Tuesday, January 24, 2020

More Survey Feedback

Sometimes it's important to see what doesn't figure as important, especially if what other people have written suggested it should be. Take coping with jobs cuts. There has been considerable discussion of this in the media, but our survey results give it very little importance as a source of overwork or problems with work/life balance.

Amongst those who have responded to the survey so far, only 19% said job cuts are important as a current issue, compared with 43% who rated it as "marginal" or "unimportant." Indeed, 38% dismissed it altogether, noting it as "not applicable."

Ethical issues too haven't had the importance you might guess from recent high-profile cases. 46% said that ethical problems don't affect them, compared with 18% who rate them as occurring at least sometimes.

What's leading the pack of problems? Feeling too little job satisfaction, finding time to think and plan and do my own work, and constant interruptions. No change there.

I'll leave you with another powerful comment from the survey:
We are faced with the expectation of miracles. We constantly perform miracles, because it's the only way to survive. But this leads to the expectation of constant performance at the miracle level, which is unsustainable, unless we completely ignore the need for work/life balance and just plain sanity in our workforce.
For a few more days, there's still time to add your voice to this survey. Just use this link.


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5 Comments:

Rabbit said...

Hmm... that lack of concern for ethics scares me. The industry I am currently in is more prone to ethical follies than others, but even when I worked in commercial real estate, there were problems in that area.

If people rate ethical concerns as low, well, isn't that what this is all about? Bringing balance back? If you're not concerned about your company being ethical, how can you expect them to really care how much or little balance you have? (Because that would be an ethical concern of the company - how its employees are treated.)

Unless, of course, I'm the lucky one, getting to work with every devil company in the world, while the rest are all angels.

But I doubt that is the case.

I get the feeling that at least some people's view towards work/life balance is skewed in terms of what they think the problems are.

Yes, overwork is an issue. Yes, being undervalued is an issue. Yes, not having time for one's family is an issue. But really, they're symptoms of a greater foul - indifference towards others. Within any sphere of social interaction, there are expectations set forth, but it's those expectations that have gotten out of control. (Do more with less.)

*sad face*

12:15 AM  
Carmine Coyote said...

I agree with you. This lack of apparent concern about ethics may be part of the cause of the problem. Treating people with casual disdain is what allows organizations to drive them so hard.

It may also be simply a definition of ethics that's too narrow: ethical problems as dishonesty and nothing else. That may be something Slow Leadership needs to address.

7:12 AM  
marek said...

I think rabbit is misreading the results. Given the wording of the question, it is impossible to conclude that there is a lack of concern for ethics. The fact that people don't think that questionable ethical practices are not a major currrent issue in their working lives tells us nothing about those same people's concerns about ethics.
As one of the survey responders in this category it all seems very straightforward to me: I feel strongly about ethical working practices, and appreciate the fact that in my current working life I don't need to deal with major ethical dilemmas.

1:13 PM  
RodeoClown said...

Hi,
completely off-topic (but I can't find an email link anywhere).

This post was only partial-text in the RSS feed. Is it possible for you to revert to the full-text feeds, which were much easier to read?

Thanks very much.

7:15 PM  
Carmine Coyote said...

Marek

You raise a good point. I am posting an article today about the link between ethical concerns and Slow Leadership, at least as I see them.

9:32 AM  

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