal. You know, Covid has been with us for two years. It takes you on average 10 days to pick up a new habit if you do it consistently. This has been a habit for two years, remote work is a habit for two years, rethinking your relationship with your family been going on for two years, your dog is happier, because you're spending more time with him or her. It's been going on for two years. So, in fact, we have a new habit, we've learned a new way of doing things. And to a large degree, I think that there's the potential for employees to be happier. Because there's that recognition now that your employer does not take care of you, and you just show up. You have agency, you have control, you have the ability to determine your own future. And you only have one, right, you only have one future, you only have one life. So, people are no longer prepared to spend all of that time commuting. All of that time sitting at a computer screen in an office away from their family, they're no longer prepared to spend 12 hour days working. But on top of that, we've got technology, which is a before Covid scenario. So, now you're always on as well. So yes, that is the new normal, for us to suggest that there's a normal to go back to. It's an exercise in futility.
Malusi Ndlovu 11:52
Wow. So, I mean, such a time of change, of strain and stress, but also a time of opportunity. I mean, just going back to your first point about preferred futures. We actually have a lot wider range of possible futures we can look at now. And if we are deliberate and careful, we can choose the right future for ourselves. But let's turn to HR, which as a fraternity has had an increase in workload. And even post pandemic job titles have changed. I imagine being the "Chief Happiness Officer" for thousands of people has to be very stressful. So, I wasn't surprised to read that the turnover amongst HR Managers and HR Directors are among the highest. What does the future hold for the human capital fraternity?
Roze Phillips 12:49
You know, whenever you look at research on happiness, or you look at research on wellbeing, which of course nowadays is quite a topical issue all on mental health. It's always from the perspective - written from a human capital perspective outwards. Are employees more happy, are leaders more happy, are clients more happy? Nobody asks the question is the HR professional happier? Is the HR professional mentally well? Has their wellbeing been taken care of? Now, I used to be a medical doctor in my previous life, one of my previous lives. And if I look at, for example, medical professionals right now: nurses, doctors, allied health professionals, they are suffering from what I would call a form of post-traumatic stress disorder, which is what I called - I called it two years ago, Post-Covid Stress Disorder. I was very worried then already, that we were going to have Post-Covid Stress Disorder. And that's what the human capital community is suffering from, they have given, they have given, they have given, and now they are empathy fatigued. And being empathy fatigued is a very painful situation to find yourself in. Because in terms of how the brain works, empathy is feeling with someone, which activates the pain centre in your brain, and there's just only so much pain that any human being can go through. And that's really what human capital professionals are suffering from. They are actually burned out. But they're always looking out, they're always serving, so no one's asking the question, what about your own personal wellness? And I think that we're going to see more HR professionals leaving the profession for exactly that reason. But I would suggest please don't do that. Because I think it's also the most exciting time to be an HR professional, because everything that we've just spoken about, those four blind spots that we were talking about. It's the HR professionals that can help the leaders recognise that it's time to be more human, that they want to feel that they are seen. They don't want to necessarily be seen; they wouldn't want just people to worry about their value. They also want people to worry about what they value. So, it's not just about your productivity, it's more than just your productivity. It's not just about external motivation, what we do with remuneration, what we do with rewards, what we do with employee benefits, it's also about intrinsic motivation. So, there's so much work that the HR professional can do to help strategically realign a company to a much more caring organisation so that you can really unlock the engagement and the experience of employees, such that the organisation is number one more innovative. Number two can be the disrupter and not the disrupted. Can be a sustainably growing organisation. It can be inclusive, the kind of futures that we need to have. But if we don't look after the health of our HR professionals, and here actually I'm speaking to leaders, because as I said, right at the beginning, when you ask a CEO, what are you worried about, the CEO says culture and engagement. I'm actually quite surprised that wellness is lower on the list of a CEO than it should be. It's very high on what keeps an HR professional awake at night, but it's very low on what keeps the CEO awake at night. And I think that that needs to change dramatically. Because if wellness is not something that is beyond just the HR professionals' responsibility, we are not going to solve this, because we have to worry about the carer just as much as we worry about the cared.
Malusi Ndlovu 16:47
Yes, absolutely. I want to turn now to the topic of hybrid work. You touched on it a little bit earlier. And I imagine it's a lot easier to be a quiet quitter when you're working from home. Do you think hybrid work will bring challenges that we haven't even considered yet? And what are those challenges? And how do we actually start to think through those?
Roze Phillips 17:09
I think that firstly, quiet quitting is passive resistance, right. I think the difference here is that number one, it's your top performers that are saying, I just can't any longer, right, the people that are carrying the business. And that's a challenge, because those are the people that usually the organisation invested quite heavily in. They're sitting on your succession slate, they're going to be the next CEO, they're going to be the next exco member. So, you've kind of planned that they would be there forever. And they are the ones that have now just taken a step back, and they've said no longer, I'm quiet quitting. The second difference for me is that quiet quitting is now a badge of honor. Now usually when you're quietly quitting, you’re kind of a little bit of ashamed that you're doing that. But people are saying actually, no, I've given so much value to the organisation, you're looking and seeing my value, you're looking at my value, and you're seeing my value, but you're not seeing what I value, and you're not looking after what I consider to be value myself. So, that I think is the difference between the quiet quitters of before and the quiet quitters of today. So, it's a massive challenge.
Roze Phillips 18:19
Is hybrid work going to provide more challenges? I think the challenge that hybrid work is going to create is a culture challenge, an organisational culture challenge. Because I think that organisational leaders and even our HR professionals still see culture as creating connectedness through space: bring everybody into the office, make sure that people talk to each other, make sure that people are seen, make sure that you build both weak links and strong links between people. Let's create certainty. Whereas employees are saying, well, no, that's not what work is for me, right. Work is not the office; work is wherever I am. So, don't worry so much about creating a wonderful office with a hairdresser and a coffee machine and a coffee shop and a band on a Friday and cupcakes on a Thursday and beautiful balloons. Because it's not the office environment that you should be worrying about. Let's understand where the work is meaningful. Is my job meaningful? Those are the things that we have to focus our energies on. So, in fact, we have to re-look what goes into a job. That's why you have Chief Happiness Officers. That's why you have Chief Experience Officers. Because we have to really understand what are the moments that matter to an employee so that you can unlock that. And soc, I think that there's a complete disconnect between what employees consider to be important, versus what employers consider to be important, and that's going to be the problem created through hybrid work, because there is an expectation mismatch between an employer and an employee. And if I was to bet, the employee is going to win. I think I'm going to bet on the employee, because I think that the world has changed to the point where it actually doesn't matter any longer if you offer me more golden handcuffs, I don't see the gold, I only see the handcuffs. So, I think we're gonna have to redesign how we think about how culture is recreated inside a work environment. And it's more about the work, and less about the office.
Malusi Ndlovu 20:41
Absolutely, absolutely. And I like your point about the employee winning. And of course, one of the things we've seen is that mobility of talent has skyrocketed. In the past, it was only certain people, certain roles, at a certain level of seniority or with certain skills, who are highly mobile. But now, just about everyone can work for a company that's anywhere in the world. How are we to deal with this mobility opportunity and challenge as organisations?
Roze Phillips 21:15
I think that we should think with abundance. I think most organisations, unfortunately, still have a bit of a scarcity mindset, a competitive mindset, an ownership mindset. But in fact, if you allow - and that's why employees have side hustles, because they recognise that there are opportunities for them to grow outside of just operating within one environment, one organisation, one viewpoint. And so, I think it will continue to expand this notion of if you are mobile, you will be mobile. I think that organisations have to embrace it. I think firstly, for example, the side hustle revolution, I think organisations have no choice, but to rethink their policy about how people are allowed to do more things and different things and be more creative and offer services broadly. Because ultimately, I think that's the win-win, Malusi. We have a scenario in South Africa where we don't have enough corporate jobs for our young people. And so, I think it's a wonderful opportunity for a South African to be able to sit in South Africa and offer services anywhere else in the world. And I think that if you as an organisation can embrace that, you become a best employer. Because you're working with your employee, you are offering flexibility. If you're offering flexibility, I suspect you're going to get much more loyalty, you're gonna get much more engagement, you're going to get much more focus, you're gonna get much more innovation from your employees, as opposed to thinking about this very competitively and saying an employee belongs to me. So, I think there's an opportunity for growth here if we embrace and accept that our employees are mobile, because ultimately employees now interview you. You don't interview them.
Malusi Ndlovu 23:11
That's right. Dr. Roze, it's been such a fascinating conversation. We started with preferred futures, and we ended talking about abundance, which I think is fitting. Thank you for listening to today's episode. And thank you, Dr. Roze.
Roze Phillips 23:27
Only a pleasure. Thank you for your time as well.
Malusi Ndlovu 23:34
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