Who ate my lunch hour?

Hello and welcome to Working It.

I am tackling a lot of extra paperwork 📝, form-filling and phone calls, relating to various family matters. My colleague Miranda Green wrote movingly last year about the most unwelcome version of this overwhelm: “sadmin” — or dealing with bureaucracy after a parent’s death.

How can anyone fit all of this in, on top of a full-time job? I am slightly adrift, and seeking answers by rereading an excellent book, The Art of Life Admin by Elizabeth Emens. Do send over other recommendations or solutions, and I’ll share them: [email protected].

Read on for the mystery of the missing lunch hours, and in Office Therapy I help someone with a deluded newbie boss 🙄.

Lunch is (still) for wimps 🥪?

Last week I watched the State of Flex webinar, run by Flex Index, which looks into how flexible work is shaping up globally, and the trends emerging as we head towards year five of our post-pandemic world.

You can catch up with the excellent discussion on YouTube, but I was intrigued by one trend in particular: old-school corporate gatherings are back, but they are smaller, shorter and don’t require a flight. Forget the kinds of scenes we saw in The Office “Beach Games” episode (2007) where the Dunder Mifflin staff endure enforced fun and dress in Sumo suits to play-fight (😱). Today’s awayday is work-focused and puts human connection (not humiliation) first. And staff like it that way.

Later, I caught up with one of the webinar participants, Professor Nick Bloom of Stanford University, to talk about other interesting trends he’s picked up recently, notably that the lunch hour seems to be a thing of the past when we WFH. He’d first noted this in a 2015 study of call centre workers in China. “Employees that WFH 4 days a week worked 9 per cent more minutes, mostly from cutting out breaks — quicker toilet breaks, fewer chats to colleagues, faster lunches etc. That is a lot of time that is being removed from the day, and goes completely against the idea that WFH workers are a bunch of lazy slackers.”

Quite so. And it gets more intense, post-pandemic. Nick has analysed lots of recent data from Roam, a virtual office platform (he’s an adviser to the company), and finds that “there isn’t any drop in activity over lunch”. Lunch, in other words, is dead.

‘Usually, if you look at activity data in offices — I’ve looked at messaging, keystrokes, VPN, room bookings etc — you see a double peak. One activity peak at about 10am to 11am (mid to late morning) and another from about 2pm to 4pm (mid-afternoon). There is always a clear lunch break. In the WFH activity data, the lunch gap has gone — there is no lunch dip.’

Back at the IRL office, workers are still taking lunch 🥗. As Nick told me: “The norm is an hour. You think that ‘I’m doing a good deed if I take a 45-minute lunch break in the office’.” While there’s more to lunch at work than simply taking the allotted time — we benefit from talking to colleagues or going for a walk, for example — it’s interesting that the 20th-century workplace timetable is still going strong in 2024.

What are WFH workers doing instead? Nick says: “What I think is going on is when you’re working from home, is you just eat over your laptop.” Workers “bank” the time and then use it to pick children up, do the chores or take exercise. “You’re taking the break, but you’re taking it at other times. Why? Because it’s just more valuable. If I am going to have an hour for lunch at work, I guess I’ll take it, but I’d probably rather spend at least half an hour doing something else — now, at home, I can.”

Nick and I also discussed the knock-on issue for eating lunch “al desko”: crumbs in the keyboard 🙅🏼‍♀️. We’ve both lost laptops that way (I also poured coffee over one of mine).

This week on the Working It podcast

Bosses who work from the beach are often doing themselves harm — as well as annoying their teams who want to be given the chance to run things. And yet it seems almost impossible to get them to put down their phones and relax. What’s the answer? In this week’s episode of the podcast, I talk to Oliver Balch, who recently wrote an FT feature on the topic of executives’ attitudes to working while OOO, and to Brigid Schulte, whose new book is Over Work: Transforming the Daily Grind in the Quest for a Better Life.

Office Therapy

The problem: Our new manager doesn’t know our sector or how we work in our organisation, yet they are pitching straight in with suggestions to the team that are . . . unbelievably basic. They aren’t aware of the depth of their ignorance. They are well-meaning but we are all frustrated. How do you tell someone they don’t know what they are talking about?

Isabel’s advice: This situation would have me biting my fist to stop myself from saying something 🤐. But the good news is that it should be temporary. Let’s assume the recruiters in your organisation hired this new manager on the basis of their potential. The future could be bright.

First, flatter the manager: can you ask them to do a presentation on the transferable skills/processes that your team could learn from their former organisation? That gets everyone in a positive frame of mind. And the manager will be delighted.

Then force them to listen: could you/the team suggest a “listening and reflection session”? You could even pretend this has been a normal part of working life. Everyone speaks for five minutes — uninterrupted — on a recent challenge or success, and the key things they’ve learned from it. Followed by a general discussion. Do this regularly. The boss will be exposed to the reality of your working lives.

Do not explain to the boss how little they know. If the problem persists? You’ll need a whole other strategy. Possibly an exit one 😮.

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.

Five top stories from the world of work

1. FT and Schroders Business Book of the Year Longlist: This year’s crop of the best business books, including Andrew Scott’s The Longevity Imperative and Tribal, by Michael Morris. Lots of reading matter for a late summer holiday — the shortlist will be announced next month.

2. The most annoying thing about young people at work: There’s a lot that older workers can learn from Gen Z, as Pilita Clark points out in her column. There are some great ideas (and some 👀 reader comments, too.)

3. ‘Netflix of volunteering’ eases burden of corporate charity work: Technology is making it easier for staff to match their skills and availability to charities seeking help. Alicia Clegg reports on a growing marketplace, as employers seek to prove their ESG credentials to new and existing staff.

4. Working from beach: will Starbucks new remote boss set a trend? The coffee chain’s new chief executive lives in Newport Beach, California, while the HQ is in Seattle. Michael O’Dwyer and Emma Jacobs survey expert opinion on the merits of a remote CEO.

5. The case for appointing AI as your next COO: Turn away COOs, this compellingly argued opinion piece from Rupert Younger at Oxford university suggests that technology can do the job just fine — although it won’t (yet) replace the CEO.

One more thing

Ryan Hopkins, author of 52 Weeks of Wellbeing, chief impact officer at Jaaq, and all-round debunker of wellness myths, has a new newsletter called “Workplace Rebellion”, rounding up the latest research and ideas. Ryan has zero tolerance for jargon and “thought leader” BS, which I admire. Also, he’s funny: sign up here.

A word from the Working It community

Not strictly arising from this newsletter, but the comments thread on LinkedIn under an FT story I posted about how AI has “broken” recruitment is still raging 😤 (follow it here). I got lots of emails and DMs with recommendations to help people searching for jobs. I especially liked these graduate-focused ones from Simon Burton, chief executive of CB Resourcing, a specialist knowledge sector recruitment consultancy:

• Most industries have professional bodies that offer affordable networking groups for young professionals as well as bursaries for events. The same is true of the Livery Companies in London. Get involved and show this on your CV, you’ll meet peers and mentors but also it stands out as commitment to your chosen career on your CV. My experience is that graduates are often surprised by how friendly, diverse and supportive these organisations are with lots of people keen to help the next generation.

• Don’t underestimate the part-time jobs you’ve had that are not in your chosen professional area, make sure you include this experience. Working in a high-pressure customer service environment such as a restaurant or hotel is a good indicator of work ethic that many hiring managers will appreciate.

• Get organised, create your own CRM in a spreadsheet with when you applied and to what role. If you can, call and follow up to ensure your application is received and find out when they are reviewing it. This will give you much more control of the process.

• Have a clear LinkedIn profile that matches what you have on your CV. This is the first place many hiring managers will look when they receive your application.

And finally . . . 

The FT Weekend Festival takes place in the grounds of London’s Kenwood House on Saturday, September 7. There are panels and talks across 10 stages, with big-name guests including Michael Palin, Robert Harris and John Lithgow, plus familiar FT faces and voices, including my fellow podcasters Claer Barrett, Soumaya Keynes and Lilah Raptopoulos. Get tickets with £24 off using the discount code Newsletters24. And do say hello 👋🏻 on the day! Claer and I have a session in the FT Future Tent, answering your finance and workplace dilemmas.