The stressful job that no one wants to leave

If you say “work culture” at the moment, people generally sigh.

We all see that work trends over the last ten years have frayed connections between teams and we are all wondering what to do about it. 

When people asked me to talk about this subject, I also used to sigh.

I'm not great with intangibles and half the definitions of culture make me anxious... "what people say when no one is listening" or “what they do when no one is looking”. Whatever. 

To unpick this, we've been doing a big bank of in-depth interviews to pin down the tangible elements that make up culture. And the themes are remarkably consistent. 

• Is your workplace serious or fun?

• Is status a big deal or does everyone muck in?

• Is your tech creaky at the seams or set up for space exploration?

• Is DEI a tick box or a reason to show up?

We're correlating these things with how well businesses are doing, whether their people want to stay or leave and how much discretionary effort they make day to day. 

From September we'll be sharing the findings in the most practical - and tangible - ways possible.

Before then, you might want to look at this video from a recent trip to Moneypenny (outsourced call centres in Wrexham). Their challenge was to make a low skilled, stressful and difficult job one people wanted to sign up for and stay doing. What they are doing is fascinating: they've thrown everything at it.

Interested in whether you think it’s worth it? 

Christine

PS. We'd love you to anonymously add to our research with this short survey. If you choose to include an email we will also send advance copies of the findings.