Men want money, women want balance

Hello and welcome to Working It.

I had Covid last week and the enforced isolation and rest made me realise two things: one, I really need to slow down 🐌. Cal Newport, our guest on last week’s podcast, had it right when he talked about “slow productivity” being the way forward.

And the second thing: sometimes it’s good to look back in order to make sense of the present. Covid gave me time to read diaries from my university years and early working life. Seeing that from afar was . . . odd. Memory blurs almost everything, it turns out — even the good bits — but there was also a shocking amount of self-involved moping (what my children describe as “wet wipe” behaviour 🥺). I just wish I’d been bolder, and less judge-y and insecure.

I wrote on LinkedIn about the strange experience of revisiting my youth — and asking for the advice that others would give to their 22-year-old selves. It prompted lots of touching and insightful comments. Do tell me your thoughts at [email protected] — and we’ll return to this soon.

Read on to find out why overwork is a feminist issue — and in Office Therapy I counsel someone who is underworked and bored.

Workplace tl;dr: men want money and women want balance 👀

When I talk to people about interesting workplace themes for this newsletter, the conversation often takes fascinating and unexpected turns. That’s what happened when I chatted to Edward Haigh, strategy director of Encompass Equality, a consultancy that specialises in advancing gender equality in workplaces.

I was talking to Edward about his organisation’s research into the different factors that influence men’s and women’s decisions to stay in their jobs — or go. The overall results are interesting but didn’t surprise me: two of the big takeaways are that women’s experience of work is less positive than men’s, and flexibility (of both time and place of work) is far more important to women. The report is short and useful.

To be clear, it’s not that men don’t want flexibility and an understanding manager — it’s just that women want these things more.

The findings that did surprise me were around men’s and women’s attitudes towards pay 💰. Asked to rank 15 factors that are known to have an impact on retention, top of the list for men, and only number six for women, is “salary and benefits”. Edward said: “For men, work is a much more transactional thing — it is much less dynamic and much more ‘are these guys paying me enough?’”

I wondered whether traditional notions of masculinity played into the importance that men in the survey placed on purely monetary factors at work. Up to a point, Edward said. “It’s also perhaps about the fact that men haven’t had to balance the things that women have for so long. Men’s measure of success has just been ‘Am I progressing?’”

While men* may measure success in monetary terms, things for women are much more complex. Edward said: “What I hear time and time again from women when I interview them is that work is great, ‘I love it, it’s really good having all this stuff going on and I have the balance right’. It is all about having work and professional life in reasonable balance ⚖️. That seems to be the measure of success.”

The other surprising thing — and one that Edward describes as “under talked-about” is the prevalence of overwork as a reason why women, especially, are unhappy at work, and may leave. It plays into the balance aspect of women’s working lives: too much work means that everything becomes unmanageable. “Women themselves aren’t putting this conversation on the table readily because they are afraid to say ‘I have a problem with the amount of work I am doing 😰’. It is tantamount to saying ‘I am not as loyal or committed’. That link with presenteeism is still there.”

I am sure that overwork is a key reason why women leave their jobs (and maybe they don’t even mention it in their exit interviews, for the “taboo” reasons mentioned above?). Edward pointed out that many organisations won’t talk about the o-word. Not unrelatedly, Encompass Equality data suggests that 10 per cent of hours worked are not being paid for.

Overwork, I would suggest, is a feminist issue.

Do you think overwork is the big unspoken problem in many workplaces? Have you fixed it? And anything else I should know about retention — for men and women: [email protected]

*Not all men, etc 

This week on the Working It podcast

I hate feedback. There are three stages of human response to feedback, as my former colleague Esther Bintliff put it in a brilliant article. First is “‘Fuck you.’ The second is ‘I suck.’ And the third is ‘Let’s make it better.’” I get stuck on number two 🤷‍♀️.

So when we decided to talk all things feedback on the Working It podcast this week, I was ready to shout the guests down. But I came away feeling optimistic after chatting to feedback experts Kim Scott (yes, THE Kim Scott, of Radical Candour — and now Radical Respect — fame) and Joe Hirsch, who helps organisations design better feedback. The key? Make it constructive, have some hard conversations (eeek) — and focus on the future, not the past. It’s a really useful episode, I hope. Let me know what you think.

Office Therapy

The problem: I am one year into my career in professional services. This is going to sound weird but I have far too little to do. I am mostly remote, which doesn’t help. I have talked a bit to my boss (who is happy with my performance). How can I bring this up more formally without looking like I have been slacking for nearly a year?

Isabel’s advice: I have heard a variation of your dilemma several times in recent months. Graduates in big companies seem to be particularly affected. We have already seen lay-offs in the professional services and consultancy sector because there isn’t enough work to go around. It sounds like you aren’t thinking of leaving, but you need more structure.

It’s worth asking to shadow on assignments and projects — seeing how people do things is almost as valuable as doing it yourself. Have you got an internal mentor? If not, ask for one — or offer to be a reverse mentor for an older manager. That will help you access new people and departments.

Can you get some extra skills and training while you are less busy? Online course modules (AI would be a big one) are useful here — your manager could help you find funding for this. Playing around with AI in your idle moments might be useful, too. Also: can you help out at events/attend relevant conferences?

Essentially, I am suggesting you don’t need to dwell on the lack of work. Reframe your future strategy as being proactive and “visible”. Even if you aren’t required to be in the office, it might be worth travelling in on some non-mandatory days. To put it bluntly, this would get you informal “face time” with senior people. I realise this is not what WFH evangelists want to hear — but humans tend to remember the “new people” who are physically in front of us, not the ones we see on Zoom 💻. When the work picks up, you’ll be front of mind.

Got a question, problem or dilemma for Office Therapy? Think you have better advice for our readers? Send it to me: [email protected]. We anonymise everything. Your boss, colleagues or underlings will never know.

Five top stories from the world of work

1. Fewer meetings, more memos: the future of asynchronous work: Working whenever, and wherever, it suits us, is a big trend. Mischa Frankl-Duval (better known as the Working It podcast producer, but he’s a man of many talents) delves into how organisations make this work.

2. The case for having more fun at work: I’m a fan of the lighter side of work (not to be confused with dreaded corporate Organised Fun events) and in this column Pilita Clark explains the benefits of silliness and pranks — within reason.

3. Employers re-examine wellbeing strategies: We know that “wellbeing” initiatives at work are often useless, and in this feature Alicia Clegg looks at where the money could go instead. Spoiler: invest in management training.

4. In education, some targets are better than others: Stephen Bush looks at what works to improve pupils’ experience and skills. Some private schools, for example, are drastically reducing the number of public exams that students sit — leaving time for broader educational gain.

5. Lunch with the FT: Deborah Meaden of Dragons’ Den: The FT’s personal finance guru, Claer Barrett, talks about investments, veganism and Gen Z with the famously tough investor and TV “dragon”. It’s a funny, lively read.

One more thing . . . 

Axios wades into the perils and misunderstandings of intergenerational emoji use at work 😥. As a proud Gen Xer, I am never going to believe that the trusty 👍 is anything other than a sincerely meant mark of agreement or affirmation. Our irony-laden Gen Z colleagues will probably disagree.

And finally . . . 

The FT Women in Business Forum has 10 tickets to give away to Working It readers for the FT launch event for my book, The Future-Proof Career. It’s on the evening of June 25 at the FT office in the City of London.

There’ll be a stellar panel discussion on future-proofing our careers, featuring Gabriella Braun, workplace consultant and author of All That We Are, Helen Tupper of careers consultancy Amazing If (and co-host of one of my favourite podcasts, Squiggly Careers), and Andrew Scott, London Business School professor and author of The Longevity Imperative.

Enter here. Winners will be drawn on May 24 at 5pm.