Hello and welcome to Working It.
It’s been a wild week in corporate news, with the Sam Altman/OpenAI shenanigans generating one of the best-ever examples of the “look how messy people can be” genre of management stories.
Never mind the machine learning, feel the all-too-human animosity 😡.
I’ll be returning to this topic next week but I’m keen to hear your thoughts on this saga. My hot take is that we should stop pretending that anything about business is rational and fully embrace the fact that conflicts happen, and plan accordingly. (Perhaps all organisations need to employ an in-house psychologist?)
All thoughts on mess, trust and anything else: [email protected]
Why does anyone have to retire at 60? It’s nuts 🥜
It’s great that EY has appointed a woman as its next global chief executive. And Janet Truncale, 53, is the first woman to head one of the Big Four accounting firms👏🏼.
But . . . there is a big “but”. We’ve ticked off sexism, but ageism crept into the process. The FT reported that Andy Baldwin, a CEO contender who is 57, warned that UK discrimination laws bar taking age into consideration without a specific business reason, according to people familiar with the conversation. He was unhappy that age was considered so prominently in the process, they said.
EY partners usually have to retire at 60, so Baldwin would have needed an exemption to do a full four-year term if he’d become chief executive. Words fail me, but luckily my colleague Andrew Hill got there first: “Sixty seems an absurdly and arbitrarily early age at which to ask executives to hand in their lanyards and badges.”
The good news, though, is that this story represents end-stage ageism. Things are changing fast, even in professional services, according to Lyndsey Simpson, chief executive of 55/Redefined, a consultancy helping organisations unlock the potential of older workers. I’ve talked to Lyndsey before, but things in the over 50s workspace are moving at lightspeed 🚀 in the right direction.
One concept that’s starting to go mainstream is “return on experience” — or ROE. It’s a new(ish) way of framing the advantages of employing older workers that really captures what they (all right, we) can offer. “With experience, you just have a different way of talking to people,” says Lyndsey. It makes them a great fit for customer-facing roles, for example. Older cabin crew are now a feature on many airlines: easyJet has targeted over-45s.
Lyndsey is involved with a range of corporate initiatives to recruit the over 50s, or to help those already in the workforce to stay for longer. Some will pivot and use their skills and experience (the magic ROE) to train others. Dentsu, for example, has pioneered a scheme to tackle ageism in the advertising industry. Only 5 per cent of workers in the sector are 55 or over. (No wonder so many ads aimed at older consumers seem . . . poorly targeted 🎯.)
The key in all of this? Flexibility. When older workers are asked what motivates them to keep working, flexible working patterns — in all senses, including moving to a part-time or post-retirement role — always top the list. A recent report from law firm Osborne Clark asked 700 people aged between 35 and 55 what would enable them to work longer, and the top three reasons were (yes) flexible work (44 per cent), more annual leave (42 per cent) and a gradual retirement scheme (42 per cent).
Readers with long memories (last week) may remember a story here about the uselessness of corporate wellbeing programmes. One offshoot of that issue is that many people get fed up at work and decide to retire — or are pushed out — too early. Working for longer, and by this I mean in jobs that are rewarding and offer connection and purpose, is good for us, both physically and mentally. (Before you email me: yes, exceptions apply.)
This week on the Working It podcast
Pressure is part of working life but it can be corrosive and leave us anxious and exhausted. And when we have a presentation or a speech to give, the nerves beforehand can give us sleepless nights as well as shaking hands. (Been there, got the 👕.)
So this week’s Working It podcast is about how to thrive under pressure. What are the key ways to make this stress more bearable? I talk to Chris Hunter, a bomb disposal expert, and Mark Wilson, professor of performance psychology at the University of Exeter. Without giving it all away, let me say this: preparation, preparation, preparation. No shortcuts 🙄.
Office Therapy
The problem: I repeatedly asked for new areas of responsibility at work. Nothing happened. This year, I got assigned extra menial tasks. I emailed my manager expressing my disappointment and was then called into a meeting with the manager and someone from HR, out of the blue, and told my performance was under review and I needed to perform against action plans. “Poor” performance had never been mentioned before this meeting. I want to leave — but should I fight first?
Isabel’s advice: I’d first suggest that you don’t do anything major and life-changing, such as resigning, during the period of disbelief and anger that always follows a shocking event or discovery 😧.
I asked Alison Best, co-head of training at workplace culture consultancy Byrne Dean, to give you some next steps. She says you should ask yourself: “What would an ideal outcome be?” Thinking about what outcome we want often helps us to find a way through difficult situations.
Going deeper, Alison suggests also looking at this from your boss’s point of view. “What might be driving their sudden, formal approach towards you? Although it seems out of the blue, the repeated failure to give you the stretch work you requested might suggest they perceive some underlying issue here. If we could wind back the clock 🕰️, best management practice would have been for your boss to raise any performance concerns with you informally and in a timely way as soon as they arose.”
Clearly that didn’t happen, but misunderstandings abound in workplaces. You need to work out what to do next — and that might involve working towards the targets you have now been set.
“Is there any way you could take that plan and see it as a developmental opportunity? Perhaps, looked at through the best possible lens in this difficult situation, it might even provide you with the stretch you desired?”
Even if you work with your manager to meet these new targets, you always reserve the right to leave 🚪. And, Alison concludes: “Even if you feel trust has been too badly broken, if you meet the plan’s requirements, it will provide you with a stronger basis from which to assess whether there is toxic ill-intent or whether there is a positive way forward.”
Got a question, problem or dilemma for Office Therapy? Think you have better advice for our readers? Send it to me: [email protected] or via a voice note. We anonymise everything. Your boss, colleagues or underlings will never know.
Five top stories from the world of work
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The inescapable tyranny of the bad boss: The headline says it all, and Pilita Clark’s column reminds us that bad — and downright tyrannical — bosses can gain power and status in any sector.
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Start ups challenge culture of the Japanese salaryman: Leo Lewis is an expert on Japanese workplace culture, and here he reports on the country’s thriving start-up sector, offering alternative, nimbler, career paths for workers.
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Workless Hongkongers in the UK reveal skills mismatch: Employers are overlooking a big pool of talent — more than 120,000 Hongkongers have come to the UK in recent years, with the right to work, yet many are not working or are in jobs at a level below their qualifications.
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UK Supreme Court rules Deliveroo riders are not employees: After years of legal battles, delivery riders are judged not to be employees. This is a landmark ruling for the gig economy and means that the union that brought the case will not be able to win formal collective bargaining rights for riders.
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The downfall of Leon Black: An extraordinary long-form report from Mark Vandevelde on rape allegations made by the billionaire’s former lover — and what happened next.
One more thing . . .
Being a tech founder is apparently glamorous, but this perspective from a tech journalist who writes about start ups — and who also happens to be married to a founder — gives a refreshing alternative view. Plaudits to Melia Russell, who starts her first-person account for Business Insider with a straightforward but awkward question: “Would my marriage be happier if my husband’s start-up failed?” It’s a gripping read about business — and also a universal tale about managing the tensions inherent in sharing a life with someone else 👩❤️👨.
A word from the Working It community
Last week’s Office Therapy column advised a manager with a high-performing staffer who was offhand and didn’t make eye contact. My colleague Jonathan Black and I suggested that “charm” goes a long way — and it does, but we didn’t cover (enough) the possibility that this person is neurodiverse (ND) and reacts differently from someone who is neurotypical.
Here is some excellent alternative advice from a Working It reader who is ND and who took issue with the answer we gave. They have asked to remain anonymous 🤫:
The most important action for the letter writer: challenge those who assume the individual is “offhand”, starting with themselves, and advocate for the rollout of some decent neurodiversity awareness training. Not everyone holds eye contact after shaking hands!
Secondly, if they do decide to say something to the employee, I would suggest leading with specific context on why it’s important and also giving some specific actions that don’t require “masking” if the individual is neurodiverse. E.g. “Great work on X and Y, I’ve been impressed with how you’re progressing. In terms of points to work on in the next cycle, it might be worth thinking about who you need to build relationships with outside the team.”
Point taken. Lots of you are more expert than me in all sorts of ways, so feel free to disagree with my POV. Best to email: [email protected]. I always try to reply*.
*Not guaranteed — but this newsletter runs on flat whites and good intentions ☕️.
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