Hello and welcome to Working It.
Today we put out the last weekly Working It podcast. After 153 episodes and 3mn downloads, this is the end of the run.
I invited three expert colleagues to join me to talk about what’s changed (and what hasn’t) in workplaces since I first put on the host’s headphones in October 2021. It was a wonderful send-off 😢. I hope you enjoy it.
My biggest thanks go to Mischa Frankl-Duval, the Working It producer, whose hard work made the show so good🏅.
Read on for news of a huge research project that has recommendations on how to improve skills, productivity and wellbeing in all workplaces. And Jonathan Black advises someone who left their “passion” job for something better paid — and now wants to return.
I am a bit adrift without the podcast, so will write more about “good endings” next week. Do get in touch if you have thoughts about how to process, reflect and regroup after the end of projects, jobs and more: [email protected].
There’s no robot revolution without (properly trained) humans 🤖
For the past three years, I’ve been a member of the steering group for the Pissarides Review into the Future of Work and Wellbeing. I’ve watched, admiring, from the sidelines as the Nobel-winning economist Sir Christopher Pissarides and teams from the Institute for the Future of Work, Imperial College and Warwick Business School, have carried out research across 1,000 workplaces, funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
Their aim? To examine how AI and automation are really transforming work, society and the economy in the UK, finding where the skills and trust gaps are at local, regional and national levels — and to offer solutions and practical ideas for a framework to create better workplace, economic and social outcomes. In the words of the authors: “AI and automation can lead to a fairer future of better work, but attitudes must change, and trust must be built.”
The trust part is really down to employers. The research finds that good communications and HR policies are absolutely key in getting people to embrace automated workflows. (Yet another burden for HR professionals 😰: as an aside, several experts have suggested to me recently that the future for HR is essentially as an internal consultancy service, covering skills, process and tech. I will dig deeper into this in future newsletters.)
Managers and leaders can, and dare I say, should, read the whole Pissarides report and its recommendations here. At its launch this week, I chaired a panel looking at how joined-up action linking central and local government with universities, businesses and other interested groups can help deliver investment, information and training opportunities to everyone. Guidance on best practices and relevant tech training opportunities, for example, needs to be available to every company.
Those of us in the over-dominant and highly productive south east of England (ahem 👀) may be surprised to hear that only 2 per cent of UK businesses have more than one site. Embedding the right tech and AI knowledge and support for managers and staff in small workplaces across remote regions is going to be a hard task.
Things are progressing: the government has announced a raft of AI investment measures to “turbocharge growth and boost living standards”. These include several AI growth zones across the UK, with special energy infrastructure and speeded-up planning permission. The first zone is in Culham, Oxfordshire, home to the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority. (And there’s going to be a rail service between Oxford and Cambridge, the UK’s mini-Silicon Valley.)
But AI is just one part of a much wider shift to automation. One statistic that struck me from the report’s launch: 20 per cent of UK adults lack the basic digital and adaptive problem-solving skills needed to deal with the massive workplace tech transition now under way.
20%Number of UK adults without basic digital skills
The investment required for the right training and skills programmes . . . will be huge 💰. And employers will have to pay for most of it. Without that investment, millions of people will be left behind — rather like in classrooms, everyone has to grasp the basics, otherwise they are stuck when the others move on to advanced learning.
The 20 per cent figure came from one of the panellists at the Pissarides report launch, Tera Allas, chair of Pro Bono Economics and The Productivity Institute’s advisory committee, and a senior economic adviser to McKinsey. Tera said:
“My colleagues at McKinsey suggest that for every technology investment, you need four to five times as much investment in the human capital to get any benefits out of it, let alone to make these transitions beneficial to the people who are involved.”
As ever with technology, it’s the human input that is the most vital component 🙋🏽.
In short: Business needs to get its head out of the sand and spend big — VERY big 🚛 — on training workers for a tech-driven future.
Want more? Watch the Pissarides report launch on YouTube (my panel starts at 47 mins in) or McKinsey has some interesting tips on what leaders need to prioritise in tech this year.
Dear Jonathan 📩
The problem: I left my job in the creative industries for a role in a service industry that was a step up in pay and responsibilities. I made a mistake: while the extra money is nice, I’m not enjoying my life or work. What can I do? Can I go back, knuckle down here, or do I have to move on again?
Jonathan Black’s career advice: While you might feel adrift, take a moment to congratulate yourself for admitting you made a mistake.
In an ideal world, we would have perfect information and be able to anticipate what a new job or flat or partner will be like without having to commit. But sometimes we have to have the experience to be able to make a fully informed decision. You’ve done that in this job and realised that it isn’t working.
Not only have you realised you made a mistake and learned what’s important to you, but you are also ready to act on it. What are your options? First, you’re in a job, so there is no rush — keep delivering your best work and try to compartmentalise the job hunt activities so as not to risk your current role. If there is a chance that you could adjust your current role to one that suits you better, then do explore that.
Next, clarify what you want — is it exactly the same or are there elements that you would change about the old job? Reignite the network of people from your old employer and others in the sector to explore what roles might be out there.
It’s no shame to return to an old employer, in fact often people come back to an organisation in a different role, with more skills and experience; and maybe the old employer didn’t realise what they had until you left, and they will value you more now.
You may also come across other opportunities that are even more exciting than a return to the old organisation, which will also be a result. Wherever you eventually land, it should be better than your current role.
Jonathan Black is director of the careers service at Oxford university — email your career dilemmas to [email protected]
A tip from Charter: how to use AI to clear the air between colleagues 🤯
Kevin Delaney, editor-in-chief of Charter, the future-of-work media and research firm, shares this interesting exchange from Davos last week: Francine Katsoudas, chief people, policy and purpose officer at Cisco, recounted the story of a leader and an employee who weren’t working well together. “It was one of those situations where they kept going back and forth on chat versus talking,” said Katsoudas. With their permission, colleagues ran the chat through a generative AI tool for its analysis.
“It said to the leader, ‘You’re clearly frustrated because the employee keeps asking you the same question over and over again and your communication is letting your frustration show,’ and then to the employee, ‘You are not grasping the answer that you’re getting to the question, right?’” recalled Katsoudas.
One of her team members shared the analysis with the employees involved, and it resonated with them, saving hours of further frustration.
“That intervention is something that until recently only the more skilled facilitators could have picked up on,” noted Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School. “It’s really hard for people to learn these skills. I mean that’s the thing I have learned with the most confidence in my 30 years of teaching and now it appears we won’t even need them.”
*Register here for free virtual attendance at Charter’s “Leading with AI” summit tomorrow (Thursday)
Five top stories from the world of work
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Why the billable hour is still king in the legal world: The tough system of aiming for up to 2,000 billable hours a year is still thriving, despite AI arriving in law firms. Suzi Ring and Emma Jacobs look at the eye-watering costs — and hours in the office — involved.
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The Maga vision of corporate life will struggle: Pilita Clark reports from Davos, where many business leaders were still keen to say they want diverse workforces and to continue with carbon-cutting and green measures — because they make good financial sense.
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‘Severance’ shows we long to leave work behind: Apple TV+’s show about workers who have been surgically split to have two states of consciousness — one for the workplace, and one for outside — reflects our angst about work-life balance and post-pandemic blurring, says Emma Jacobs.
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The lucrative business of airline loyalty schemes: As someone about to lose even the lowest tier of frequent flyer status in BA’s forthcoming loyalty points shake-up, I devoured this FT analysis of the booming market by Philip Georgiadis and Rachel Rees.
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Duping is the sincerest form of flattery for Charlotte Tilbury: The make-up line is often imitated by cheaper competitors, as are many other big brands. Many of them are fighting back in court, reports John Gapper, in a fascinating column about the competitive retail landscape.
One more thing . . .
When the BBC comedy Outnumbered returned for a Christmas special last month, it prompted my family to rewatch it from the start. This series about Sue and Pete Brockman (Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis) and their three children aired from 2007 to 2014, with a first Christmas episode in 2016. The good news is that it holds up incredibly well. Only the flip phones are dated 📱.
And if you are new to it, I hope Outnumbered will be a laugh-out-loud surprise for your family. All episodes are on BBC iPlayer/ Apple TV+ US.
Read the full article here