Wo rkSpring 2021. Because business is about people

Why did debt become a dirty word?

Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and the day Obama tried to cancel Christmas

Five fundamental questions for the HR profession

From the seven dwarves to Beyoncé – a history of the workplace in song

Wo rk. Because business is about people

When the prime minister recently predicted commuters would return to offices in “a few short months”, his dismissal of a permanent shift to remote working would have chimed with many. Among them, no doubt, was David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, who has controversially described it as an aberration for a company that has an “innovative, collaborative apprenticeship culture”. Others, however, would have taken an entirely different view, notably those with long commutes and an impressive home office set-up. Such different attitudes to remote work, and indeed the wider issue of personal choice over how, when and where we work, is just one of the issues HR teams will have to navigate as we start to think about what the working world might look like after the pandemic. In our special feature starting on page 44, we take a look at some of the questions that the profession needs to consider, from whether employers are ready to embrace more flexible working patterns, to the impact of the pandemic on the rise of the machines.

Claire Warren, editor [email protected]

Features in detail p4 Perspectives: distilled management thinking p6 15 minutes with… Rajarshi Banerjee p12 Debt: how much is too much? p14 A history of work in song p26 Matt Atkinson on the power of purpose p28 Media and the advent of fake news p32 Interview: Unicef UK’s Claire Fox p40 Five essential questions for HR p44 Debrief: business research, reports and insight p62 Further reading p72 The off-piste guide to acronyms p74

03 FEATURES IN DETAIL

Does debt A history of Q&A: Matt Media: facts really matter? work in song Atkinson and faux news p14 p26 p28 p32

Such is the profligacy ‘I was looking for a job, Matt Atkinson has a One thing we can all with which the UK and then I found a job, dream: that one day, agree on is that these days government has loaded up and heaven knows I’m businesses will be judged it’s harder for us to agree on debt since the outset of miserable now’ crooned as much on what they do on anything. The partisan the coronavirus crisis, it Morrissey dolefully on a for society as on their divide in the west is no borrowed £1bn a day in song that captures the profits. The chief longer an argument about 2020. It’s a huge sum that prevailing presentation customer officer at the opinions, it’s about facts begs the question: just of work in popular music. Co-op, which is owned – is climate change a what is debt, and where Occasionally the gloom by its members, believes scientific reality or a does it come from? In fact, lifts – Disney’s seven that “trust, ethics and global conspiracy, for the concept of credit is so dwarfs sound chirpy transparency will instance. One of the ancient, says Andrew enough as they sing ‘heigh become increasingly fiercest debates is whether Saunders, it may pre-date ho’ – but such buoyancy important currencies in the media merely reflects the introduction of is, Work. discovers, business success”. The this growing divide, or physical money itself. exceptional. More typical group is performing well has helped to engineer it. Monarchies borrowed is Bob Dylan’s Maggie’s – growing its share of the Talking to authors Peter from bankers to finance Farm, an angry, eloquent British grocery market – Pomerantsev and Simon wars; by the 1960s, indictment of working while still doing good Kuper, Paul Simpson Dodd

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04 Unicef UK’s What’s next? Debrief p62-71 Claire Fox Five questions for HR Corporate ethics Business leaders may have p40p44 taken a pay cut during the pandemic, but few have agreed to lose their bonus. As the world’s largest On 23 March last year when Boris Johnson announced Management vaccine buyer, Unicef will the country was going into the first national lockdown, Supervisors who display play a central role in the few of us could have anticipated quite how long the emotional intelligence help distribution of Covid pandemic would be with us for, or the lasting impact it create an environment where vaccines and is currently would have on workplaces across the country. After a employees learn new skills. preparing to deliver two year in which a significant chunk of the population has Inclusion billion of them to low and been able to work from home, while others have worked Women in the boardroom may lead to inaccurate perceptions middle-income countries. on the frontlines, faced furlough or lost their jobs, Work. about workplace equality. Unicef UK staff won’t looks at the essential questions HR professionals must Healthcare directly deliver them but address as we consider what working life will be like The National Health Service their fundraising efforts after we emerge from the coronavirus crisis. needs a governance overhaul. are vital. Helping staff Will we be able to say goodbye to the 9-5? Mental health understand their piece in Burnout has a much greater this jigsaw is all in a day’s A year is a long time out of the office for habit-loving humans. impact on work stress than the work for the UK’s chief The question is whether it will be long enough to encourage other way around. employers to embrace more flexible working practices. operating officer, Claire Cybersecurity Fox, as is ensuring that Are the robots coming faster now? When staff assume company work doesn’t negatively Automation and digitisation appear to have accelerated as measures to combat phishing employers rush to respond to the pandemic. What we don’t know attacks are effective they may impact their wellbeing. become less vigilant. That means identifying yet is what impact that will ultimately have on jobs. which tasks are not a Appreciation Has the pandemic set equality back? In the age of the email, hand priority has been as There’s evidence revealing the negative effects of the crisis on written thank you notes are important a part of specific groups of staff, but the good news is many businesses surprisingly well received. her pandemic capacity have recognised the issue and seem willing to tackle it. Performance planning as deciding what Is now the time to split HR? CEOs at companies that really must be done. “In a consistently perform may It’s not a new question, but with HR’s growing remit is now the pay a high price for failure. way, the pandemic has time to revisit it? We asked two experts for their thoughts. provided quite a good Planning lesson,” she tells Jo Have we relied on staff goodwill for too long? Before another crisis hits we Faragher. “Organisations Many employees have been called upon to go above and beyond should discuss how workers would be supported. haven’t been good enough over the last year, but they won’t be prepared to do it forever. at prioritising and Skills Remote workers who display stopping things.” five special skills have a greater chance of being successful. Jo Faragher is a freelance Evidence-based HR writer and editor We need to be clear about what specialising in HR employee engagement means. and employment Executive representation The impact of female leaders may depend on cultural norms. Workplace technology Smartphone usage is not a good predictor of anxiety, stress or depression. Financial transparency Companies that are open and honest about their finances have better relationships between managers and staff.

05 PERSPECTIVES

MANAGEMENT THINKING DISTILLED

Q&A SARAH JAFFE Even the best job is about making money

would say that almost any worker Why we need to can be affected by this myth, but that it is inculcated most strongly think like a scientist in feminised caring professions and creative professions. THERE ARE A NUMBER of neurological conditions that leave How did we get to this point? a person convinced something is The short answer is that the shift true when it is not. Anton syndrome, from an industrial economy to where sufferers believe they can see an economy driven by services despite clear evidence they are blind, means there is more work that is one such example. requires you to smile on the job, Fortunately, few people ever to like it or at least to perform experience it but, as Adam Grant, MORE AND MORE of us are happiness for the customer. The author of Think Again, told the US’s making sacrifices in the name of destruction of labour unions and Sunday Today programme, it a job we enjoy but, says Sarah Jaffe, other institutions of working- captures something all of us have author of Work Won’t Love You class solidarity has produced an experienced – moments when we Back, it’s all one big con. We’ve been economy full of individualised are unaware of where our abilities

tricked into believing that certain workers seeking fulfilment, who fall short: “I like to think of it as the es work isn’t really work at all. are told the way to achieve that is ‘I’m not biased bias’, which is the

to work hard and compete with tendency to recognise flaws in other ok Imag

Why won’t work love you back? others to get to the top. At the top, people’s thinking, but assume that Bo Ultimately, we work because we presumably, our reward is better, we ourselves are immune to them.” es need to pay the bills, and we have more lovable work, which still The most successful people, from these jobs not because bosses are translates into ‘more work’. entrepreneurs to politicians, think benevolent ‘job creators’, but like a scientist, questioning their because they are profiting from Is there a way out of this? own beliefs and embracing being our work. Even the nicest boss, This is a political problem, not wrong, says Grant. Trouble is, r Hurley; Internet Archiv

the most fulfilling job, exists so a personal one. More people research shows that the smarter te people can make money, not to having discussions about how you are the more you might struggle Pe make us happy. we’d like the workplace to look to update your thinking. “I see far and what we might do to get too many people in the world who NS Group;

Who is most affected by the myth there is going to be necessary. listen to opinions that make them SW of the labour of love? The workers I profiled have all feel good, instead of ideas that In the book I follow two threads, taken action on the job, changed make them think hard,” he says, caring work and creative work, to their working conditions and, in adding that we all need to get into

see how the narrative of loving some cases, the laws, to improve the habit of reconsidering. That : Amanda Jaffe; your work spread from a narrow their situation. The pandemic doesn’t mean we always have to es expectation to one that affects has reminded us that we can change our minds, but if many, many workers. The other change a lot about the workplace “knowledge is power, knowing rren. Pictur

day I drove by a billboard for incredibly quickly – maybe we what you don’t know is wisdom”. Wa Amazon warehouse jobs that said can figure out how to do that

something along the lines of ‘find intentionally, rather than only Adam Grant is a professor at the Wharton s: Claire a job delivering smiles’. So I in response to a crisis. School of the University of Pennsylvania rd Wo

06 PERSPECTIVES

G K I N P O L I N A T T

Should employers use

Old norms hold software to monitor staff? business back Surveillance has come under the spotlight since the start of the pandemic-induced shift to remote working. Research shows BUSINESS, says Judy Samuelson, one in fi ve organisations are using or planning to introduce is the most infl uential institution of software tools to monitor the work of home-based employees. our day. If we are to make progress But is it a good idea, and does it improve productivity? on intractable problems, from climate change to inequality, we need the talent, investment, problem-solving skills and global reach of the business community. EXPERTS’ VIEW “Our vision of business is crowded with stories of greed laced with TIM RINGO JONATHAN RENNIE short-term thinking,” she says. “Yet Author, Partner, as we step into the ecosystem of Solving the Productivity Puzzle TLT business today, we experience profound change in attitudes and Before the pandemic, the global economy was It would be wrong to dismiss monitoring as a new kind of business vision.” already in the midst of the longest period of a tactic that is only used by unscrupulous Despite this, old norms, from how declining people productivity in recorded organisations to chain people to their desks, or economic history. A key factor in this has been to try and catch them out and build a case fi nance is taught in the classroom the rise of ‘presenteeism’ which, research against them. It can be a legitimate business to the incentives and rewards that shows, leads to suboptimal mental health, practice and, in some industries, like fi nancial focus the minds of executives on the lack of sleep and poor fi nancial wellbeing. services, it is required by the regulator. share price, are holding us back and Data shows that presenteeism has need to be broken down. transferred to the home office. Now that more people are working remotely, it’s natural for businesses to want to use some In The Six New Rules of Business, Employers may be permitted by law to use form of monitoring to measure performance Samuelson outlines the shifts in employee monitoring and tracking software and productivity. It could also be used as an attitudes and mindsets that she to check up on workers, but just because they indicator of wellbeing – to ensure people are believes are already in play against can does not mean they should. This forced not suff ering, for example, from a lack of home working should be an opportunity to engagement with their job, perhaps as a result a backdrop of internet-powered break the cycle of increasing presenteeism by of mental health issues. Likewise, if an transparency, a more powerful giving people more fl exibility and autonomy employer can see that someone is consistently worker voice, the decline in the on when and how work gets done. Recent working late, this could be a red fl ag. Employee importance of capital and the studies reveal giving people more autonomy monitoring could indicate where more clarity complexity of global supply chains. greatly reduces stress levels and improves or support from the employer is needed. wellbeing. People should be measured on These include: intangibles drive output, not on time tied to the PC screen. Employment and data protection laws must value, not the balance sheet (but be considered. There’s an implied legal duty can’t be measured in traditional One emerging area of employee tracking that on businesses to maintain staff trust and ways); purpose over profits; and could be a trend for the better is measuring confi dence. Firms must act in a proportionate stress levels at work. Several organisations are and justified manner; inform employees of culture is king (competition for experimenting with wearables that measure their intention to monitor; be mindful of talent and a focus on innovation take and detect rising cortisone on the skin. The discrimination; and use safeguards to prevent precedence over capital markets). devices can predict harmful stress levels up to abuse or over-monitoring.A thorough data an hour before they occur and allow an protection impact assessment is also employee to step back from the brink by recommended to help identify any potential Judy Samuelson is founder of The Aspen participating in stress decelerating activities issues, and is mandatory under the GDPR if Institute’s Business and Society Program such as mindfulness and meditation. the processing of data is high risk.

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Susan Yo ung PERSPECTIVES

The great dispersion TOMAS CHAMORRO-PREMUZIC won’t be good for all ENGAGEMENT DOESN’T GUARANTEE SUCCESS

THE MOST ENDURING OUR INDUSTRY HAS spent the compare diff erent groups on overall feature of the pandemic will be to last decade obsessing over employee scores we are measuring not just accelerate existing trends, and that, engagement scores, resulting in the how they feel today, but how they says Scott Galloway, will include stigmatisation of the unmotivated feel in general, and the easiest way to the trend that “encapsulates the worker. Before the Covid crisis, infl ate your scores would be to hire greatest reshuffling of stakeholder a primary concern for knowledge happy and easy-to-please employees, value in recent history”. workers was whether they could which would sadly not result in any Similar to previous macro trends, fi nd meaning and purpose at work, performance gains. like globalisation and digitisation, a demoralising experience leading This would likely not result in the the ‘great dispersion’ offers to feelings of guilt and existential innovation, change and progress enormous fi nancial opportunities. anxiety in those who could fi nd that are so badly needed by “Amazon dispersed retail to desktop, neither spiritual fulfilment nor organisations either, given these to mobile, to voice. Netflix dispersed psychological attachment. are usually fuelled by high doses of DVDs to our mailbox, then to every While it’s certainly preferable for dissatisfaction. Indeed, it is often screen,” Galloway writes on his blog. managers to have engaged contrarian, diffi cult “The pandemic is causing dispersion teams, the science “Despite the focus on and non-conformist in even larger industries.” suggests this is a far from engagement over the personalities that But while some businesses, such straightforward issue. last decade, levels become change agents, as home exercise company Peloton, The correlation between have remained low” precisely because they Zoom and, of course, Amazon, have engagement and are not satisfied had a good pandemic, we live in performance, for instance, rarely with the status quo. Every a “winner-takes-all economy” and exceeds 0.40, meaning there is just important accomplishment in our the restaurant, travel, hospitality a 16 per cent overlap between history is the result of profoundly and live entertainment industries, employees’ levels of enthusiasm and dissatisfi ed humans, who would for instance, have “scrambled to their productivity. In other words, probably have scored quite low on escape obliteration”, he says. performance is driven by many employee engagement. Previous paradigm shifts have other factors, including talent, Contrary to popular belief, and “catalysed massive prosperity, but expertise and, of course, extrinsic the populist positive psychology little progress”. This time we must incentives (both carrots and sticks). revolution, organisations are not be more conscious of the potential At least half of the variance in in the business of making people downsides, including weakening engagement scores is explained by happy. Nor should they be. Despite ties of community and cooperation. employees’ personalities. If I’m the focus on engagement over the “The pandemic has given us a naturally grumpy and negative, my last decade, levels have remained preview of our dispersed future,” baseline engagement score may be dismally low. Perhaps if we stop says Galloway. “Today we have fi ve (out of 10), but if I tend to be increasing people’s expectations social distancing – tomorrow the optimistic and easy going it will about what they can get from work, distancing will be structural.” likely be more like eight. The we may start to see an increase in implications are clear: when we their satisfaction – and performance.

Scott Galloway is professor of marketing at NYU Stern and author of Post Corona Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a psychologist, author and entrepreneur

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Zoksang; TED PERSPECTIVES

MICHAEL COSTELLO POOR MENTAL HEALTH MAY BE THE PRICE HIGH PERFORMERS PAY FOR SUCCESS

HE WAS THE all-in employee: So what do we need in place to ability to engage with ‘self care’. married to the desk, laptop and protect the wellbeing of our high Blinded by a huge fi nancial carrot mobile phone 24/7. Never switching performers, especially against the and working 80-hour weeks, many off, he enjoyed a fast-paced lifestyle backdrop of an ongoing global crisis? suff ered from FOMO, unable to leading to declining mental health Birkbeck University suggests we recharge and invest time with loved and ultimately breakdown. Yet tune in for shifts in behaviour and ones because of the all-in culture. before this he exceeded his emotions, as well as physical signs One coachee even told me: “The superior’s wildest dreams. In this of burnout, such as anxiety, negative sleep goals we set have worked. I can case, that high performer is former attitudes, tiredness, feeling hungry now sleep for fi ve hours instead of number 10 Downing Street press and headaches. Not easy, of course, six and complete more work!” That’s secretary Alastair Campbell, but it’s given many high performers conceal certainly not what I advocated! a familiar story across Britain’s their true thoughts and feelings. Such behaviour can often be businesses – brilliant staff Alongside observing these shifts in driven by unwritten expectation of repeatedly promoted but at the cost behaviour, perhaps we also need to perfection from senior leaders. Some of family relationships and their of the directors I’ve spoken to have mental health. “One coachee told me: experienced ‘imposter syndrome’ In my slightly sweary conversation ‘The sleep goals have following a promotion, but would with Campbell (him, not me) for a worked.I can sleep for never dream of openly sharing their recent podcast, he described how he five hours instead of six anxieties with their team for fear exhibited mood swings, crashes and and complete more work’” of looking weak. For real culture signs of burnout at work for years. change to take place, leaders like Yet decades later, colleagues pay more attention to what we do this need to speak openly about expressed surprise at just how bad not hear. If employees rarely discuss their fears and ensure wellbeing is his mental health had become – interests outside of work, mention an integral part of performance “I would never have known” (this little about their social or support management and mentoring from Ed Miliband) or “Was it really network, and rarely bring up discussions (learning how to switch that bad?” (Tony Blair). anything about home life, it might off themselves would also help). Perhaps these leaders saw what well be a good time to check in. There’s nothing wrong with was convenient to them at the time, Bupa recently reported that six promoting people for hard work, playing along with the performance. in 10 business leaders are turning to loyalty and dedication, but greater Or perhaps it was just too hard for unhealthy coping mechanisms. Yet, emphasis needs to be placed on them to go there, to address the even when high performers do working smart, recharging the elephant in the room. Today, leaders recognise they are experiencing batteries and managing working who pledge allegiance to their wellbeing challenges, they can boundaries – skills that do not come organisational values have to ‘go struggle to help themselves. My automatically to employees. It’s time there’ but the reality is, while they coaching experience in Silicon to embrace collective organisational may be more willing to address the Valley confirmed to me that they wellbeing and shatter the image of issue, often they do not know how. are certainly not promoted on their the solitary workplace superhero.

Michael Costello is a business psychologist. He is director of Workplace Evolution and records its podcast

11 15 minutes with... Rajarshi Banerjee The medical entrepreneur on following the science, investor diversity and the world’s largest long Covid study

On... the value of outsiders I founded Perspectum largely overwhelmed. ‘Scio’ [the Latin root I’m the only child of immigrant because I wanted to get our of the English word science] means parents who came here to study. technology into the healthcare ‘I know’. But we don’t know much My dad studied engineering, and system. If I had stayed in academia, about this virus, so you want to my mum was groundbreaking as that wouldn’t have happened – predict before you know – shut an Asian woman studying there wouldn’t have been the your borders, for example, before computer science in the early 1970s. funding or the right culture. Now there is evidence of inbound When I went to medical school I Perspectum is applying that tech transmission. Following the science was a bit of an outsider.I loved it to run the world’s largest study just means you can never be ahead and made some lifelong friends, but into long Covid, and the test we of the pandemic. it was a culture shock. It was super use (COVERSCAN) has just competitive and everyone wanted been granted exceptional use On... investors to follow the same track, but do it authorisation by the MHRA I believe in diversity in the investor faster. There weren’t many of the in the UK. pool. Yes you want a couple of things I liked to do for fun, like ruthless capitalists to keep you taking a bottle of Fanta to the park On… life as a CEO focused and make sure there is and just kicking a ball about. But It can be quite scary because you a return. But you also need some the kind of kid who desperately are responsible for the people who nurturing types to help you wants to get into the first team at work for you. Some of them are in manage growth, especially in cricket probably isn’t going to be their first jobs outside academia a company that has a young the person who invents basketball. and they’ve come here from abroad. management team and a first-time It’s a different mindset. Right now they may not even be CEO. And you want some people able to go back to their mother who believe firmly in societal good On... being an entrepreneur country [because of the pandemic]. – there’s this idea that only public I didn’t actually want to be an But, on the other hand, when they companies need to think about it, entrepreneur. After 10 years’ hard do cool stuff there is reflected pride but the boards of private firms work as an NHS hospital doctor I – when COVERSCAN got should focus on it too. wanted to get a consultant’s job, authorisation tears of joy were which usually means you have to shed. Look at the firms that have On … ambitions for the future do a PhD. I chose to study cardiac got exceptional use authorisation I want this company to be

imaging because it seemed fairly recently – Pfizer, AstraZeneca, self-sustaining and I want our lin Stout

easy, but it turned out I was good at Moderna – and then little old technology to be delivered in a Co it. We built a really strong research Perspectum with only 180 people. regular pipeline. The field we are in rtrait:

team and got some patents. The is ever growing. That means in 20 Po novelty was that we applied the On… following the science years’ time we will have gone from s.

same technology we were using on From the start of the pandemic the saying ‘isn’t it sad that we don’t under the heart to other organs like the government has said it would have scans for pancreatic cancer’ liver and pancreas: instead of ‘follow the science’. And yet here to being able to detect a tumour of ew Sa needing an invasive needle biopsy, we are, fourth or fifth largest any kind before it is symptomatic. we could use MRI scans and AI economy in the world, and our There will be much less fiddling software to assess their condition. health service has faced being about with needles and guesswork. Interview: Andr

12 Rajarshi Banerjee Rajarshi Banerjee founded his medical imaging technology business Perspectum Diagnostics in 2012. The company’s first product, LiverMultiScan, uses innovative patented technology to diagnose liver disease via non-invasive MRI scans. Based in Oxford, it employs around 180 people and in April last year closed a $36m funding round led by the Blue Venture Fund and HealthQuest Capital. 20 21 “Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me” Don Corleone es etty Imag /G os id Kitt Dav : 17 ; p16- es p14-15: Mondadori/Getty Imag xxxxc

22 Nigerian military leader Sani Abacha ruled with an iron grip and presided over a regime accused of gross human rights abuses. During his presidency, from 1993 until his death in 1998, Abacha is believed to have stolen and laundered up to $5 billion. In Frank Bayh and Steff Rosenberger-Ochs’s What If The Were Unicorns series, the artists offer a visual representation of the world’s tyrants as crying innocents and question what might have been.

•

23 The coronavirus pandemic has prompted many governments to rewrite the fiscal rules to support their beleaguered populations. But, as Andrew Saunders discovers, debt has been helping make the world go round for centuries – and a little bit can have a positive impact

ow much debt is too much? This peren- leads the pack at 266 per cent of GDP, followed by nial question has been pondered by Greece at 205 per cent and Italy a few places behind at monarchs, ministers and monetarists 162 per cent. The genie is out of the bottle and, for now Hdown the ages, and has been thrown once at least, the last thing anyone is thinking about is how again into razor-sharp relief in the last year by the to get it back in. extraordinary – and extraordinarily rapid – economic “There is a magic money tree, whether you like it response to coronavirus around the world. or not,” says Vicky Pryce, board member at economic Where once prudence, even a degree of austerity, think tank the Centre for Economics and Business were the watchwords of treasuries across the globe, Research. “And for me the most fascinating thing is since March last year (when the pandemic was that it exists for as long as people continue to believe declared) unprecedented largesse has suddenly in it. The moment you start to think ‘we need to cut become the order of the day. Restraint seems to have back’ that mood can change very quickly.” gone out of the window, replaced by the urgent But how worried should we be – are those numbers attempt if not to spend our way out of the crisis, then really as scary as they seem? “The right way to frame at least to use huge piles of cash to cushion the that question is to ask ‘what’s the alternative?’ Where associated social and economic blows. would we be if we had not borrowed?” says Erik In the UK this has turned politics upside down, Britton, founder of Fathom Consulting and former with a Conservative government borrowing sums Bank of England macroeconomist. He believes that even Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party would have that without calling on that additional debt, things trembled to imagine – around £1bn a day last would have become very bad, very quickly. “What is year, accruing a total deficit for 2020 of £355bn, or already the biggest recession of all time would have 17 per cent of GDP, the highest since the end of turned into the biggest depression of all time. UK World War II. unemployment would be at the seven or eight million Around the world there is a similar picture – debt mark and rising, and GDP would be down by 20 per has been the number one weapon of choice to meet cent and falling. That cycle would continue until it the crisis. According to the International Monetary ended in revolution. Fund (IMF), an astounding $12trn was added to the “So what we’re really asking is, is it worth global burden of public debt in the first nine months of increasing the government debt ratio by say 30 per the pandemic alone. That’s $12trn. Think about that cent of GDP to avoid that situation? Absolutely it is – if number for a moment.A 12 with 12 noughts after it. the alternative is revolution or even world war, then Equivalent to the entire GDP of all 19 Eurozone everyone is better off as a result.” countries, or 14.3 per cent of the economic output of It’s all rather ironic – or, more optimistically, the entire globe, if you prefer. Enough to buy Apple – a measure of human progress – given that the national the world’s most valuable company – six times over. debt arose in the first place not to stave off the Or every house in the UK, plus every business in the possibility of war, but rather to pay for several that FTSE 100, and still leave a couple of trillion in the did happen. The idea dates back to the reign of bank for emergencies. William III, who offered the first ever formal sale It all amounts to a hasty and comprehensive of sovereign (national) debt, borrowing about rewrite of the economic ‘rules’ on debt. Twenty odd £1m from a syndicate of city merchants to pay for years ago, remember, then Labour chancellor Gordon a new navy following defeat by the French in the Brown set a 40 per cent ‘debt to GDP limit’ that was Nine Years’ War. Monarchs had borrowed from considered pretty racy by many. When the Eurozone bankers and wealthy aristocrats before of course, was established around the same time, one of the but such arrangements could be tricky to negotiate joining requirements was a debt to GDP ratio of no and/or politically inconvenient. There was no need more than 60 per cent. for the king to worry about treading on the toes of But the latest ONS figures show the public sector’s mere merchants and traders, or – God forbid – net debt amounts to £2.1trn, equivalent to 100.8 per bumping into any of them. The new idea turned out cent of GDP – a level not seen since the early 1960s. to be one of the great financial innovations of all The international average ratio is about the same, time, culminating in the foundation of the Bank although the most indebted nations have much higher of England in 1694, which helped finance the figures. According to IMF projections for 2020, Japan Napoleonic Wars.

18 debt

Easy access to debt proved so fantastically Zilch, he says, makes its money from a per convenient that other rulers quickly followed William’s transaction fee to the retailer – there’s no interest example. Four hundred years later we have the $100trn charged to the customer and people use it because it global bond market, trading everything from national offers a better deal than a credit card. It’s the first UK debt and corporate loans to credit card and mortgage buy-now-pay-later provider to be fully regulated by books. Central banks operating a vast programme of the FCA, and closed a $30m series B funding round quantitative easing (the introduction of new money late last year. “Our model is completely the opposite into the money supply) have also helped to keep interest [of credit cards],” says Belamant. “We want you to rates at record lows in recent years, making debt look repay on time, every time. We never want to over lend. even more attractive by keeping the repayments Sixty-five per cent of our customers don’t have a credit correspondingly affordable. card, because they are tired of being ripped off.” “The curiosity is that we have record levels of So for nation states and consumers alike, the government borrowing in almost every economy but, at prevailing consensus on debt seems to be that it’s the same time, ridiculously low yields [interest a vital lubricant that keeps the commercial machinery rates] on government bonds,” says David moving and smooths the otherwise lumpy course Smith, veteran economics editor of The Times. of progress. So long as you can afford the “That’s a reflection of the fact that the markets payments, it’s all good. “An economy is don’t expect short-term interest rates to go up movement and flow, it’s transactions, any time soon. But the central banks have also things happening. What we worry about been doing an enormous amount of is keeping that flow going, because quantitative easing. That’s a huge anything that stops it kills the economy,” market distortion and essentially free says Britton. money for the government.” But this simple transactional view It’s also instructive that for 100 years papers over the deep-rooted anxiety or so from the 1760s to the 1860s – a period about debt that lurks beneath. For that includes the economic explosion of much of human history, a debt has the industrial revolution – the UK’s been an unwelcome or even dangerous national debt remained well above the obligation, with the potential to grant 100 per cent of GDP that is sparking so creditors absolute power over those much concern today, peaking at more who owe them something. Failure to than 235 per cent in the 1820s. In fact, there pay a debt in Sumer in 3,000BC, for have only been two half-century periods example, could result in a life of slavery not where it has remained consistently below 100 only for the debtor, but his family and per cent of GDP: the years before World War I servants too. Unpaid debts could even be and those from the early 1960s to the modern, inherited, condemning multiple generations to pre-pandemic era. the same fate. Where kings and princes first tread, commoners The Romans went one better – meting out violent eventually follow. Since the dawn of the credit card and sometimes mortal punishments for unpaid debts. (the US BankAmericard was first introduced in 1958, Those who wished to avoid such a grisly end and did followed in the UK by the Barclaycard in 1966 and not have friends in high places could ‘volunteer’ for Access in 1972) debt has become increasingly debt bondage instead. This was just debt slavery by democratised. Now in the smartphone era, with a another name but, according to the bloodthirsty plethora of apps offering multiple forms of credit with mores of the times, was seen as a relatively progressive just a few swipes, it’s easier than ever for the average and lenient alternative. person to get into debt. Morality has also always been closely, if somewhat The fastest growing sector is currently ‘buy now uneasily, linked to debt. Paying what one owes is pay later’. Providers such as Klarna and Clearpay have widely regarded as a benchmark of character and drawn criticism from MPs and regulators alike for trustworthiness, even if many of us struggle to live up offering ‘lifestyle’ debt to the social media generation. to it. Honouring debt is also baked into many of the But, says Philip Belamant, founder and CEO of fast- world’s major religions but, at the same time, those es growing buy-now-pay-later start-up Zilch, just who profit unduly from the debts of others have been because the model is novel, doesn’t mean it’s all bad: reviled. Just think of Jesus turning over the tables of “The traditional credit card model is based on the moneylenders, and the malevolent Shylock who Getty Imag

y/ overlending – lending you money that you can’t afford demands a pound of flesh as security on a loan in le

ze to repay all at once, but that you can afford to repay Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Or the dim view Da

r over a period of time. Because otherwise there is no taken of usury – the charging of interest – still te interest or fees for the provider.” forbidden in Islamic law. • Pe

19 CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE

Government debt around the world has reached levels not seen since the last world war

150% HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

General government debt (% of GDP) 1901-2021 $12.04trn The national debt of Japan, the country with the 1939-45 highest pre-pandemic debt World War II to GDP ratio at 234% Source: SpendMeNot 120% 1952 US tests fi rst hydrogen bomb over the Marshall 1961 Islands 1933 1936 Berlin wall goes up Hitler becomes Anti-fascist Cable chancellor of Street riots in Germany London 1973 90% 1957 , OPEC Harold embargo

Group Macmillan triggers es tells Brits: world oil ‘You’ve never mmons crisis l Imag

Co had it so good’ sa ative re /C 1976 Photo12-Univer , 60% 1914-18 UK bailed out by ; Multicherry World War I

es $3.9bn IMF loan llection-Gado ADVANCED ECONOMIES Co etty Imag /G Smith eb-AFP os, Lo aul x Phot ,S Fo 30% -Corbis in bild, EMERGING ECONOMIES rd te va n,,Sunset Boule so Heinrich Hoffmann, ulls , Ander

ne 0% to est ys 01 37 67 07 22 25 34 49 43 46 64 04 40 rr 928 1916 1913 1931 1919 1961 1910 19 1976 19 1973 1979 19 1970 19 19 19 1952 1 1955 1958 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 Fo Ke

20 debt

THE INTERNATIONAL STORY Change in gross government debt (% of GDP)

266.2% KEY 2020-21 2012 228.7% 2020

Coronavirus 2020 r pandemic be to

161.8% Oc ,

83.2% 131.2% 126.5% itor 108% 103.3% Mon 89.3% al 81.1% 73.3% 61.7% 67.7% Fisc F

2000 34.4% IM Nokia 3310 is rce: ou the world’s y ly ia na UK pan ta USA nd

bestselling I I Chi man mobile phone Ja

2017 Ger 1982 Donald Trump E.T. released, becomes US the highest- president THE 10 MOST INDEBTED EUROPEAN COUNTRIES grossing fi lm of 1992 National debt to GDP ratios (pre-pandemic figures) the 80s World’s Debt: GDP ratio $ largest 2007-08 1 Greece 182% 231.2bn McDonald’s Global 2 Italy 128% 2.3trn opens in fi nancial 3 Portugal 118% 293.3bn Beijing crisis 4 Belgium 99% 484bn 5 France 96% 2.5trn tS 6 Spain 95% 1.1trn

7 Cyprus 90% 20.2bn MeNo 8 UK 86% 2.9trn nd Spe 9 Ukraine 77% 73.8bn :

1989 10 Croatia 73% 44.7bn urce So Berlin Wall comes COUNTING THE COST OF COVID down Government debt accrued as a result of pandemic response packages (% of total GDP) 2020 UK USA GERMANY ITALY r be

9.2% 1 1.8% 8.35% 4.9% to

16.6% 2.5% 30.8% 33% Oc , nitor Mo l sca Fi

jAPAN CHINA INDIA F KEY 11.3% 4.6% 1.8% IM Outer circle Additional spending 23.7% 1.3% 5.2%

Inner circle Equities, loans rce: and guarantees Sou

THE FALLING COST OF BORROWING ct

oje General government interest expenditure to GDP ratio Database Pr k e (% of GDP) 2000-20 oo tl

bas 3.5 ta KEY Ou c Da Advanced economies 3.0 Emerging markets onomi Ec Madison F;

2.5 rld IM Wo e: F rc

2.0 IM ou e: S rc Sou 21 15 1.5 03 09 06 00 82 85 88 94 1991 1997 20 19 2012 20 00 01 02 030405060708091011121314151617181920 19 2018 19 19 20 20 20 20

21 22 debt

Debt, undertaker Amerigo Bonasera discovers in The Godfather, comes in all shapes and sizes. Pledging his loyalty to Vito, head of the

Corleone family, in exchange for revenge for a violent assault on his es daughter, Bonsera has nightmares about what he will be asked to do in return. When Corleone’s son Sonny is killed (pictured), Bonasera learns the truth. Far from committing a heinous crime, his debt will be Getty Imag

fully repaid when he prepares the young man’s body for burial S/ CB

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In fact, debt in the Middle Ages was more are equivalent to one cow? modern than we tend to assume; those aforementioned But more recent anthropological interpretations buy-now-pay-later apps might seem like a new idea, have taken issue with this. Both the late David but are they really? The technologyis cutting edge but Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years and Joseph the concept is as old as the hills, says Briggs: “From Henrich’s The Secret of Our Success point out that the top of society to the bottom, hardly anyone ever there is good historical evidence that things happened actually bought anything outright – it was almost all the other way around – debt came first, and metal and on a deferred-payment basis. These [buy now paper currency emerged later, at least partly as pay later] apps like Klarna, that’s a very typical a means of facilitating more of the lending that was medieval arrangement.” already taking place. Which brings us neatly back to the present day and If you live in a barter economy, goes their the big question: what are the limits on borrowing? At argument, and you really want one of your neighbour’s some point don’t we have to start paying it back? For cows today, you’re not going to wait for the invention consumers, the only sensible answer is yes – and of money to do the deal. He wants 12 chickens in indeed many have been using the pandemic as an spring? Make it 10 and you’re on. Or perhaps his opportunity to do just that. The latest Bank of England son would like to marry your daughter? The figures show that a record £16.6bn of credit card bills, wise neighbour might even make a ‘gift’ of the personal loans and car finance deals were paid off last cow, knowing that having you in his debt is bound to year. That’s the first net decline since 2011, and the come in handy. biggest since records began in The point is, in the absence 1993. Savings ratios have also of cash, deals were done and been going up. debts run up – the equivalence “As long as people continue The situation is rather more doesn’t have to be as perfect to believe in the government’s nuanced for nation states. and repeatable as the economic credit, it could borrow much “Governments aren’t like rationalists might like, it just households. The only constraint has to be acceptable to both more than it has” on government debt is at what parties at the time. In fact, the point is a government going to pre-financial world ran on decide that the least of precisely such local networks of reciprocal debt and all political evils is not to pay back their debt?” says obligation for centuries, says Dr Chris Briggs, senior Kay. “Countries like the US and the UK are many, lecturer in medieval British social and economic many miles from that.” history at the University of Cambridge. “Many But isn’t there a fundamental responsibility on historians used to presume that there wasn’t much governments to retrench once the worst of the crisis credit in the pre-modern world and that the economy is past? “There’s a school of thought that says that was constrained by an inability to lend or borrow,” he while interest rates are low, there’s no reason to stop explains. “But when we started to look more closely at borrowing,” says Britton. “My position is different – the records, we realised that credit and debt is I think in a crisis like Covid, it’s essential for the everywhere in medieval times.” government to borrow a shedload to get through the Much of Briggs’s work involves local records of crisis as quickly as possible, but as soon as you can court proceedings over debts, highlighting an issue you need to stop and think about tax rises and that remains pertinent to this day: how creditors can spending cuts. Otherwise you will pay the price in prove a debt is owed and, conversely, how debtors can lower growth rates and interest rates forever.” prove they have paid what is due. The solution was the The lessons of history, however, suggest that debt tally stick, a simple device that could function tends to only go one way because more tax and less variously as a record, receipt and proof of payment – spending are rarely vote winners. “The trouble is that the Excel spreadsheet of a pre-literate age. retrenching requires political will, which we probably “Tallies tended to be used for bigger debts; you won’t have,” says Britton. “Every time we get in a would get a piece of hazel wood and inscribe it with crisis, we just ratchet up the debt ratios permanently, notches to mark the amount owed,” says Briggs. and ratchet down interest rates.I think that’s the “This was split down the middle [hazel being used likely outcome this time around too.” because it splits cleanly] and each party would So regardless of our individual prudence or keep one half.” profligacy, we had probably better get used to living Tallies were hard to forge because no two hazel with a lot more debt for a long time to come. sticks split in exactly the same way; they were more reliable than an oral witness who might be persuaded For further reading, see page 72

25 A (LOOSE) HISTORY OF WORK IN 10 SONGS You can learn a lot about how employment has changed over the decades thanks to the artists who have immortalised the world of work in their song lyrics

SONG OF THE VOLGA BOATMEN, TRADITIONAL RUSSIAN FOLK SONG

‘Yo, heave ho! Yo, heave ho! Once more, once again, still once more’– that is the MY DADDY KNOWS BEST, timeless sound of Russian peasants (known as burlaks) THE MARVELETTES, 1963 singing to raise their spirits while dragging barges upstream After his mother nagged him on the Volga. In the 1800s, 24/7 to find work, tenor Richard before the invention of Lewis wrote the lyrics to the steam-powered vessels, 1958 smash hit Get a Job. Five 600,000 burlaks were years later, the refrain ‘Get a job, performing this thankless task. get a job’ was referenced in My The Russian folk song’s simple, Daddy Knows Best, written by Motown boss Berry Gordy Jr for

repetitive rhythm sounds like hs the Marvelettes, in which the a precursor to Chain Gang, Oc written in 1960 by Sam Cooke singer threatens to dump her after encountering a prison feckless boyfriend because, in Michael chain gang in Georgia. The her father’s words: ‘Romance , American constitution without finance can be a specifically permits slavery as nuisance.’ Both songs offer an a punishment for crime and, amusing commentary on the cog although chain gangs have been generation gap, while obliquely disbanded, prison labour alluding to a reality in which one

remains a controversial in 10 black Americans were ian Museum; LMPC ss multibillion-dollar industry. unemployed. Ru ; Amazon; Dis es HEIGH-HO, THE DWARF CHORUS, 1937

The seven dwarfs in Disney’s groundbreaking animation – Bashful, lga/The State

Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy and Sneezy – celebrate the Vo fruits of their labour with the song Heigh-Ho. The expression ‘heigh ho’ is usually associated with weary resignation, but the dwarfs are relentlessly upbeat, probably because ‘it ain’t no trick to get rich quick’ if you are mining diamonds and rubies by the score. Haulers on the

(They also, conforming to the gender stereotypes of the day, had ge

Snow White to cook and clean for them.) In contrast, frustrated vin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Imag by their inability to even get rich slowly, many of Walt Disney’s Ke pin, Bar animators went on strike in 1941. es, Re Archiv Ilya

26 working anthems

SHIPBUILDING, ELVIS COSTELLO, 1983

IN THE NAVY, In a town stricken by VILLAGE PEOPLE, 1979 unemployment, rumours spread that the shipyards will start hiring again. The unspoken irony in Does this Village People number Shipbuilding – a hit for Robert contain a hidden gay message? Wyatt in 1982 – is that this is all After using In the Navy in its down to the Falklands conflict recruitment ads, the US Navy (the boy who tells his dad he’s fretted about such innuendos being ‘taken to task’ is joining the as ‘they’re signing up new British Navy task force). Elvis seamen fast’ and reverted to Costello’s version has the smoky, Anchors Aweigh. Victor Willis, jazzy atmosphere of a working Village People’s frontman (he men’s club. His lament for a was the faux policeman), denies MAGGIE’S FARM, vanishing working class way of subversive intent. It certainly life recalls Robert Palmer’s 1980 BOB DYLAN, 1965 flows better than the British track I Dream of Wires, narrated World War I recruitment song by ‘the last electrician alive’ ‘They say sing while you slave, I’ll Make a Man of You, which whose job has been automated. and I just get bored.’ After a no- begins with the clunky couplet: holds barred description of the ‘The Army and the Navy need 6 INCH, BEYONCÉ, 2016 poor conditions endured in the attention/The outlook isn’t US service sector in the 1960s healthy you’ll admit.’ – proof modern slavery isn’t ‘She works for the money’ sings that modern – Dylan complains Beyoncé, introducing us to about striving for originality a prostitute who empowers when ‘everyone wants you to be herself by donning six-inch like them’. The song was later heels, going clubbing and recorded by The Specials in pro- drinking Hennessy whiskey, but test against Margaret Thatcher. who, it transpires, is a metaphor for hard-working women in general, including Hot, Buttered and Soul (sisters Pat and Diane Lewis and Rose Williams) who CUBICLES, MY CHEMICAL served as Isaac Hayes’s backing singers. The lyrics’ emphasis on 9 TO 5, ROMANCE, 2007 working for the money echoes the Donna Summer hit She DOLLY PARTON, 1981 ‘I’d photocopy all the things that Works Hard for the Money we could be/If you took the time (1983), a paean to blue-collar Only Dolly Parton could to notice me.’ This song of women inspired by Summer’s YOUR APPLICATION’S condemn the ‘greed is good’ unrequited office romance encounter with exhausted ethos of 1980s capitalism with reveals how radically workplace restroom attendant Onetta FAILED, ROXY MUSIC, 1974 a song this catchy and pointed. mores have changed since Johnson (who is namechecked Even though her boss uses her #MeToo. If the protagonist left in the lyrics) at a Los Angeles A neglected B-side, this largely mind and never gives her credit, any of his love notes on his restaurant. instrumental track is interrupted Dolly’s secretarial heroine colleague’s desk today he would by shouts of ‘Your application’s suspects she will spend her likely be reported to HR. In failed!’ from Roxy’s drummer, working life ‘puttin’ money in his a similar vein, Coldplay’s Paul Thompson, who wrote it wallet’. The song helped Parton piano-driven ballad The after being turned down by the break one glass ceiling – she Scientist (2002) reflects Chris London Underground. The became the first woman to top Martin’s belief that ‘whatever jaunty, surreal melody perfectly the US pop and country charts else is on your mind, whether captures the caprices of the since Jeannie C Riley in 1968. it’s global economics or the British job market as the 1960s’ As entertaining as 9 to 5 is, the environment, the thing that boom gave way to 1970s’ bust. social criticism is as biting as in always gets you most is when John Lennon’s Imagine. you fancy someone’.

27 28 interview

“ A business’s contribution to society is as valuable as its financial performance ” Co-op chief customer officer Matt Atkinson talks to Andrew Saunders about how the pandemic has created a more community-focused mindset – and why he believes ethical firms should get a tax break

re mutuals having a moment? Over the includes the funeral and legal businesses as well as the years, organisations owned by their 4,000-strong store chain) posted figures for the first employees or customers have come in for half of 2020 showing revenues up 7.6 per cent and pre- their fair share of criticism from those at tax profits up 35 per cent to £27m. It added 1.7 million Athe more hard-nosed shareholder value customers through the depths of lockdown one, and in end of the business spectrum. Too many cooks. Too September last year achieved its highest share of the little focus on the bottom line. Lacking the commercial grocery market, at 7.1 per cent, for 20 years. At the same killer instinct. Old fashioned. But now, at least one of time it has donated £15m to worthy causes, funded the UK’s oldest and best-loved mutuals, the Co-op, has advertising that helped raise £650,000 for the FareShare confounded those critics by outperforming many more free school meals campaign and given a pay rise to 35,000 ostensibly ‘business like’ high street rivals and turning of its lowest-paid workers, who will now all receive at least in its best figures for years – despite, or perhaps partly the real living wage. because of, the ongoing trials of the pandemic. And far from being a distraction, the Co-op’s 4.6 For chief customer officer Matt Atkinson – former ad million active members, each of whom owns at least a £1 man and CMO for Tesco, where he spent several years stake in the business, keep the interests of customers front running the Clubcard programme before joining the Co- and centre in the boardroom as well as at the tills. One op in 2017 – it’s been a rare opportunity to prove that pur- of Atkinson’s primary goals is to grow the membership, pose and profit are not mutually exclusive and that nice using technologyto provide them with more personalised guys don’t always finish last. “Our purpose is to cooper- and convenient shopping, and to help them do more good ate for a fairer world and everything we do comes back to in their communities. that. There’s definitely been a recognition that our inten- He’s also been busy addressing the Co-op’s late arrival tions and our actions are different,” he says. “We’re seeing at the home delivery party, taking a leaf out of the tech bigger baskets as people shop more locally and our brand start-up playbook and partnering with delivery providers metrics have really strengthened as a result of us being rather than trying to build capability exclusively in-house. seen as generous, front footed and community spirited.” Yes it means sharing the pie, but it’s fast and effective; It’s enlightened self-interest where if the customer same-day online ordering is now available in more than out

St wins and the community wins, then so does the Co-op, 650 stores thanks to third-party tie-ins with the likes n li and it seems to be working. The Co-op Group (which of Deliveroo, Pinga and Buymie, and online orders have • Co

29 risen fourfold during the pandemic. “It’s a question of brands to be more honest about data and privacy, and where the value is,” he says. “Is it in hiring a delivery our products have privacy built in by design rather workforce and having a distribution centre and all that? than as an add-on afterwards. It creates a virtuous Or is it in commercial cooperation? The partnership circle: if the customer trusts your intentions, you get model works really well – we’ve made our shops available higher levels of participation and engagement. You to that channel in a way that means we don’t have to invest also get higher levels of forgiveness – in the complex an enormous amount of cash.” multi-channel world inevitably you don’t get things The Co-op may not be the most obvious of career perfectly right all the time, but if customers trust you choices for someone who earned his stripes in the red- they are more likely to say: ‘That’s OK,I know it was a in-tooth-and-claw world of advertising. But Atkinson’s mistake and you didn’t mean to do that.’ upbringing and education gave him an appreciation of di- versity and the value of cooperation. Born in the UK, he But doesn’t moving into same-day delivery and moved to Singapore with his parents and went to the local personalisation put you into competition with giants school rather than the one provided for expat children. “I like Amazon, as well as the other supermarket chains? grew up in a very ethnically diverse environment. Right The biggest issue for all of us with Amazon is that it the way until I leftto go to universityI was the only gweilo is really good. Everyone is talking digital transforma- [foreigner], as they used to call me. The only white guy in tion; obviously the Co-op has nothing like Amazon’s the whole school. My mum would say that has made me size and scale but we are trying to do digital in a way into quite an adaptable person.” that benefits everyone and is additive not extractive. He talked to Work. from his home in Hertfordshire Our vision of e-commerce is one where the Co-op about leadership inlockdown,the future of retailand what store becomes a hub providing a range of things that the Co-op and footballer-turned-Twitter-campaigner par local communities need: delivery, click and collect, excellence Marcus Rashford have in common. a Post Office in areas where they can’t maintain an independent one. Another thing that’s become clear What are the biggest differences between the way a through the pandemic is that we also offer an emo- mutual behaves and a conventional private company? tional benefit – the Co-op is a nice business with an One of the things I have really noticed at the Co-op enjoyable experience and we have good ethics and compared to some of the businesses I have worked sustainability. Our customers can put something back. for is that there is much more desire to cooperate and What’s interesting to me is that Amazon has suddenly much less tension about needing to own and control woken up to the emotional side – if you look at their everything. The driving principle is one of mutual footprint at the moment they’re trying super hard to gain. That has really allowed us to develop a lot of put a nice face on the machine. partnerships, such as with John Lewis [customers can now pick up online orders from their local Co-op]. It’s Has lockdown changed the way that you think about less about ‘let’s beat the crap out of everybody so that being a leader? we can win’ and much more about how to align your One of the benefits has been that leaders have been vision and share the value. much more exposed to their people and what matters Having 4.6 million active members is important to them. We measure this internally and we’ve seen too. Partly because they help us stay customer focused a massive shift in what matters to our employees, so – our members are like a super-engaged customer much so that I would say what mattered in the last five panel and give us great feedback on stuff that really years won’t in the next five. Employees are looking matters to them. But also because they each own a for leaders who are a bit more vulnerable and who do share in the business so, instead of trying to return care about them. Real human beings. But it needs to value to the stockmarket, we are trying to return value be authentic – are you being kind to someone because to our members and their communities. It leads us to you want something back from them, or because it’s be more participatory and come up with things like the right thing to do? our Co-operate scheme [an online service that helps match volunteers with local groups and charities]. Why did the Co-op get involved with Marcus Rashford’s free school meals campaign? You’ve made big strides in the last year or so in We’ve worked really hard with Marcus on the terms of going digital. What’s behind that? free school meals agenda because we share a mission We’re trying to grow the membership and make to make the world a fairer place, and there’s a lot of the Co-op as accessible as possible. So we’ve made it common enthusiasm around that mission. He thinks easier to join – now you can do it all online, whereas it is unfair that in a modern society there are young before you had to fill in a form. And we’re using children who don’t get enough food, and so do we. data to make shopping more personalised, but in a It’s hard to argue with what Marcus says – he isn’t transparent way. I think shoppers are looking for trying to make anyone wrong. Often campaigners are

30 interview

Shared vision: the Co-op worked with footballer Marcus Rashford on his free school meals campaign

basically saying: ‘You lot are wrong and I’m right’ but What’s your vision for the post-pandemic future? with Marcus it’s just common sense. A lot of people have been shopping online who Our community plan is all about food poverty, and didn’t used to, and many of them have liked the how you can give dignity to those people and help experience. I think that’s going to lead to the rise of them in a way that doesn’t make them feel bad. We’re new forms of more curated shopping – subscription not doing any of this because we think it gives us a services, for example, based around ethical, competitive advantage; I don’t think any other food sustainable and community-based trends: ‘I’d like retailer would look at it like that. to subscribe to an ethical lunch meal plan, and this week I’d like to be low carb.’ I think trust, ethics and You were a pioneer of the UK’s first supermarket transparency will also become increasingly important loyalty card. Now that it’s so easy for online customers currencies in business success. to be promiscuous, is loyalty dead? If we are to stand a chance of doing something Tesco’s Clubcard was a brilliant partnership; a about climate change then business needs to start fusion of data, insight and creativity – the kind of thinking about success in a more balanced way over thing that is commonplace now but led to all kinds of the next 10 years, so there is growing pressure on innovations that are still with us today. Twenty-four- organisations to be more multi-stakeholder oriented: hour store opening was something we spotted in the focusing on shareholder value alone just isn’t good Clubcard data, and it generated important peripheral enough anymore – you need to think about return to businesses too – Tesco Bank, for one. the community and the planet too. It was one of the first mass personalisation Ultimately I’d like to see a world where the contri- schemes; a trend that is accelerating hugely today. bution that an organisation makes to society and its The quarterly personalised statement we sent out to impact on the planet is seen as being as valuable as its members had an incredibly high sales-to-cost ratio, EBITDA [financial performance]. And wouldn’t it also oto and although it is now much more digital people still be fantastic if the companies that were really good at Ph k love it and collect the vouchers. that also enjoyed lower taxes? Why not, if the commu- oc Clubcard was really a sort of thank you scheme; nity is benefiting, education is benefiting, the planet my St a value exchange between the customer and the is benefiting? Tax is important, because it’s one of the la

/A organisation. That philosophy has stayed with me ways that we look after each other, but it can also be ugh forever – it’s not carrot and stick, it’s truly a case of: used to reward the behaviours that you seek.

Wa ‘We want to say thank you to you, and as a result of

Mark that we think you will say thank you to us.’ For further reading, see page 72

31 media

JUST THE FACTS MA’AM, JUST THE FACTS

32 The abolition of the fairness doctrine obliging broadcasters to offer balanced coverage in 1987 has had a significant impact on American television news but, as Paul Simpson points out, the likes of Fox News certainly didn’t invent biased reporting

33 here were only three things wrong with the Friends show supported this attack with a photograph of story about the Fox News exclusive that president and pirate, which had actually been created as Barack Obama had created Festivus to a joke for a White House correspondents’ dinner by three destroy Christmas. First, there is no concrete of Obama’s senior aides. The photo was so obviously fake Tproof that Obama ever aspired to torpedo the one can only assume hitherto undreamt of levels of festive season. Second, Festivus was an alternative credulity in the Fox & Friends team or, maybe, that they seasonal festival created by Reader’s Digest editor Daniel didn’t care if it was true or not. O’Keefe in 1966, which only became famous when his son, Yet it is also true that people who don’t like Fox – TV comedy writer and producer Dan, incorporated it into actually, that’s putting it too mildly, people who loathe the plot for an episode of sitcom Seinfeld in 1997. Third, this Fox – will believe pretty much anything anyone says exclusive was not, as was widely believed in some circles, about the channel providing it is bad. In other words, we broadcast on Fox News on 21 August 2018 by Tomi Lahren have arrived at that dangerous point in human affairs in an attempt to distract viewers from the fact that two of that Democratic senator Patrick Moynihan warned us Donald Trump’s close associates – lawyer Michael Cohen against in a much-quoted Washington Post column in and campaign manager Paul Manafort – had been 1983. We live in an age where everyone feels entitled to convicted that day. their own opinion – and entitled, also, to their own facts. Confused? You needn’t be. It is true that Fox did The question is: how did we get here? downplay the significance of those court cases, initially There is a snobbish train of thought in Britain that reporting Cohen’s guilty plea without mentioning any there is something peculiarly American about the connection to Trump. For most of the day the channel’s business of fake news. It’s a consoling idea but, as author homepage led with a story about police in Iowa accusing and Financial Times columnist Simon Kuper points out, an undocumented Mexican immigrant of murder. it is hardly supported by the facts: “The British have When Fox’s popular host Sean Hannity did discuss the had fake news for decades: tabloid newspapers. That has convictions on his evening show, he dismissed been counterbalanced by the BBC, which Britons get 70 them as “false reporting, speculation and hysteria” by per cent of their news from, and the BBC, although it is the liberal media, which was much criticised and struggles on engaged in a witchhunt to “turn some issues, is fundamentally a the screws” on Trump. good, solid news organisation – Fox didn’t invent a story “In the world of Fox News, there and there is nothing like it in about an Obama plot to wreck is only one story – a conspiracy American broadcasting.” Christmas to distract from – and only two pronouns: There is also, as Kuper argues, a Trump’s woes for the simpler ‘you’ and ‘they’” correlation between the modus reason that it didn’t need to. As operandi adopted by The Sun in the Peter Pomerantsev, author of 1970s, under Rupert Murdoch’s This is Not Propaganda, puts it: ownership, and what Fox, under “In the world of Fox News, there is only one story – the same owner, is doing today: “Murdoch’s ideology has a conspiracy – and only two pronouns – ‘you’ and ‘they’ always been pretty consistent. He believes in minimal – and, as they constantly remind their viewers, ‘they’ are taxation, minimal regulation and minimal government attacking ‘you’.” Both these legal verdicts fitted that intervention.” es narrative perfectly – ‘they’ (and here viewers could That was The Sun’s credo in its heyday under its nominate an enemy of their choice or just stick with Fox’s talismanic editors, Larry Lamb and then Kelvin usual suspects: the liberal establishment) were plotting MacKenzie, on whose watch, in 1987, the paper sold etty Imag /G

against your president. almost four million copies a day. The tabloid never left st So where does Obama’s plot to cancel Christmas fit readers in any doubt about its political allegiance: on the Po into all of this? Tucker Carlson, one of the channel’s most day of the 1992 general election, its front-page headline

controversial presenters, has complained that the “left read: ‘If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave shington struggles to say the word Christian”, and anchor Megyn Britain turn out the lights.’ Wa Kelly famously declared on Fox that “for all you kids Nor did the tabloid stint when it came to finding watching at home, Santa just is white”, but that’s all. The enemies – ‘they’ – who were out to attack – ‘you’– the story was a complete hoax, and the fact that it was so reader. The cast of villains included the ‘loony left’, trade

widely believed doesn’t cast either Fox or its liberal critics union leaders, social workers, Argentinians and snobs rk, LLC; p35: The in a particularly flattering light. (anyone who disapproved of it, especially if they objected wo Net

In truth, Fox has run stories that are almost as absurd. to photographs of topless models on page three). Private ws

In 2012, the channel condemned Obama because, after Eye’s spoof Sun headline ‘Kill an Argie and win a Metro’ Ne X

saying he was “too busy” to meet Israeli prime minister was, like Fox’s festive faux news, a parody that worked so FO Benjamin Netanyahu, he found time to meet a man in a well because it was so close to the real thing. Outrageous, pirate costume on the White House sofa. The Fox & opinionated, irreverent, MacKenzie’s Sun pioneered the p32-33:

34 media

Roger Ailes, Fox News CEO from 1996 to 2016, had first dreamed of launching a right-wing news TV channel in 1970

idea of news as entertainment. It didn’t matter if you for allegedly exaggerating his Parkinson’s disease believed, as it notoriously declared in a front-page symptoms and held up a photo of a 13-year-old Chelsea exclusive on 13 March 1986, that Freddie Starr really had Clinton to ridicule her as “the White House dog”without tucked into a hamster sandwich or not – the very idea was any serious blowback, anything is permitted. enough to make readers laugh. In essence, Pomerantsev By 2008 Limbaugh had become, one poll found, the argues what Fox has done is to adapt The Sun’s formula most trusted news personality in America. Such was his and take it to the highest level. influence, Pomerantsev says, he changed the way The Sun was characteristically vociferous in its sup- America talked about politics. “He was the first person to port for Ronald Reagan, and the Republican president’s make every issue about identity and not about the facts approach to regulation would, in the long term, pay divi- –whichmeansnomatterhowcompellingtheinformation dends for Murdoch. “Television news had been pretty you give people, they will hardly ever change their impartial in America until Reagan deregulated it – that’s minds. Climate change is a perfect example – that was why it was so significant when CBS News anchor Walter not a partisan political issue at first – for a while, even Cronkite spoke out against the Vietnam War – but the Republican climate sceptic Newt Gingrich said there abolition of the fairness doctrine in 1987, the rule that was enough evidence for the government to take action, obliged broadcasters to offer balanced coverage and to but Limbaugh made it so.” give airtime to anyone they attacked personally, helped The cause of exposing what Limbaugh called change all that,” says Kuper. “misleading environmental myths” has been taken up To be clear, the duty to be fair had only applied to enthusiastically by Fox, which has cast it as a conspiracy licensed broadcasters (so cable channels such as Fox against its viewers and, as Pomerantsev puts it, “implies would not have had to adhere to it), but it did apply to that you are weak or unpatriotic” if you worry about the radio.Intheveryyearthefairnessdoctrinewasabolished, environment. “What Fox News has done is create an Rush Limbaugh began broadcasting his show on KFBK identity – and that identity defines a world view,” says AM, a Sacramento radio station. Aggressive, articulate Kuper. “Many Fox News viewers are older white men, and crude, Limbaugh was, as The Wall Street Journal possibly divorced, who are constantly being told that noted, “the first man to proclaim himself liberated from there are forces out there – ethnic minorities, advocates the East Germany of liberal media domination”. of ‘woke’ culture, feminists, the liberal media – which There is no doubt that Limbaugh, who died in are out to get them. If you accept this world view, climate February at the age of 70, coarsened public debate in change is not science, it’s a conspiracy. It’s no coincidence America. Once you have lambasted actor Michael J Fox that, according to YouGov, America and Australia, where •

35 Murdoch’s media empire is especially powerful, retain large fringes of climate change deniers.” In her 2015 documentary, The Brainwashing of My Dad, Jen Senko explored the radicalisation of her father who, after listening to Limbaugh and watching Fox, went from being a “funny, non-political Kennedy Democrat” to an angry right-wing Republican, and then – after his wife deliberately exposed him to liberal media – calmed down and went back to his beliefs. While making the film, Senko was contacted by other Americans with similar experiences, including members of a support group called People Who Have Lost Loved Ones to Fox News. The documentary’s analysis, though not especially deep, supports the narrative of what one media pundit has called the ‘Foxification of America’. Yet, as Pomerantsev points out, it’s hard to say whether Fox’s success reflects the growing political polarisation of America, has engineered it, simply made it more toxic – or a bit of all three (indeed, surveys of political attitudes show Republicans moving to the right even before Fox went on air in 1996). It certainly does not seem coincidental that, as Senko notes in her documentary, Fox’s editorial policy has been defined, more than anyone, by Roger Ailes, CEO from 1996 to 2016, who had helped mastermind Richard Nixon’s presidential comeback in 1968. (He later had a less significant role in the campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr.) Ailes schooled Nixon in TV techniques, encouraged his populist message that a liberal elite was profiting at the expense of ordinary Americans, and relentlessly rammed home the message that the mainstream media was biased against conservatism. In practice, as many industry insiders have remarked over the years, the traditionalmedia’s biggest biaswas in favour of a kind of apolitical orthodoxy. Ailes resigned from Fox in July 2016 after a slew of sexual harassment claims cost the channel more than $100m and made his position untenable, and died the following May, aged 77. Yet he found time after his lucrative departure – he is estimated to have received a $40m pay-off – to coach Trump for the presidential TV debates. Trump’s triumph, based largely on themes Ailes had developed with Nixon, seems, in retrospect, like the culmination of his life’s work. Ailes first dreamed of founding a right-wing TV news channel in 1970 and you could argue that the right-wing media narrative, which Pomerantsev sums up as ‘this is who you are – and this is who you hate’ has deeper and older roots in American society. Many of the sensationalist techniques that made The Sun so profitable in the 1970s es and 80s – and have served Fox well – were pioneered in the late nineteenth century by American newspaper barons

etty Imag Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the model Fox News may deserve its reputation for /G for Citizen Kane in Orson Welles’s magnificent biopic. biased reporting, but fake news is all around us. The British tabloids have Hearst’s desperation to persuade America to invade the come in for criticism, and anything goes then Spanish colony of Cuba – he even celebrated the in the unregulated world of social media ik McGregor conflict with a circulation-boosting ‘War with Spain’ card Er •

36 media

37 Rush Limbaugh (top left) ‘made every issue about identity’, an approach popularised by Rupert Murdoch in the 1970s and now at Fox News, which has settled sexual harassment claims from ex-presenter Gretchen Carlson and, along with CNN, has been accused of presenting war as a video game

game – set a patriotic with a capital P precedent for The Although Fox and CNN are often seen as being at es Sun’s Falklands War coverage and Rush Limbaugh’s opposite ends of the political spectrum – and therefore enthusiasm for the second Iraq War (he insisted that bringing some kind of balance to cable news – American weapons of mass destruction still existed even after academic Deborah L Jaramillo contends, in her 2009 book George W Bush conceded they didn’t). Ugly War, Pretty Package, that the channels had much in Yet for Pomerantsev, it was the first Iraq war in 1991 common. United by anunshaken belief in the righteousness that changed the American news business in a way that of America’s cause, they covered the second Iraq war as a Noam Galai/Getty Imag , facilitated Fox’s success, and the culprit was not Murdoch, ‘high concept’ movie based on a pre-packaged idea of how but CNN: “That was the first war that was effectively the conflict would play out and in which presenters, talking presented like a video game. The way we were encouraged up forthcoming footage to keep viewers hooked, effectively to follow those planes dropping bombs – it was like it was acted as movie trailers. Jaramillo’s most serious charge is happening on a console. Cable news channels needed that the ‘shock and awe’ bombing campaign was not, as viewers and decided the best way to do that was to be like officially stated, based on the premise that bigger explosions

n Galella, Gamma-Rapho Hollywood – that’s how you end up with a heroic narrative would do greater damage to Iraqi soldiers’ morale, but Ro r, surrounding ‘Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf. In exchange because spectacular explosions made for spectacular ye for access, broadcasters like CNN turned news into footage and therefore had more propaganda value. me ss entertainment.” It seems telling, in this respect, that, in Two years after the second Iraq conflict, Maria Ressa, Re r 2003, the second Iraq war led to a spike in sales of combat a Filipino news presenter who had become the face of CNN ge video games. in south-east Asia, resigned. As Pomerantsev recalls in his Ro

38 media book: “The network was changing; reporters were being reported, you didn’t need to look at the footage for long asked to express their feelings rather than just give the to identify white nationalists, holocaust deniers and neo- facts… [and she] did not want to star in a reality TV show Nazis among the leaders. version of the news.” Ressa then launched news site Since Trump’s defeat, and that riot, Fox has seemed Rappler and, having since fallen foul of populist president to many in the news industry to be in a state of flux. Lou Rodrigo Duterte, is periodically arrested. Dobbs Tonight, one of its best-rated shows (but a loss This might all feel a long way from such tabloid stunts leader because advertisers shunned its controversial as ‘Freddie Starr ate my hamster’, but the principle is host) was cancelled after Dobbs’s claims of fraud in the much the same. Reality doesn’t matter – all that counts is last presidential election prompted multibillion-dollar whether you are entertained. As Kuper explains, this law suits from suppliers of election technology (Dobbs’s approach doesn’t just influence Fox’s content, but the previous claim to notoriety was insisting that Obama style in which it is created: “If you look at the presenters was not born in America). The ratings have been volatile on Fox News, it is very 1980s: the tans, the smiles, the since Biden won. New right-wing rivals, such as One clothes, the blow-dried hair.” America News Network (OANN) and Newsmax have The homogeneity is particularly striking when you emerged, possibly encouraged by Trump’s broadsides consider the channel’s cast of female presenters, who are against Fox – he still nurses a grudge after it correctly almost exclusively blonde and dressed in a style which, called Arizona for Biden on election night. Yet the Hadley Freeman wrote in the Guardian, “defiantly channel remains hugely lucrative and is on course to embraces the most conservative notions of femininity and make a profit of $1bn or more in this fiscal year. firmly rejects any idea of modernity, let alone feminism” Fox’s recent difficulties do not, Kuper says, signify and appeals to a demographic that “considers being a that the halcyon days are now gone. “If you look at what’s brunette a physical deformity”. happened since 2016, it has become the second most The assumptions behind Fox’s worldview are powerful force in the Republicanparty – and particularly drummed into presenters and contributors, a process in terms of Republicans who vote in primaries – after occasionally reinforced by guiding emails. Such tutoring Trump.” That is historically unprecedented and unlikely can produce some jaw-dropping moments. In 2013, Lau- to change quickly. ren Green, who is now the channel’s chief religion If you take the longer view, things do not look so rosy correspondent, sounded genuinely mystified when she for the channel. Time, as Kuper says, is not on Fox’s side: asked religious scholar Reza Aslan: “You’re a Muslim, so “The channel’s core audience is an ageing demographic why did you write a book about the founder of Christian- and, when they die, it will find it hard to replace them. ity?” At other times, there are some striking continuities Young people, even those who might agree with Fox’s with Murdoch’s tabloids. The same year as Green’s gaffe, worldview, are not watching television news; they are Fox contributor and psychologist Keith Ablow claimed getting their news on social media – which is where Obama had been victimised by his parents and was taking OANN has been particularly strong.” it out on America which, as media tropes go, seems like a In other words, Kuper says, those who are inclined to retread of The Sun story in 1984 in which an American revel in the idea that the wheels will come off at Fox psychiatrist studied Labour politicianTony Benn’s pathol- should be careful what they wish for. “If everyone is ogy and declared him insane. getting their news from social media, you could end up To be fair, it is true that news organisations have, to not with one Fox News, but 100 of them,” he warns. different extents, always acted as echo chambers for their That is a troubling prospect given the mechanism that audiences. Fox may have scant regard for liberal powers social media. These channels are programmed to Democrats, but there is little in the Guardian to cheer a give us more of the same, even if it is not good for us, if that keen Brexiteer. What is troubling is that the echo chamber keeps us staring at a screen for longer, making the business effect has become much more pronounced, creating not of selling our attention even more lucrative. The incentive just different views but distinct realities. In March 2020, for us all to give up critical thinking, succumb to 63 per cent of Americans who said Fox was their main confirmation bias, climb into our own echo chamber and news source agreed that Trump was doing an excellent close the door behind us will be stronger than ever. We job managing the pandemic, compared to just 47 per cent could all become Citizen Kane – trapped in our own of Republican voters and fewer than one in four of those paradise prison like Xanadu. who got their news from elsewhere. But we’re not there yet. Even in the land of free speech, The relentless, consistent presentation of Fox’s such a dystopian outcome might prompt regulators to worldview can sometimes feel almost Stalinist. On restore some regulatory scrutiny. It certainly isn’t easy, at 6 January 2021, the evening of the Capitol Hill riots, this point in time, to picture how that might come to pass three Fox hosts – Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and but, as the past five years have repeatedly shown us, there Lou Dobbs – mentioned reports that the insurrection are no certainties in politics anymore. had been instigated by covert antifa (anti-fascist) agents. In reality, as Sky News, another Murdoch subsidiary, For further reading, see page 72

39 unicef

“Now is the time for seismic change. HR leaders have a critical role to play in that”

Claire Fox, chief operating officer at Unicef UK, tells Jo Faragher why she believes the pandemic provides a unique opportunity to reset humanity’s path

Portrait Julian Dodd

s for so many families during the pan- four; her wife three and a half – but they often found demic, YouTube fitness sensation Joe themselves working more hours than before and sacri- Wicks has been a regular feature in Claire ficed their usual Friday off together to take the pressure AFox’s household over the past year. Fitting off caring for their sons. That, however, proved to be exercise and fresh air into the day has counterproductive and they decided to keep those Fri- been a priority for Fox, who admits that juggling home- days sacred during the latest round of restrictions. “It schooling with her role as chief operating officer at had such an impact on us because we were just not get- Unicef UK has at times been “really, really tough”. ting that day where we were able to take stock and rest,” During the first lockdown she and her wife decided she says. “So we worked to quite a rigorous schedule. to tag-team their work schedules with looking after We split the days in half so we each had half the day their two children. Both have part-time roles – Fox when we could be really focused on work, rather than works a four-and-a-half-day week compressed into juggling things all the time.” •

40

Fox leads the charity’s Covid-19 capacity planning, many people by the global nature of the crisis. “We’ve and as part of that she is keen to ensure employees can do worked for years in different humanitarian situations, their job in a way that works for them. She has learned to conflict zones and refugee crises,” says Fox. “But this be strict with her own diary, prioritising commitments, is the first time it’s been the case that high-income and encourages her team to do the same. Shorter meet- countries are impacted by it in this way.” ings are favoured, employees are not required to be ‘on The pandemic may be closer to home than usual, but camera’ on every video call and every week staff are getting the workforce on board with the organisation’s encouraged to take a two-hour lunch break so they can purpose has never been an issue. The charity sector fully switch off and get some time away from their desk: tends to attract people with passion, Fox says, although “If everyone’s working every evening they will just burn there is always work to be done to connect employees out,” she says. “I don’t want people trying to do their with the charity’s global goals and their role in them. whole job while they’re managing caring responsibilities One of the ways it has traditionally done this is through or children – it’s just not sustainable.” It’s a topic an employee ambassador programme, which sees she’s passionate about, having written a book, Work-Life colleagues go into schools or the local community to talk Symbiosis, which looks at aligning work with life so that about their work. each makes the other better. Another challenge is balancing employees’ enthusi- Maintaining that energy will be crucial for Unicef’s asm for the charity’s work with investment in tools and workforce – as the world’s largest vaccine buyer (it helps professional development while working with limited vaccinate half the world’s children) the charity is playing resources. “We have a highly skilled, passionate and a central role in the distribution of Covid vaccines glob- intelligent workforce that hasn’t had the same opportu- ally. It is currently getting ready to deliver two nity for methodical professional development [as in billion vaccines and 500 million testing kits to low and other sectors], so it’s about how we find opportunities to middle-income countries, and has stockpiled half a bil- invest in employee growth in a way that is still meaning- lion syringes. Typically, explains ful and impactful while being Fox, the rollout of a vaccine mindful of budgets,” she says. programme of this magnitude Fox’s own background is in would take around 20 years. “Her food was rations and HR, having joined Unilever as Unicef aims to do it in two. her home was a makeshift tent, a graduate trainee after a degree The charity’s global set-up is but the hospitality she showed in sports science and competing such that it drives international for Great Britain as a whitewater aid programmes centrally, sup- me was mind-blowing” slalom canoeist. She was working ported by 33 national committees as a fitness instructor while whose job it is to raise funds. In completing her master’s when 2019, Unicef UK (or more correctly the UK Committee a client who worked in HR, an area she was beginning to for Unicef) raised £101.4m, with 95 per cent of develop an interest in, told her to “join a big company distributed funds going to international programmes. So with a really good graduate scheme and a good reputa- while most employees in the UK will not physically be tion for HR”, which brought her to Unilever. involved in delivering vaccines to those countries, their Working for a conglomerate meant Fox got plenty of contribution is vital. exposure to other parts of the business, but it wasn’t Helping them understand their ‘piece of the jigsaw’ until she joined Save the Children International in 2015 in large-scale humanitarian initiatives such as this is all that she realised she enjoyed the challenge of a broader in a day’s work for Fox. Her remit covers the people operations role. She was looking after child safeguarding function, but also encompasses facilities and internal and managing a cross-functional team, which she communications, as well as overseeing information “absolutely loved”. “When I was in the corporate world management and the strategy team, which looks after fairly early on in my career, I’d thought about going into data analysis, project management and strategic plan- management but chose to stay in HR because I’m ning. Most of the workforce are (in more usual times) passionate about leadership and engagement. But based at the head office in London and there is a team in actually, now I’ve changed sectors, I’ve realised that it Scotland. In addition, Unicef UK recruits volunteers for wasn’t that I didn’t want to be a leader of an organisation, fundraising events such as Soccer Aid for Unicef, and has it’s that I didn’t want to be a leader in that sector.” a team of remote employees who deliver programmes When the job at Save the Children came up, Fox had such as its Baby Friendly Initiative in UK hospitals, already had her children and was considering a role with which supports new parents. a more directly positive impact on society. During her As for many charities, the impact of the pandemic on time at the charity she visited a number of refugee camps traditional money-raising activities has led to a difficult to see the impact of the organisation’s work first hand. fundraising landscape, but its work has never been more One of her most cherished memories is of a woman she important, something that has been brought home to met on a breastfeeding programme in one of the camps

42 Peter Dazeley/Getty Images Th ap ad of a co empa ev off bu in an an de in cu th a th an th we a in ha ch r a ha So pa an no pr espo th wh ha hi ed en th bu on wa me a an oppor pl pa th ch gr pl road co ro ay te to cl sto way e e essu e in ound at er rp ro pr vi sto ai an de uc scribes ve d d d ci ve nd rt d d d t t t ea e ’v nt ab t o ho fe Wo Wh Th Th at ude in hu with rn le mp al in , gs al ns UN th ce ic yo th ug or us we e oa e ho her un in mo at d ge l ch ry em in ed di th ed ou fo be to th so w tu lo ul at di fluence so ma ac e ma sis is in in re , e up ne at th io a e h ch rk vi th en le de an br rm il d et me is wh ’s fo ba st st t. wh io e to th ar bu ffe ic ju ni ce ciet an es ou ki n dr cr th at co to te fr estra te in no an so p at ic ea n li Im rs re na s , ou Su ly ck tca st ey ti her im di a ho th ng di le si be re what om ea d it d was an il ey we vi en t mb g an sh er fo ha of .” sho ciet yo me ra ta d es , ki y e ne l rate am ffe a a way r HR pr a , fa agin nce at st me her ng po sp te r e . d e deve in ev ce come ba d la nd u s as th gch ng HR an in ha Yo pl sh st ai in ul in ss an beha ob a w re al n’t we ha ad it a we wy a a was th cr bit rt ng : if er ck in as is a be ace . d ed re na peo a t le d ou soci ve wi al “N u nt e vo to an th wh le d “I an ea e a ch s m ds, s wh yb lo ur er wo of va ion re le ad ng so a al er en th if it th bl to ca m, s th ld ey th ic ld d vi or ow se an bi sh se va ca pm fe t pl re fo co ad an her was , en y low e at od we lue s e or me er lan al in e th e th n ol to rl what ly e th le ng ir .” ’r t, eeq be t el gani d e va rc in an ar lu mp ge ma ma nfl ’s er th ge ab an De th d ” k ,ha s, e e. y ho d en ss of ar re is ei st os s- on li es sth as e ne fo li she lue a e ch her po ab s co di d is ha ey th Co . le se at im fa r d whe “T on ic ve an an se ks le th ke ss on ke t w ve e va mi d rc ha sa e do in ed ffe d ar mm tr th ha ou ui t li ow vou ct at d pp ve of iv ex th t d e pr an ge mu he d sh , I d lop me sa ne in lu ed zo ti ti a ar she ve ea ha nd- it ta or ey as rp cu ct th e ow re ti in el s a t re pe Jo ey ar on ca to en esse pe ys. ner es un te d a n if y’ y e ed ne fo Co ri me show it te bl men or ch ab al y nt s e or lt th her al a ar th udshow ound cr a t in po ople rd l ve rp co , bl s n te in ri be te ma ha r ha ev e iq d . ur “B , tr s ly, wo an she ili te at hu os vi ik in o sh you e se re e tera itic po in en to by d ow wh “H d an g ck fo fo er we fa an ue be le ca er aje ar pp s le e, sca es t nt d, e ty te ec y op it ct to pi pe to k ma n rl r r on ces la sona ad ir le ta ad id us yb ca e sp Go er al d y in en er no r, sh be co rr to en ct or au al who ct se d po ec her po le to ly ri sh ma rs cl ar ch il ea er te we n er g, n e ea e ro up od she whe ap l, gn li or t a fo ad sa ar is .” un al wit e pu no se im in n on pa rt ac ne – ” ac th li ev sh an ra ha ha ha l s no th ki ho mi le k s pr th Th od ti al in ed y te y an er is un t ste ab us she de th w, t po in of k rt at we lv al ei her d ce to es on h ng ip ey ge ve ve ve th as re in to to t of ofiv to in ed g at d, w ac show c, is s, .” d g y e e e e ou bu r r it th was ju is in ld n . , she h come who ti le a y s; st sa fo is st t ei t to t, th ca si ad me Ch Ch to yl Un th ion Numb ys. r. 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Five es que for

44 pandemic sential stions

Coronavirus has transformed the world of work over the last year. As thoughts turn to life after the pandemic, there is much to consider if we are to HR.build back better

45 pandemic

1.Will we be able to say goodbye to the the 9-5? The hope is a year of remote working will prompt businesses to embrace more flexibility – but not everyone is convinced

Words Emma De Vita

hen Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett decided to go against convention and keep W her cheery Christmas tree up past the first week of January, she mused that if we have started breaking once-rigid cultural rules like this, what will happen when the Covid crisis finally begins to ease? “Will we return to a world withthe immovable patterns of old? Or will we also rethink other cultural norms, such as the structure of education or the concept of the working week?” she wrote. A year out of the office is a long time for habit-loving humans. We quickly forget the daily commute and the Pret sandwiches. “There is no question that this is a •

46 llecillos/Alamy Stock Photo Va Lucas , dler Vi e ev u, St re xa Boi ck, Jordi osto ot Businesses around the world have been forced to embrace remote working during the pandemic, and many are likely to make it a ef

ag permanent fixture – but would such an approach work in a country like Japan, which has a culture focused on office presenteeism?

47 schism with the past and, the longer this goes on, the changed,” says Richard Donkin, author of Blood, Sweat more this will be the case,” reflects Lynda Gratton of & Tears: The Evolution of Work. “Working hours are London Business School. It has been disorientating, extraordinarily resilient. I’ve seen people talk about yes, but also liberating. working revolutions before – the rise of computers, the The question is whether our connection as a society dotcom boom and the dawn of the search engine.” with the structures that gave shape to our working While the pandemic has been a catalyst for change, he lives has loosened enough for us to commit to suspects progress in flexible working will still be something beyond the ‘time and place’ approach to gradual. Old habits die hard, as the saying goes, and work. Will coronavirus be the final nail in the coffin for cultural barriers to working any time, any place, may the five-day working week that Henry Ford is largely be difficult to shake off. credited with introducing in the early 20th century? Accelerated by the Covid crisis, experiments in And is change likely to be temporary and superficial, flexible working around the world continue. In Japan, or permanent and profound? “While there is always a for instance, a country whose culture is highly wedded risk after a crisis that people rush back to the status to office presenteeism, Hitachi was forced to move quo to something that is familiar, there are plenty who 80,000 people to remote working in one week when the have seen a future of work that builds on the positives pandemic hit but, in July 2020, introduced a permanent that the pandemic has wrought, both in flexibility of remote working initiative for all its staff, to start from hours and of place,” says Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, April 2021. And in November, Unilever announced a Silicon Valley futurist and author of Shorter: How year-long trial of the four-day working week for 81 staff Working Less Will Revolutionise the Way Your Company based in New Zealand. Partly in response to calls from Gets Things Done. prime minister Jacinda Ardern for businesses to look at Once-sceptical executive eyes have been opened to bringing in reduced working hours, staff will be paid the possible productivity and wellbeing benefits of not for five days but only work four – the aim being to commuting or travelling constantly, while managers change the way work is done. have been encouraged to manage by outcome rather While Unilever’s trial is laudable, flexible working than by bums on seats. Or so the argument in favour of is not just about remote working or a shortened or part- pandemic-induced long-term change goes. But not time working week. Flexi-time, job sharing,compressed everyone is so convinced. “I do not hold with the idea hours and term-time only working are among some of that post pandemic we’ll emerge blinking in the light of the options already provided by some employers, but a new dawn where everything in the workplace has truly flexible working means an individual menu of es Imag ty

The Ford Motor Company became one of the first businesses in the US to adopt a five-day working week Bettmann/Get

48 pandemic

flexibility across both time and place to home working, at least some of the time, suit the preferences of an employee and UNEQUAL RIGHTS will become permanent, while PwC the requirements of their stakeholders. reports that the overriding priority for “Time is up for grabs, not just place,” Nearly half (46 per cent) most of the 800 international companies believes Gratton. “Work is becoming of employees do not that took part in a recent webinar was unbundled into different tasks, so you can have flexible working increasing support for hybrid working. match the type of task to the best time arrangements, according This isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. and place.” The future lies in a ‘hybrid to the CIPD. That’s why Companies, reports PwC, are in widely working’ approach that hands over it has launched Flex different stages of preparing for a more control of how to get your work done From 1st, a campaign hybrid future and the challenge is from the boss to the person who is doing urging businesses to greater in some sectors, such as retail, the work, with periods of flexibility for an support flexible working hospitality and transportation, where individual to get on with focused work on for all, as well as the bigger shifts in both employee ways of their own, combined with periods when right to request it from the working and customer expectations everyone is co-present (either physically first day of employment. would be needed. or virtually). Under UK law, employees The risk is that Pang’s ideal of a A flexible workplace will offer three can only make a workplace that is less about presenteeism types of space, envisions Gratton. There request for flexible working and more of a place to do the specialised will be the highly branded, downsized after 26 weeks of work that is hard to do remotely is largely office to bring clients to, spaces for employment and are only available to white-collar workers. collaboration where you go to meet your only able to make one Gratton points out that while in this team (with great tech to facilitate the best request every 12 months. instance flexibility of place is not an in videoconferencing) and a place other As part of the campaign, option, flexibility of time is. Yet Donkin than home, but near home, such as a the CIPD is calling for a is sceptical: “Working hours are not a co-working space or a regional hub. legal change that would matter of choice for many people. If you Jeremy Myerson, chair of design at make it a day-one work in a shop, you have to work for a the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at right. Find out how you fixed number of hours.” the Royal College of Art, and director of and your company can Peter Cheese, chief executive of the the Worktech Academy, believes the get involved at cipd.co.uk/ CIPD, is a firm advocate of flexible office is far from dead. “Why does the FlexFrom1st working, but he worries that it won’t be office have such an iron grip on us? It’s available for manual, low-skilled or zero- because going to the office is about more hours contract workers. According to the than just work,” he says. And that’s FLEX CIPD’s Good Work Index 2020, the ability especially true for certain demographics. to work from home already varies among While during the pandemic older different groups of employees. Based on workers, especially those with space for a the UK Working Lives survey, carried out home office and established professional before the first lockdown, the index networks, may have embraced losing the daily reveals that while 62 per cent of higher managers and commute, younger staff have tended to miss the social professionals had worked from home in the previous 12 life and the space to work well (who wants to Zoom months, the figure dropped to 37 per cent for lower their managers from the end of their beds?) managers and professionals, and even lower for The office may be far from dead but, says Myerson, supervisory and technical workers (8 per cent) and it will need to be repurposed to become a social, routine occupations (4 per cent). Flexi-time cultural and collaborative space – after all, there’s little arrangements, which allow employees to vary the point sitting at a desk for hours “with 300 people start and finish time of their working day, are sending emails to the floor below”. “We don’t want to similarly skewed, with 54 per cent of higher managers go back to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis with 200 people and professionals making use of it, reducing to 18 per queuing for the lift in Canary Wharf,” he says. cent for routine workers. “We’ve got to make sure There are certainly signs that employers are at least flexible working is fair,” says Cheese. “At the beginning thinking about a more flexible working future, even if of the pandemic, the language was ‘we’re all in it at this stage it’s more about place than time, not least together’, but what emerged was that it was very far because of the savings in physical workplaces. HSBC, from the truth.” for instance, has announced it plans to capitalise on If there’s one thing the pandemic has done it’s shine part-office, part home-working arrangements by a light on the working conditions of essential workers. cutting its office space globally by nearly 40 per cent. It is Cheese’s hope that they are not left behind in a For the most part, members of the FT City Network, potential shift to a more flexible working future when, a forum of more than 50 senior executives, believe or if, it comes. •

49 The da Vinci surgical robot, on display at the third China International Import Expo, is said to extend rather than replace the capabilities of human eyes and hands

50 pandemic

2.Are the robots comingWords Jeremy Hazlehurst faster now?

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated technological advances at work. The question is whether they will enhance jobs or destroy them

Words Jeremy Hazlehurst

o you love me?’ asked the song. It was a good Before Covid, robots were already picking fruit, question. When US firm Boston Dynamics flipping woks, cleaning sewers, delivering packages and ‘D recently released a video of its robots boogying driving lorries among other things– a trend the pandemic to the 1962 hit by Motown band The Contours, it is fair to seems to have accelerated, especially in the logistics say that opinion about their moves was divided. “It’s sector, where robots pick goods, and the medical sector, pretty awesome how dancing makes robots less which accounted for 47 per cent of robots sold in 2020. intimidating,” mused Reza Zadeh, founder and CEO of In a Covid hospital in China, robots were used to tech company Matroid. But many were less enamoured. disinfect and deliver food and other supplies to patients. “This is the dance they will do on top of a pile of human Others patrolled the streets, telling people to put on their bones,” commented one Twitter user. face masks. US firm Hanson Robotics has said it will start Ambivalence seems to be baked into the very idea of mass production of its Grace and Sophia robots in 2021 robots. The word was coined by Czech writer Karel for use in healthcare, but also to keep isolated people Čapek in his play R.U.R., first performed in 1921, in which company. In 2019, there were about 2.5 million robots in a race of artificial workers rebel and kill all human beings, the world, a number that is predicted to rise to 20 million sparing just one. by 2030, according to Oxford Economics. Over the years our fear of robots has taken on many While robots are high profile, it is the rise of other less forms, but these days we worry less about being killed visible kinds of automation that could have a much and more about losing our jobs, no doubt exacerbated by greater impact. Artificial intelligence is already beavering es some of the headline-grabbing statistics that have away behind the scenes processing large amounts of data. emerged in recent years. In 2013, Oxford University “In the next 10 years, we will shift to a world that is academics Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne AI-first,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, has said. published a paper predicting that 47 per cent of existing When, at the start of the pandemic, airlines found ice/Getty Imag rv American jobs were at high risk of automation.A 2017 they had to process millions of cancelled flights, and McKinsey report estimated that up to 30 per cent of work banks had to assess millions of loans, they reached for ws Se facedautomation,whileanotherfrom2019byconsultancy ‘robotic process automation’ to do the job. Similar things Oxford Economics said 20 million jobs were at risk. are happening everywhere, prompting David Autor, a • China Ne

51 leading economics professor at MIT and co-chair of the automated. A 2019 ONS study found that 1.5 million jobs university’s Work of the Future Task Force, to dub the in the UK are at ‘high risk’ of automation but, the authors Covid crisis an “automation-forcing event”. Research by point out, “it is not so much that robots are taking over, McKinsey found that in the first months of the pandemic, but that repetitive tasks can be carried out more efficiently companies accelerated the digitisation of their customer by an algorithm written by a human, or a machine and supply-chain interactions and of their internal designed for one specific function”. operations by three to four years, and the share of digital It is certainly true that many people, including cashiers, or digitally enabled products in their portfolios accountants, underwriters and fast-food servers, to name accelerated seven years – 10 in Asia. In another study of just a few, might find their jobs transformed. But it is also C-suite executives’ intentions by EY, 41 per cent said they true that technologyhas a way of enabling new jobs. Thirty were investing in accelerating automation. years ago no one could have dreamed of social media Some of that optimism, however, may have been moderators, Instagram influencers or SEO consultants. dented by the reality of travel bans, illness and The nub of the robot question ultimately is not whether homeschooling. As Frey points out, Covid is accelerating automation costs jobs – or whether the pandemic has ready-to-use plug and play automation: “Anything more accelerated adoption – but what that means for society. complicated, which requires new expertise or innovation, And that’s a question we have yet to answer. has been slowed down by the pandemic.” It’s fair to say that technology often does not arrive as quickly as expected. Five years ago, all the major PROFESSIONAL SERVICE ROBOTS BY USE automakers believed they would have fleets of AI-piloted 2018 and 2019 turnover, and projections to 2023 ($bn) cs vehicles on the road by now. None have, despite throwing ti money at it. US carmaker GM, for instance, spent $500m bo 15 Ro buying 9 per cent of ride-sharing firm Lyft, with the aim Medical robotsLogistic robotsField robots of on ti of having thousands of self-driving cars on the road in 12.6

12 dera

2018. Similarly, IBM halted sales of its high-profile 11.3 Fe

Watson for Drug Discovery, an AI that used machine onal learning to create new medicines, in 2019 after poor sales. ti 9 8.6 rna te

Anxiety about ‘the march of the robots’ remains high, 7.5 In ; however. Statistics from the Pew Research Centre in 6.6 6 5.3 5.3 2020 2017 found that 85 per cent of Americans wanted cs ti lawmakers to restrict their use. “All you need is self- 4.1 3.7 bo Ro

driving cars to destabilise society. That one innovation 3 2.6 rld 1.9 2.0

1.8 Wo will be enough to create riots in the street,” said 2020 1.31.3 1.4 1.6 0.9 e: presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who floated the rc

0 Sou idea of banning some robots to protect jobs. He is not the 18 19 18 19 18 19

first to suggest such a move. In his book, The Technology 20 20 2020 2021 2022 2023 20 20 2020 2021 2022 2023 20 20 2020 2021 2022 2023 Trap, Frey points out that, throughout history, action has been taken to safeguard jobs. Several European cities THE WORLD’S MOST AUTOMATED COUNTRIES outlawed mechanical looms in the 1600s for this reason. Robot density in manufacturing, 2019 1,000 The industrial revolution happened in the UK because (robots installed per 10,000 employees) “political power was with those who stood to gain by mechanisation”, says Frey, and “it took half a century 800 until average people saw the benefits”. It is clear that automation can have a lasting impact on jobs. Research by MIT economist Daron Acemoglu found 600 that automation in the US between 1990 and 2007 had “fairly major negative employment effects”. Across the US, the addition of one robot per 1,000 workers meant the 400 cs loss of 3.3 jobs per thousand, and lowered wages. But the World 113% ti bo reality is more nuanced than the figures suggest. Ro

200 of Acemoglu also found that early adopters of automation n actually see a growth in their workforce (although this atio der 189 187 161 243 228 194 191 177 165 149 346 274 918 868 364 242 234 214 212 157 Fe comes at the expense of those who tread a slower path). 0 169 And this is not a binary issue. Frey and Osborne’s work, ipei ational ds LUX rea ates rn Ta ng for instance, has been called into question given on the and te an St e Ko rl ia In rl Ko nia : ria es ze ium/ ak of whole it’s not the case that entire jobs are either done by a ed ce he it eden it st ain nada p ov ove ngapore ance nland aly human or not, rather it’s individual tasks that can be our China Fr Sl Ca Sw Sl Fi Chin It Net Sp Au Si Re Japan Germany Sw Denmark Hong Un Belg S

52 pandemic 3.pandeHas the mic set equabacklity? Job losses, furlough and early retirement have hit some groups harder than others during the Covid crisis

Words Nic Paton

he knowledge that the 243-year-old Debenhams brand name is to survive the pandemic, thanks to T fashion ‘e-tailer’ Boohoo’s £55m brand-and- digital deal back in January will probably be of little consolation to the 12,000 mainly female shopfloor workers expected to lose their jobs. The department store chain’s collapse is just one (if iconic) snapshot of the job losses we have seen over the past year from the economic scouring of Covid, with retail, hospitality, travel and aviation all being hit hard. The UK’s unemployment rate reached 5 per cent in the three months to the end of November 2020 and, it is feared, will only accelerate when the government’s pandemic financial support begins to be lifted. There is a wider concern too that a combination of the pandemic, Brexit, redundancies and a looming recession will cause greater inequality in the UK’s workplaces. Across many areas of diversity – women, black and ethnic minorities, younger and older workers, people with disabilities, those who identify differently – there’s evidence that the pandemic has had a negative effect (see panel overleaf). And this is before we take into account the impact of higher death rates and disease severity from Covid on people with black and minority ethnic back- grounds, older people (but still often of working age) and those with underlying health conditions and disabilities. •

53 Given that, as the Equality and Human Rights Commission identified in an analysis of the 2008-09 DISPROPORTIONATE downturn, economic duress does tend to widen and IMPACT deepen inequality, does this indicate we are on the cusp of a worrying reversal of advances made in the workplace It is estimated that 80 per in recent years? Encouragingly, the consensus so far cent of those working for appears to be a cautious ‘no’, albeit with fingers crossed. Arcadia (much of which is “You may have fewer staff but, the point is, in a context disappearing from the high that is wholly different from previous contexts, you now street) and Debenhams are women. Some 1.5 million really have to look after them. You’re not going to survive young women have lost their unless you really focus on this stuff,” says Simon income so far during the Fanshawe, author and co-founder of Stonewall, who now pandemic, according to the runs consultancy Diversity by Design. Young Women’s Trust. Stephen Bevan, head of HR research development at the Institute for Employment Studies, points out that its annual conference this spring (whether physical or A study by the University of virtual) will be about inclusion and diversity because of Sussex found that three in the pandemic, not despite it. The Black Lives Matter four mothers (72 per cent) believe they have become the (BLM) and #MeToo movements in the US have ‘default’ parent during heightened the focus on these issues, especially among lockdown, with two-thirds of younger people, he highlights. The BLM-inspired working mothers (67 per protests seen in the UK last summer, notably the toppling cent) saying the same. of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol harbour, have also played a part here. “We think it is one of the issues that will be coming up the agenda and not Black and ethnic minority just because of Black Lives Matter, though it did give it a workers have been harder hit big kickstart. There is a recognition that inequality has by pandemic job losses than their white counterparts, been widened by Covid,” says Bevan. “Although things says the TUC, with numbers have fallen back in terms of some of the indicators, I falling by 5.3 per cent over think, for many employers, not just in the public sector the past year, compared to but beyond, they see this as something they really need to 0.2 per cent of white workers. tackle. So I think that is a sign of optimism.” The caveat to all this, of course, is that when you’re talking about inclusion and diversity to I&D specialists, According to the Shaw Trust, there is always the risk of falling into an echo chamber. the disability employment So will this optimism be reflected when businesses may gap – bad enough pre- pandemic – has widened have to make tough decisions in the coming months? in the past year. Fanshawe, for one, concedes there is uncertainty here: “Mysense,fromtalkingtoHRanddiversityprofessionals, is there is some awareness of the need to focus on this. But, arguably, we come into contact with people who The Institute for Fiscal Studies warns that older want to do this kind of work. workers (aged 54-plus) are “I understand if you’re under pressure and you’ve got more likely to have been to sack staff you’re just going to put your head down and furloughed during the crisis, try to make things work, and things like this may appear or to have taken early retirement (often because of to be a luxury. But any business that wants to survive has worries about their health). got to think about the talent it needs.” We’ve come a long way When Colston had his unceremonious ducking last since the days when

June, distinguished historian and Bristol resident David adverts like these were es A study by McKinsey reports Olusoga described the act as “one of those rare historic acceptable, but many fear that employees who identify the Covid crisis has set moments whose arrival means things can never go back as lesbian, gay, bisexual, equality back

to how they were”. When it comes to I&D, however, it is transgender, queer or rtising Archiv all too easy for things to fall back and recessions can be gender non-binary ve precisely the catalyst for this sort of retreat. The message disproportionately fear losing Ad

ground at work and report The for leaders in that case? Proactively work to ensure that feeling isolated as of y

I&D doesn’t get lost in the post-pandemic/global a result of the pandemic. es downturn ‘noise’. • urt Co

54 pandemic

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4.Is now the the timeWords Jeremy Hazlehur tost split HR?

The people profession has a wider remit than ever. Work. asked two experts whether it is too much for one function

Words Jo Faragher

udging by the number of provocative headlines questioning its future, HR could be the most J dissected function in the business world. In one such article in 2014, Ram Charan announced that it was “time to say goodbye to the department of human resources”, arguing that the function should be split along strategic and operational lines. The business adviser and academic advocated for eliminating the HR director (or CHRO) role and dividing the department between administration (payroll and other transactional tasks) and ‘leadership and organisa- tion’, which would focus on improving the people capabilities of the business. His manifesto prompted a slew of follow-up pieces, ranging from angry denials to suggestions of how it might work in practice. Almost seven years later, the HR function looks very different. People leaders now oversee a growing range of activities including data analytics, inclusion and diversity and wellbeing, alongside ensuring the operational wheels run smoothly. Technology and artificial intelligence are also transforming the way organisations do business, with greater value attached to data analytics and how we capture and measure knowledge. Throw into the mix a global pandemic and the role of HR is wider than ever before. Could this be time to look at splitting the function again and, if so, how? •

57 “The function is already fragmented”

Toby Peyton-Jones The former HR director at Siemens and board-level adviser says HR has started to go in diff erent directions

I’d argue that the function has been split for some time already. Since Charan’s article was published, HR has gone faster and further and toplaceswe hadn’t imagined. The big revolution in recent years has been the digitisation of HR, which has led to the repatriation of many tasks to line managers. In the past, a line manager might ask to onboard someone or give a pay rise, and there would be some work done by HR to set this up, but now so much of this can be executed by the manager themselves. We’re less involved in the transactional side other than providing the policy framework and the mechanisms to support it. The world of HR has gone in two directions. On one side, we’re empowering managers through technology and supporting them through high-touch consulting on the more diffi cult day-to-day issues, and on the other side this has left business partners free to become more strategic and business focused. Here technology is driv- ing another trend, where teams are upping their game through data and analytics. This skillset is providing new fuel for the HR director role, giving them real insight to bring to the business strategy discussion. Historically, fi nance has been the language used to steer the business, but what you have in your fi nancial numbers is not necessarily representative of where value is being created or destroyed. HR is a natural contender to look at the intangible assets. As a function this is becoming more important, particularly as organisations have more interplay between contingent workforces, for example, and new ways of working. Data analytics is not static like the old HR reports. Asking the right questions is critical and increasingly this needs to happen in real time, as has been shown in the pandemic. The days of being able to stop and restructure things are over – we have to change the tyres while we’re still moving. Imagine if you’re a factory manager – you can either develop and run factories around the world and be brilliant at that, or you can explore other management functions and become a CEO. Many CEOs come from sales, but the best also spend time in manufacturing. One size does not fi t all, as organisations are in diff erent stages of development, but I see a similar split in HR. Even though that divide exists, we can still spend time onbothsides.Peoplecandevelopacrosstheseboundaries and indeed spend career time out in the business. If we iva plc

keep that bridge alive, rather than obsessing about the Av split, we will be the richer for it. Siemens;

58 pandemic “No one talks about splitting up fi nance”

Danny Harmer The chief people officer at Aviva believes a unified HR function can move businesses forward

It’s my job to help the organisation I work for to be better through its people. If you think about how you align your people to the purpose of that organisation, everything you do gives them a message about what’s expected – from how you advertise jobs to how you reward people. So why would you let any other part of the business take that on? Part of the challenge is that the HR function is all about people, and everyone thinks they know about people. No one talks about splitting up fi nance. If there are engagement issues, the business asks: ‘What’s HR going to do about it?’ but if it reports a loss they ask the business what its going to do about it, not fi nance. Take HR support services versus others – they’re both sup- port services but one requires diff erent skills and some independence. Things that involve people can be emo- tive and HR can look at the data, focus on what’s a great outcome and manage it in a calm way. It’s a two-way street. HR absolutely needs to under- stand what the business wants to achieve, but the wider organisation also needs to know how HR adds value. ‘Getting HR to do it for me’ is not leveraging the function to its best. As the function expands, we need the right experts on our team. Inclusion and diversity is now such a fun- damental expectation, for example, and you need someone who can challenge the board on how to move this forward. Analytics is also a bigger focus now; we can use data not just to show absence, but also what we think might happen in the future. We know what mat- ters and that is grounded in data – we start with the science and applying the expertise is the art. Is it all too much for one function? Inmy experience, the HR profession is really good at working collaboratively with other teams across the business. We have helped organisations make dramatic changes during the pandemic, working with security, business continuity, IT, comms… the people function is incredibly collaborative. I’ve seen HR leaders being given an even wider remit – combining colleague experience with customer experience, for example, or taking on marketing along- side HR. We’re now looking at what work should be and what jobs will look like. We can get ahead of this and train people for this future. We can get on the front foot for the wider business and this is how we demon- strate our value.

59 5.Have we relied onWords stJeremy Hazlehuraffst goodwill for too long? Employers need to recognise and reward weary employees who have soldiered on throughout the coronavirus crisis

Words Nic Paton

ow many of you took to your doorsteps to ‘clap for heroes’ during the latest lockdown? HIt’s fair to say the follow-up to ‘clap for carers’, which brought streets and communities together last spring and received weekly media coverage, has been something of a damp squib. Its failure could of course partly be down to the fact that for much of the current lockdown it’s been cold, dark and often wet at 8pm on a Thursday night. Yet equally, with the nation grinding through lockdown mark three and numbingly high (albeit now falling) death tolls, the sense of being in it together many of us felt this time a year ago has begun to dissipate. If our gratitude to NHS frontline workers remains undiminished, many of those we clapped for or went out of our way to thank during the first lockdown, such as supermarket workers or delivery drivers, now complain of feeling forgotten or taken for granted by an anxious, exhausted or in-denial general public. Even if it doesn’t directly compare, for many workers away from the frontline the past year has been challenging, too. There’s been the adjustment to long- term working from home (perhaps in a less-than-ideal environment), juggling work with homeschooling or childcare, and the slog of back-to-back Zoom or Teams meetings day in, day out. Most of us will have recognised, and broadly accepted, that unprecedented times have demanded on occasion going above and beyond, whether that’s meant picking up the slack for colleagues struggling with childcare issues or who have been furloughed or even laid off, taking on extra projects or responsibilities, Supermarkets have worked to ensure their staff are safe, but many working extra hours or even accepting a pay cut. feel they are taken for granted by the public

60 pandemic

The question now is what happens next? If, as we can be trusted and that line managers need to play a all hope, the continued successful rollout of vaccines different role,” he says. “Their job isn’t about command and arrival of new therapies mean that we gradually and control; it is about facilitating and supporting, and come out the other side of the pandemic and things letting people get on with their job.” start to pick up economically, what will be the payback The risk, however, is that employers don’t get to – the reward or recognition – from employers for grips with the reality of this psychological step-change, all the goodwill and, for want of a better word, especially if managers and leaders are distracted by the ‘Blitz spirit’ UK workers have shown? Indeed, exigencies of surviving a post-pandemic recession. given the financial reckoning from Covid that is likely “There are going to be fewer people because many of still to come, will there even be a payback or simply a those on furlough will be made redundant, while others faster and ever-more-desperate hamster wheel of will be made redundant because of employers needing employer demands? to keep labour costs down. That is inevitable; that’s As Stefan Stern, author, journalist and visiting what happened in 2008,” says Sir Cary Cooper, CIPD professor at The Business School (formerly Cass president and professor of organisational psychologyat Business School), points out: “We have got to Manchester University. acknowledge how difficult this has been; people are just In that event, workers may feel they have little so wiped out. We need to recognise what everyone has choice but to begrudgingly put up and shut up. gone through and what people have done to keep the Research from outplacement firm Randstad Risesmart show on the road. The risk is of us unthinkingly UK has warned that mass redundancies are already stumbling back into how things were before.” creating a generation of ‘zombie’ workers just going Worryingly, some indicators do suggest that, by the through the motions and unprepared to put in any time we come out the other side of the pandemic, many discretionary effort. employers may have little left in the tank financially to Yet Bevan, for one, is more optimistic that any post- ‘thank’ their employees, irrespective of whether there pandemic financial crash may not be as deep or as long is the appetite to do so. This year’s Robert Walters lasting as some fear. “If you compare it to the 2008 Salary Survey, for example, has concluded that bonuses crash, that was a big collapse in demand, for all sorts of are likely to be a rarity for white-collar professionals in reasons. This one hasn’t been driven by a collapse in 2021, with just 5 per cent saying they expected demand; if anything there is a massive pent-up demand to definitely receive one, and only 12 per cent of – people who have been able to work at home and not employers agreeing they were ‘very likely’ to pay out on spend much money,” he argues. “Of course, job bonuses. Pay freezes are also likely during the year, insecurity is going to be there in significant pockets of something that has already hit large swathes of the the labour market. But I think in some sectors, where public sector. demand has just been paused, we might see a reasonably In the supermarket sector, although Morrisons has quick recovery.” won plaudits for guaranteeing employees at least £10 an In this scenario, employers that try to push the hour, 45 per cent of retail staff still earn below the envelope, that try to take advantage of or simply fail Living Wage Foundation’s ‘real’ living wage, according adequately to recognise and reward the goodwill and to Citizens UK, begging the question of whether it extra effort employees have put in over the past year, is just the public who appearto have forgotten their vital could find themselves coming unstuck. contribution during the pandemic. The TUC has Ultimately, of course, there will be shades or suggested ‘fire and rehire’ is becoming more gradations here. Just as sectors have experienced or commonplace generally, with one in 10 workers saying been affected by the crisis differently, how businesses they have been told to reapply for their jobs on worse respond to the challenges of the (hopefully) post- terms and conditions or face the sack. pandemic world will also vary widely. ‘Good’ Then there is the question for home workers of employers or managers are likely to be more alert or returning to physical offices and the consequences of sensitive to the issues here than those who are tunnel whether, or if, they will be expected to return to the vision-focused on the bottom line or just survival. As daily commute. Stephen Bevan, head of HR research Cooper puts it: “I think employers will want to do well development at the Institute for Employment Studies, by their employees because they know they have believes a year of home working has potentially led to a tolerated a lot and worked long hours. But I think, es permanent change of expectation among employees. “I when push comes to shove, we will see a bit of what do think the notion that the [home working] genie has happened in 2008; except among those managers who been let out of the bottle is probably a serious one. And are very socially skilled and emotionally intelligent. that fundamentally shifts the nature of the psychologi- Will we have learned from this?I pray we do, but it is cal contract; it represents a recasting of the employer/ the big question.” employee relationship for many of those white-collar

Vladimir Gerdo/Getty Imag roles because people have shown that, actually, they For further reading, see page 72

61 BUSINESS RESEARCH, REPORTS AND INSIGHT IEF BR DE

CORPORATE ETHICS However, recent data from Impact suspended his salary from March last International has revealed that a year for the remainder of 2020. Who said number of leaders gave up some The largest total pledge by sector or all of their salary last year to ease came from media CEOs, with fi ve the pressure on their businesses leaders sacrificing almost $11m CEOs don’t and show solidarity with employees between them, including Lachlan during the Covid crisis. A study of Murdoch of Fox Corporation, who media articles conducted by Impact gave up $3m. care? suggests 37 high-profile CEOs Out of the 37 leaders, Ana Botin of sacrificed their pay, with 41 per cent Santander sacrificed the single largest of those giving up 100 per cent of sum – just over $4m, amounting to Bosses have been doing their bit their base salary. A further 32 per half her base salary. by sacrificing salaries during the cent gave up 50 per cent or more. Impact points out that while it’s Covid crisis – but their show of Among the sectors with the highest laudable that CEOs are opting to solidarity isn’t all that generous proportion of leaders giving up their refuse pay during difficult times, their earnings (32 per cent) were aviation bonuses and additional compensation ention CEOs and pay in and hospitality, two of the industries far outweigh their salaries, and “few Mthe same sentence and the hardest hit by the pandemic. For have committed to giving up this result doesn’t usually portray example, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed additional source of income”. Also, business leaders in a favourable Bastian volunteered to forego all the donations represent an average light. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos – whose his salary for six months, while of just 2.7 per cent of total net worth. fi nal year as chief executive saw his Heathrow Airport’s John Holland- However, it concludes this represents personal wealth increase by $48bn Kaye decided not to take more than a vital small step in the right direction during the global pandemic – is just £185,000, equating to 25 per cent of and shows strong leadership when it one of those regularly criticised in the his pay. Meanwhile, the late Arne is most needed. media for his perceived rapacity. Sorenson of hotel group Marriott bit.ly/CEOsacrifi ce d/Alamy Stock Photo Lt ess Pr ; Pictorial es u/Getty Imag co

Ana Botin of Santander emerged as one of the most generous leaders during the pandemic, forgoing half her base salary Pierre-Philippe Mar

62 MANAGEMENT It’s been emotional…

Increasing creativity and developing new skills requires supervisors to tap into feelings

osses who can recognise and tap Binto their employees’ emotions will be more successful at unleashing their creative and innovative side, a new study has highlighted. Supervisors who show emotionally intelligent behaviour help create an environment where workers grow and develop new skills, which increases creativity at work. It means they are an important resource for organisations that want to encourage innovative thinking. Inside Out puts emotions front and centre – but are workplace supervisors more reluctant? Researchers carried out a survey of 14,645 US working adults, Employers, in turn, have to positivity: it leads to a perception asking them to rate how good acknowledge the role of emotionally that equal opportunity has been fully their supervisor was at perceiving, intelligent behaviour among realised and that inequalities such as understanding, using or managing managers if they are to create the gender pay gap no longer matter. emotions; their opportunities to grow positive experiences at work. The language used by businesses and develop new skills; how their job The study concludes that targeted when announcing women’s successes made them feel; and their creative training, which is aimed at specific may need to be more carefully contribution at work. organisational and individual needs – thought out, according to research Employees whose supervisors or, for example, integrates emotional from lead author Dr Oriane Georgeac, showed high emotional intelligence intelligence training into culture and assistant professor at Yale School reported being primarily happy in mission – can increase innovation. of Management, and co-author Dr their work, explains co-author Dr bit.ly/emotionalbosses Aneeta Rattan, associate professor Jochen Menges of Cambridge Judge at London Business School. Business School and the University of The pair carried out experiments Zurich. “In contrast, those employees INCLUSION among more than 2,500 full and whose supervisors showed little part-time workers in the US, testing emotional intelligence said they felt The bittersweet their reactions to messages about frustrated and stressed,” he adds. increasing female representation In other words, supervisors focused success of female among organisations’ top leadership on nurturing creative and innovative levels. The results seem to defy skills need to recognise that emotions leaders conventional thinking. “We have an important part to play in the observed that when people read that creative process, explains the paper, When women make it to the women are now well represented Supervisor Emotionally Intelligent boardroom, it wrongly infers in organisations’ top leadership Behavior and Employee Creativity. equality has been achieved levels, they show decreased concern Feelings can range from anxiety for persisting forms of inequality when facing an open-ended problem, hile women’s achievements that women face in other domains,” or frustration when encountering Win business leader roles are says Georgeac. difficulties, to excitement at new rightly celebrated, research has Senior leadership representation ideas or pride in an achievement. uncovered a worrying aspect of such is not necessarily a marker of

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The NHS has performed heroically during the pandemic – but its stretched resources have made governance even trickier

progress towards equality in other HEALTHCARE Many NHS trusts have good areas or even at other levels of governance, but a number of others organisations, she adds. Why the are at risk, warns the study, titled Milestone achievements by women NHS Governance, A critical Time should of course be publicised, NHS needs a for Change. says the paper, Progress in women’s Based on a survey of 203 non- representation in top leadership governance executive directors (NEDs) and weakens people’s disturbance with overhaul executive board directors across NHS gender inequality in other domains. trusts and foundation trusts, as well But it’s important to be careful with as interviews with NHS chairs and the language used in announcements, It’s tough to reinvent the way you CEOs, the fi ndings underline how since it can create the impression that work during a global pandemic – NHS organisations continue to face gender equality has been realised. but the health service must try tremendous pressure on resources, How can businesses use language particularly amid the Covid that gives women the credit they lmost a fi fth of NHS trust pandemic, while also being asked deserve but doesn’t undermine Adirectors rate their boards to transform the way they operate. progress towards gender diversity? as ‘average or worse’ in their Boards should act as ‘strategic Rattan says talking about progress ability to face their most critical stewards’ that enable change to take opens an opportunity to also remind challenges, which points to a place, but instead are being hampered

people of what is still to be done, growing governance crisis across by weaknesses in governance, says tter/Monzo Co

and where the next goal is located. the health service. the research. For example, NEDs id

“Rather than focusing solely on the The same proportion – 19 per reported that they spend much of Dav ;

positive progress being made in one cent – of non-executive directors their time on monitoring and control es arena, use it as an opportunity to believe that the standards they and compliance tasks, despite a move the conversation along to areas are expected to deliver make it requirement to play a greater role in where improvement still needs to be impossible to perform their role, setting strategic direction, succession made,” she advises. research from Henley Business planning and mentoring and bit.ly/Womenexecs School shows. supporting the executive. NurPhoto/Getty Imag

64 A third of respondents reported MENTAL HEALTH Blomfield, co-founder of online bank spending more than one day a Monzo, made headlines after he left month on monitoring and control Which came his job citing stress. tasks, such as auditing or looking The fact that burnout has a much at performance, compared with fi rst: the burnout larger effect on stress than the other just 21 per cent for strategic and way round means “the more severe a stewardship activities. or the stress? person’s burnout becomes, the more To compound the problem, NEDs stressed they will feel at work, such as are also perceived as being much Employers can avoid the worst being under time pressure”, explains less effective in their stewardship effects of mental ill-health if they the report’s co-author, Professor and strategic duties than in understand the causes Christian Dormann, from Johannes monitoring and control. While 90 per Gutenberg University. cent agreed or strongly agreed that he harmful effects of At that stage, even the smallest job NEDs perform well when it comes to Twork-related burnout are or task can appear to be much more operational matters, only 70 per cent widely understood. But what we strenuous or stressful than it really said they were effective in showing know less about is exactly how is, he adds. The consequence of that strategic behaviours. burnout is caused in increased stress is The study found that NHS chairs the fi rst place. “The more severe a greater burnout. are effective overall. Where they A paper from person’s burnout What can help break need to improve is in dealing with researchers at Johannes becomes, the more this cycle? Making sure disruptive or underperforming board Gutenberg University, stressed they feel” employees have greater members – 37 per cent of directors the University of South control over their felt this was a problem. They also Australia and Humboldt University own work and receive support from need to focus more on transformation of Berlin now shows that while stress colleagues or team leaders are two and strategic issues. and burnout can drive each other vital factors that can act as buffers on in what becomes a vicious circle, to burnout, says the paper. It’s also The research, authored by Dr burnout in fact has a much greater important for staff take a break from Filipe Morais, Professor Andrew effect on work stress than vice versa. work during lunchtime, weekends Kakabadse, Dr Andrew Myers It’s an important fi nding for and holidays so they have time to and Gerry Brown, makes several organisations that want to be ‘recover’ from the overload and stress recommendations, including: able to break the cycle leading to they may experience at work. • clarifying the role of NHS boards burnout, which can bring poorer bit.ly/stresscycle and placing greater emphasis on job performance and mental and strategic and stewardship roles, physical ill-health. and creating conditions that enable The paper, titled Reciprocal effects change, such as using mentoring and between job stressors and burnout: coaching to help executive teams A continuous time meta-analysis work through difficult situations; of longitudinal studies, evaluated • developing an NHS-wide board/ 48 studies that involved 26,319 NED development programme that participants. The research pieces, supports a shift to a more strategic spanning 1986 to 2019, came from stewardship role; and various countries across Europe, as • addressing pay and board diversity well as the US, Mexico, South Africa by harmonising NED pay, and using and China, among others. pay policy alongside more inclusive When burnout occurs, it can lead selection criteria to tackle the to a person feeling emotionally diversity agenda and attract exhausted, detached from colleagues higher-quality applicants. and work, and less able to perform their job well, the research paper says. The fi ndings from the study The topic of stress has been are included in a book called The receiving greater media attention Independent Director in Society: Our during the pandemic, as the mental current crisis in governance and what toll of lockdown on workers has to do about it. become clear. In January, Tom Tom Blomfield left his role, citing stress

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CYBERSECURITY make them less vigilant against One reason was that clicking on external threats. email content was simply a matter Are you helping The study goes on to suggest of habit – an automatic response that the fear of feeling embarrassed triggered by having to deal with the hackers? by or guilty about being caught out messages every day. by a cyber criminal can be a stronger Security technology designed to Expensive solutions may breed institutional defence. block phishing emails from employee complacency among employees Academics Hamidreza inboxes also requires a human to and open back doors Shahbaznezhad and Farzan Kolini, analyse and distinguish between both of the University of Auckland, scam and legitimate emails. It is rotective security controls and Mona Rashidirad, of the therefore “incumbent on employees Pdesigned to head off company University of Sussex Business School, to apply additional due diligence to ‘phishing’ attacks sound like a set out to fi nd out why employees fall investigate any suspicious emails”, sensible precaution in an age of victim to phishing scams, which are warns Kolini. widespread online criminality – but responsible for almost one in three Interestingly, no single group what if they actually increase the data breaches and rely on tricking of employees proved to be more likelihood of employees falling prey employees into allowing hackers on vulnerable to attack: factors such as to such scams? to company systems. age, gender and education level made Research has highlighted that Using a survey involving 142 little difference to their susceptibility. expensive measures such as email workers from two fi rms in New Protecting against criminal proxy, anti-malware and anti- Zealand, they identified a range attempts to steal sensitive or phishing technologies do not in of individual, organisational and confidential company information, reality act as complete deterrents technological factors that could the report suggests, is down to robust against cyber attacks because staff explain why employees fail to staff training and education, informing assume emails are checked and comply with their businesses’ employees what security measures safe to open once they reach their email security policy and become their employer already has in place, inboxes. This can subsequently susceptible to fraudsters. but also what security risks remain. es

The time and effort required to pen an individual thank you, along with its permanence, means it is more valued by employees, says a new study Nikada/Getty Imag

66 The paper, Employees’ Behavior in professionals that aimed to uncover PERFORMANCE Phishing Attacks: What Individual, whether written or verbal thanks Organizational and Technological were more welcome by staff. Why successful Factors Matter?, says staff yma The findings reveal that “the also benefit from a greater workplace is full of missed leaders are more understanding of the factors that opportunities for thanking affect their behaviour, so they can others”. Only half of employees are sackable be alert to how they are exploited thanked by their manager at least by malicious attackers. weekly, although colleagues show When earnings are abundant, bit.ly/phishingstaff appreciation for each other more CEOs are more likely to be frequently, with three-quarters vulnerable to a downturn saying they are thanked by a fellow APPRECIATION worker on a weekly basis. he boards of companies that Written thanks are highly valued, Tenjoy a steady and consistent Courtesy costs the study explains, because of the level of financial return are more time and effort it takes, the fact aggressive in firing their CEOs nothing at work it’s more specific and because following a bad earnings period, it is a permanent record, which according to new research. How does the way managers individuals can reread whenever CEO Turnover and Accounting demonstrate gratitude affect they wish. “We wondered if Earnings: The Role of Earnings the way it is received by staff? handwritten thanks had gone Persistence explores an issue that out of style but, for one quarter has been overlooked to date – the thank you goes a long way, to a third of our respondents, relationship between a firm’s earnings Athe saying goes. But it’s not a handwritten thanks were right at pattern and decisions on retaining or phrase being widely used in the the top of the list,” co-author Peter dismissing a chief executive. workplace, despite previous studies W Cardon says. And millennials The study explains that so-called showing that such appreciation enjoy handwritten notes as much ‘earnings persistence’ describes how increases employee engagement and as older generations, he adds. likely the earnings of a company commitment. And new In addition, are to recur. When a firm with research now shows “Our research shows around two-thirds of a ‘highly persistent’ (or steady) the way a thank you is managers need to focus professionals prefer earnings pattern suffers a negative delivered by managers on personalised and exclusively private performance in the current period, can also make a individual thanks” thanks. However, the that pattern is more likely to continue difference. Employees paper also explains in future years. This is in contrast to tend to prefer one-on-one that different forms of gratitude a firm with low earnings persistence; expressions of thanks from their have greater value in different in this instance, a dip in earnings boss or leader rather than being circumstances and managers need performance in the current period thanked in front of others. And to use various approaches. For is less likely to continue. they favour written thanks over example, spoken thanks can be This trend can have a major bearing verbal thanks, particularly favouring better when trying to give public on a decision on whether or not to handwritten notes. recognition or for smaller efforts, fire a CEO. As co-author Inho Suk, of The paper from Marshall School while written thanks tend to be the University at Buffalo and Korea of Business, University of Southern even more highly valued when a lot University Business School, says: California, highlights that staff care of effort has gone into a task, or a “Firms with high earnings persistence when they aren’t shown appreciation. person’s accomplishment is a major understand the performance in Around seven in 10 workers admitted one. And while millennials are most the current period is likely to carry that they are either bothered a little likely to like both written and spoken forward with the incumbent CEO, so or a lot when not thanked. thanks, older employees increasingly they’re more likely to fire a CEO who Researchers conducted two studies prefer spoken thanks. yields poor earnings.” – one that asked 58 professionals “Our research really shows For boards of firms with low in the US to journal for one month managers need to focus on earnings persistence, a CEO their experiences of being thanked personalised, individual thank-you delivering poor performance is in the workplace, and the other expressions,” concludes Cardon. less likely to be sacked because an online survey of a further 1,200 bit.ly/workplacethanks it’s seen as temporary. Despite •

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this, data shows that earnings supported during the next crisis that no one’s income dips below this persistence is often left out of CEO hits the country. threshold”; and compensation contracts. The CIPD says taking a long-term • making training a component of The research involved analysing view of job support schemes in the the CJRS, so individuals who are data from more than 1,500 CEO event of a severe economic threat furloughed or working reduced turnovers between 1993 and 2017. would ease the difficulties faced hours are offered training support The results show that earnings by employers trying to protect jobs and those made redundant given persistence is the most important and undertake workforce planning. outplacement skills development financial metric for explaining A key recommendation in its new support. The funds to deliver this boards’ decisions over CEO turnover, report is that any future job support could be found by diverting the because of its direct link with the programmes should be based on a flat- apprenticeship levy. future of a company’s bottom line. rate wage subsidy set at the equivalent bit.ly/futurefurlough However, the study also examined of the national living wage for a full- earnings persistence time worker, which and CEO compensation, equates to around SKILLS specifically looking “A longer-term view of £1,300 per month. at its relationship job support schemes There should also be How remote to changes made to would make workforce a requirement to train pay in response to a planning easier” staff, supported by workers get weaker performance. government funding. It was noted that boards will go to The programme put in place ahead greater pains to fire weaker CEOs during Covid, officially known as the in companies with more consistent coronavirus job retention scheme From showcasing achievements to earnings but where compensation (CJRS) or furlough, pays 80 per cent analysing problems, adapting how policy does not tie pay to long-term of wages for hours not worked up to a you work makes a difference performance. In such cases, the cap of £2,500. “discipline system substitutes for The CIPD’s publication, The future here are five special skills the compensation system”. of furlough: Recommendations for Tremote workers can develop that Where CEO compensation and now and for any future wage subsidy can mean the difference between performance are linked, there is scheme, provides a review of the a below-par career and a highly less incentive to remove a poorly positives and negatives of the CJRS. successful one, says new research. performing CEO, the research adds. It acknowledges that the need to The skills reflect the specific demands bit.ly/CEOearnings respond quickly to the pandemic of working from home but can also created issues, but says there are still help ensure staff are not sidelined opportunities to improve the way because they can’t be a part of the PLANNING the CJRS scheme was delivered. For face-to-face informal interactions example, although the subsidy is that form a key part of workplace life. Are we ready regarded as generous, it is inequitable towards those who were already out The research, published by EM for the next of a job and collecting unemployment Normandie Business School, benefit pre-Covid. suggests the core behavioural skills pandemic? for effective home working are: To improve the CJRS, the CIPD • having a good understanding of your How we approach furloughing staff recommends: own skills, influence and potential and support retraining should be • extending it until June 2021, with the contribution; discussed before another crisis wage subsidy falling to 70 per cent .• being able to analyse and solve throughout May and June. Reviews complex problems, and identify ven in the midst of a pandemic should be held to ensure subsidies solutions; Ethat has wreaked global social stay at an appropriate level; .• being in the know about the skills, and economic havoc, it’s not too • a levelling up of support for the low influence and help others in the early to think about what happens paid by introducing a lower limit organisation can offer; next. And in the case of the UK, a to the CJRS, set at the national • understanding and being able to put new report argues it is imperative minimum wage. This would to good use the company’s rules and to think about how workers will be “share the load and ensure that strategy; and

68 • being able to showcase and promote your own work and achievements, as well as the company’s.

The last skill is particularly important for remote workers to develop, according to the paper, because it ensures their contribution is not overlooked or ignored. The study analysed the career paths, performance levels and behavioural skills of a group of 317 French remote workers between 2009 and 2019. In terms of their career success, it found few were ‘middle of the road’. Employees fell into two camps at either end of the spectrum: the highly successful and the below average. Interestingly, the successful group was made up of male executives for whom remote working was offered Being able to analyse and solve complex problems can help remote workers succeed as part of a reward retention strategy, so companies could hold on to their what they have done or accomplished convincing and practically useful talent. By contrast, the much less during the day in virtual meetings. when making decisions? successful group mainly comprised They can also help staff vede lop the A new CIPD report, Employee younger, non-managerial women, specifi c skills identified. engagement: an evidence review of an with low-level skills and for whom bit.ly/remotepromotion umbrella term, aims to support HR remote working was considered an in navigating these challenges and ‘opportunity’ or was taken up to meet provide greater clarity. The evidence a specific need (juggling home and EVIDENCE-BASED HR review of areas that fall under work life, for example). ‘employee engagement’ addresses When both groups of employees Solving the the critical question of whether stopped remote working and engagement boosts performance, returned to the workplace, the engagement as is commonly argued. high performers continued to A fi rst step towards creating a solid excel and enjoyed larger salaries, conundrum foundation for employee engagement more promotions and improved is being clearer about what it means performance. The second group How a better grip of defi nitions, and using more precise language saw no improvement in pay or and use of more precise language, around it. The study suggests this is promotions and even experienced can help drive a crucial agenda no easy task. For example, the 2009 a decline in performance levels. UK government-commissioned study, The variation in attainment was mployee engagement can be Engaging for Success, which helped accounted for by the diff erence in Ea problematic term for HR elevate the engagement agenda, individuals’ ability to hone and apply directors – it’s often considered found more than 50 definitions. the fi ve soft skills outlined. ‘contentious and woolly’ and applied One solution, the CIPD The research, titled Full Remote in an inconsistent way. Yet it has recommends, is for HR to treat Skills: Which skills do you need to become a central focus for senior employee engagement as an umbrella be a successful remote worker?, has leaders, boards and investors, who term that describes a broad area of implications for HR teams and regard it as a valid indicator of people management. This would organisations trying to create the organisational health and use it encourage separating out and a ck right conditions for remote working. to inform important decisions. better understanding of the specific sto For example, to ensure everyone’s So how can HR practitioners elements that make up engagement,

hutter contributions are visible, managers make sense of employee engagement such as organisational commitment, /S should encourage employees to share in a way that is both scientifically meaningful work and motivation. ITV

69 IEF BR DE

– the presence of female directors has no real impact on how well an organisation performs. Professors Samia Belaounia, Ran Tao and Hong Zhao account for this disparity by explaining that women in countries with a less equal culture may lack the educational and professional background that would equip them with the skills for boardroom roles. Other factors include boardroom dynamics and women not being taken seriously, or having as strong a voice as they might. “If a society in general holds a biased attitude toward women, it is difficult to believe that female directors will have a voice among their male counterparts,” say the researchers. Finland’s fi ve largest political parties are all led by women, exemplifying its progressive approach The study, Gender equality’s impact on female directors’ efficacy: Taking this approach means HR Gifford and Jake Young of the CIPD, A multi-country study, analysed professionals have to “reflect on although they point out that causality 1,986 public fi rms from 24 countries which components they want to can be difficult to establish in any spanning 2007 to 2016. It measured understand, prioritise and leverage”, aspect of HR or workplace research. the percentage of women directors avoiding confusion or vagueness. bit.ly/Workengage on boards, gender equality in The study also makes a distinction different regions from official between employee engagement indices and a range of company and work engagement, explaining EXECUTIVE REPRESENTATION performance measures. that the latter has a narrower focus The results confirmed the relating to three aspects: energy, Female leaders researchers’ argument that female dedication and absorption in work. directors can add value to boards Crucially, much of the high-quality can’t do it all but that this can vary substantially research that exists on this topic across countries and is dependent on is in relation to measures of work More women at the top is a good societal and cultural norms. Where engagement specifi cally, rather thing – but their broader impact greater female representation does than employee engagement. In the depends on local cultural norms prove beneficial, it increases a fi rm’s interests of applying evidence-based overall value, reduces its exposure practice, it might be better for HR to he question of whether gender to risk and leads to higher-quality be clear and consistent about the fact Tdiversity in top teams leads to fi nancial reporting (or restraint in it is referencing work engagement. companies performing more strongly earnings management). The report goes on to shed light has been revisited in a recent study How do the fi ndings fi t with on the link between engagement from NEOMA Business School. And moves to increase the number of and performance. The review researchers have found there is a link women on boards, through quotas or focuses on 23 longitudinal studies – but it is dependent on the region or recommendations? For example, in and concludes that there is a country the company is based. India all listed fi rms are required to es predictive relationship between In countries where the equal have at least one independent female work engagement and performance opportunities agenda is more director, Kenya imposes a 33 per cent – but it is weak. advanced, such as Norway or Sweden, female director quota on state-owned Despite the subject being around greater female board representation companies and quotas have been

for 30 years, the body of research leads to a boost in fi rms’ effectiveness. enacted in many European countries. rhonen/Getty Imag

on employee engagement is still However, in less egalitarian cultures These policies can have a positive Ko relatively nascent, say authors Jonny – for example, China, India and Japan effect in the long term because they mi Em

70 afford women greater opportunities not significantly predict anxiety, between employees and managers in the top ranks of business, the study depression or stress symptoms, but and workforces that are less stressed, says. But it warns it’s not a solution participants categorised as being at research has revealed. A strong link that can immediately improve board higher risk of having both general between greater transparency and performance in countries where there anxiety and major depressive staff feeling less distress, worry or is less gender equality. disorder did not use their phone tension at work was evident even more frequently than those at when taking into account factors such lower risk. as hours worked or income bracket. WORKPLACE TECHNOLOGY What the study does show, A study by Hui Zheng, Jacob however, is that mental health Tarrence and Vincent Roscigno, Phones are not is associated with concerns and of Ohio State University, and Scott worries felt by participants about Schieman of the University of the enemy their own smartphone use. While Toronto, also reveals that staff feel previous studies have focused on the more secure in their jobs and greater Reducing smartphone use does potentially detrimental impact of commitment to their employers not necessarily lead to improved screen time, it is individual attitudes when financial details are more mental health, researchers find or worries likely to be driving this. readily shared with them. Data from Co-author Dr David Ellis, of the UK’s Workplace Employment ith smartphones now a the University of Bath’s School Relations Study, which includes Wcommon part of the workplace, of Management, says: “Mobile information on 15,747 workers it’s little wonder there technologies have from about 2,500 workplaces, was has been growing become even more analysed to determine the effects of debate around whether “Our results suggest essential for work and financial transparency. they have a damaging reducing screen time day-to-day life during Employees were asked how often effect on mental health. will not make people the pandemic. Our and to what extent their job made The latest research, happier” results add to a growing them feel tense, depressed, worried however, suggests this body of research that and miserable. They then rated how might not be the case. suggests reducing general screen time well managers did at keeping staff General smartphone usage will not make people happier.” informed about financial matters, is a poor predictor of anxiety, Addressing people’s worries about including budget or profits. depression or stress, says a study how much time they spend using The study, called Workplace from Lancaster University, the technology is likely to have greater financial transparency and job University of Bath’s School of mental health benefits than reducing distress, found employees at Management, the University of their overall smartphone use, the companies with the highest levels Bristol and the University of Lincoln. researchers conclude. of financial transparency had stress And the amount of time spent on a bit.ly/Worksmartphone level scores about 15 per cent lower smartphone is not related to poor than those at companies with the mental health. lowest levels of transparency. “Even The study aimed to examine how FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY though financial transparency is results differed when collecting about disclosing budgets, profits information on smartphone usage Open budgets or other financial matters, the based on objective data as well as way it reduces job distress is not estimated use. Information was mean happier mainly about the money. It is about gathered from 199 iPhone users the relationships, especially with and 46 Android users for one week. employees managers,” says Roscigno. Participants were asked to think Workers not covered by collective about how much time they spent Sharing financial information with bargaining agreements may feel even on their phone, as well as to what staff reduces stress and enhances more stressed by a lack of disclosure extent they thought their usage relationships at work of financial information, he warns, was ‘problematic’. They were also because they cannot rely on their required to answer questions about usinesses that are open and union to look out for their interests their physical and mental health. Btransparent about their profits and may worry about fair wages or Not only did the results reveal and budgets – and finances in losing their job. that average daily screen time does general – enjoy better relationships bit.ly/transparentfirms

71 Further Reading

Debt p14 Workplace tunes p26 Fox News p32

Debt: The First 5,000 Years Behind The Song: ‘9 to 5’ Behold, America by Sarah Churchwell by David Graeber American Songwriter, 2020 Hachette, 2018 Melville House Publishing, 2014 bit.ly/9To5Dolly Did Fox News Discuss the ‘War on The Secrets of our Success: How Beyoncé’s Other Women: Considering Christmas’? Culture is Driving Human Evolution, The Soul Muses of Lemonade Snopes, 2018 Domesticating our Species and Making Fader bit.ly/FoxWarOnChristmas us Smarter by Joseph Henrich bit.ly/BeyonceOtherWomen Princeton University Press, 2017 Corruptions of Empire by Alexander Heigh-Ho: Declarations of the Depression Cockburn Public Debt: how much is too much? Wordpress blog post Verso, 1987 The Economist on YouTube, 2020 bit.ly/HeighHoBlog bit.ly/PublicDebtTooMuch Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the The Life of a Song: ‘Shipbuilding’ Conservative Media Establishment by Why were notched sticks so important Financial Times, 2015 Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph in medieval times? bit.ly/ShipbuildingSong Cappella Modern History TV on YouTube, 2020 Oxford University Press USA, 2008 bit.ly/NotchedSticks ‘9 to 5’ Turns 35, and It’s Still Radical Today Former Australian PMs put Murdoch in The bottom Line with Evan Davies: Rolling Stone, 2015 the hot seat on climate change The Covid Hangover bit.ly/9to5Turns35 Financial Times, 2021 BBC Radio 4, 2020 bit.ly/MurdochClimateChange bit.ly/CovidHangover Roxy Music: Both Ends Burning by Jonathan Rigby The Loudest Voice In The Room How is money created? Reynolds & Hearn, 2005 by Gabriel Sherman Bank of England knowledge bank, 2020 Random House, 2014 bit.ly/BoEHowMoneyCreated Song Of The Volga Boatmen Making Multicultural Music, 2011 The myth of the echo chamber Pandemic borrowing takes national bit.ly/VolgaBoatmen The Conversation, 2018 debt to highest since 1960s bit.ly/EchoChamberMyth The Times, 2020 bit.ly/PandemicBorrowing This Is Not Propaganda by Peter Q&A: Matt Pomerantsev UK households repaid £16bn on credit Faber, 2019 cards and loans in 2020 Atkinson p28 Guardian, 2021 bit.ly/RepaidCreditCards The History of the Co-op Solutions for Retail Brands blog post Unicef UK p40 What is the sociology of debt? bit.ly/HistoryOfCo-op Transforming Society blog post, 2019 Eight things I’ve learnt from lockdown bit.ly/SociologyOfDebt Co-op’s marketing boss on why Claire Fox blog post, 2020 membership is more powerful bit.ly/8LockdownLessons Buy-now-pay-later products to be than loyalty regulated Marketing Week, 2020 Covid-19 crisis could force one in 10 HM Treasury, 2021 bit.ly/PowerfulMembership charities to close within a year bit.ly/TreasuryBuyNowPayLater Third Sector, 2020 The couple who helped transform the bit.ly/CovidClosingCharities way we shop BBC, 2014 Claire Fox: “When your employees are bit.ly/TescoClubcardStory being kidnapped, flexible working takes a back seat” People Management, 2018 bit.ly/KidnappedEmployees

72 Wo rk. Because business is about people

Five essential Has the pandemic set Brought to you by… equality back? p53 Work. is published on behalf questions for HR of the CIPD by Haymarket Business Equality impacts of the current recession Media. Registered office: Equality and Human Rights Bridge House, 69 London Road, Will we say goodbye to Commission, 2020 Twickenham, TW1 3SP the 9-5? p46 bit.ly/EqualityImpacts [email protected]

Lynda Gratton: How to make fl exibility Evaluating the effects of the current Editor work for everyone economic crisis on the UK labour market Claire Warren London Business School webinar on Resolution Foundation, 2020 Art director YouTube, 2020 bit.ly/EconomicCrisisAndJobs Aubrey Smith bit.ly/MakingFlexibilityWork Production editor No Returns: a new direction to tackle Joanna Matthews The World of Work in 2021 insecurity in retail following COVID-19 Picture editor WORKTECH Academy, 2021 Work Foundation, 2020 Dominique Campbell bit.ly/TrendsReview2021 bit.ly/InsecurityInRetail Editor in chief Robert Jeff ery Four Principles to Ensure Hybrid Work Editorial director is Productive Work Is it time to split HR? p57 Simon Kanter MIT Sloan Review, 2020 Group art director bit.ly/HybridWorkPrinciples It’s Time to Split HR Tim Scott Harvard Business Review, 2014 Editorial consultant Has time lost all meaning for you? bit.ly/TimeToSplitHR Paul Simpson Join the club Business director FT Weekend, 2021 Do Not Split HR – At Least Not Ram Angela Hughes bit.ly/TimeLostMeaning Charan’s Way Senior production controller Harvard Business Review, 2014 Lee Brister bit.ly/DoNotSplitHR Are the robots coming faster Head of production operations Trevor Simpson now? p50 It’s Time to Retool HR, Not Split It CIPD Publishing Harvard Business Review, 2014 Sinead Costello Do You Love Me? bit.ly/TimeToRetoolHR Boston Dynamics on YouTube, 2020 CIPD members can get free bit.ly/DoYouLoveMeRobots Changing HR operating models online access to leading HR, CIPD, 2015 L&D and management journals. The Technology Trap: Learning from bit.ly/ChangeOperatingModels cipd.co.uk/knowledge/journals the History of Automation Work.– ISSN 2056-6425 Social Europe on YouTube, 2019 Printed by Stephens & George Print Group, bit.ly/TheTechnologyTrap Have we relied on staff Merthyr Tydfil. © All rights reserved. This publication (or any part thereof) goodwill for too long? p60 may not be reproduced, transmitted How many jobs do robots really replace? or stored in print or electronic format (including, but not limited, to any online MIT News, 2020 COVID-19 and the employee experience: service, any database or any part of the bit.ly/DoRobotsReplaceJobs How leaders can seize the moment internet), or in any other format in any McKinsey & Company, 2020 media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of Haymarket Media The Work of the Future: Building Better bit.ly/CovidEmployeeExperience Group Ltd, which accepts no liability Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines for the accuracy of the contents or any MIT Work of the Future, 2020 Pay ratios and the FTSE 350: an analysis opinions expressed herein. CIPD contact details: bit.ly/TheWorkOfTheFuture of the fi rst disclosures 151 The Broadway, High Pay Centre, 2020 London SW19 1JQ, 020 8612 6208, Harnessing automation for a future bit.ly/PayRatiosFTSE350 [email protected] that works If you are a CIPD McKinsey Global Institute, 2017 The impacts of the Covid-19 crisis on member and your home or work address bit.ly/HarnessingAutomation low-paid and insecure workers has changed, please Institute for Employment Studies, 2021 call 020 8612 6233. CIPD is a registered bit.ly/CovidInsecureWorkers charity – no. 1079797 73 ) TE E IS TH -P TO FF E (O ID GU ACRONYMS Useful time saving or alphabet overload? Paul Simpson explores our love of abbreviations

Blame text messaging, social media and information overload for the fact that acronyms have become so common we may all drown in an alphabet soup. They can be useful – in 1944, a British Army transport officer coined VIP (very important person) to disguise the identity of passengers, including Lord Louis Mountbatten. But it’s easy to forget that they depend on our POV (point of view). While UFO means one thing for most people, for keen knitters, it stands for ‘unfinished object’.

Strictly speaking, acronyms are abbreviations pronounced as words, such as ‘scuba’, whereas 1 initialisms are abbreviations pronounced one letter at a time (like HR) but in everyday parlance, the terms have become interchangeable, which – sorry pedants – is how we’re going to use them. During World War II, a lexicon of abbreviations helped keep tabs on the variety of weapons manufactured. Inevitably these metamorphosed into such anti-mnemonics as NAVCOMTELSTA ASCOMM DET WHIDBEY (naval computer and telecommunication, antisubmarine warfare communications centre detachment Whidbey Island). Neither a proper acronym nor an initialism, this is big but definitely not clever.

At work, acronyms can signify that you are part of the ‘in crowd’– the ‘I know something you don’t’ school of 2 one-upmanship – or maybe management are using them as a sleight of hand. Their usage can also be incredibly volatile. Google trend data shows that British searches for VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) peaked in July 2020 but had fallen by 45 per cent by January 2021. No one wants to use such terms as DFTBA (don’t forget to be awesome!) when they are past their sell-by date. We must also be wary of RAS (redundant acronym syndrome) by, for example, saying ‘PIN number’ when the N already stands for number.

The popularity of social media has made such abbreviations as LOL (laugh out loud), IMO (in 3 my opinion) and YOLO (you only live once) ubiquitous. The top brass at the mighty FBI, in their finite wisdom, felt the need to provide agents with a dictionary of such slang. TBH (to be honest), how many crimes might be solved when an agent discovers that ‘ICBINB’ stands for ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’? And no, ISIANMTU (I swear I am not making this up).

The Germans love their ‘silbenkurzwörter’, abbreviations formed from the initial syllables of a word or group 4 of words. The Haribo brand is named after the founder Hans Riegel and Bonn, the city where he launched the oto

candy maker. At least that acronym was Riegel’s idea – the infamous Belgian airline Sabena stood, business Ph k

travellers joked, for ‘such a bad experience, never again’, while in France in 2016 the term TSF (tout aauf oc

Sarkozy), literally ‘anyone but Sarkozy’, stymied the former president’s comeback. St my la

Not all acronyms are stupid of course. B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to /A 5 consumer) are efficient, succinct and widely understood, for example. Yet Elon Musk had a point when he warned SpaceX staff in 2010: “Individually, a fewon acr yms here and there may not seem so bad, but if a thousand people are making these up, the result will be a huge glossary AlekseyFuntap we have to issue to new employees.” : rs ve Although the military came up with YABA (yet another bloody acronym), abbreviations have been

6 embraced by self-important officers, as Robin Williams highlights in the 1987 movie Good Morning back co d

Vietnam. Informed that the former VP (vice president Richard Nixon) would host a PC (press an t

conference), Williams’ maverick DJ asks: “Excuse me sir, seeing as how the VP is such a VIP should we on

keep the PC on the QT because if it leaks to the VC he could end up an MIA and we’d all be put on KP de fr si

[kitchen patrol]?” When it comes to acronyms, that gag must be the GOAT (greatest of all time). In

74

Da Vinci of Debt Grand Central Station, January 2021

Billed as the most expensive piece of art in the world, the value of the Da Vinci of Debt installation lay not in its resale value but in the cost of the college diplomas suspended in mid-air above the historic Vanderbilt Hall in New York’s Grand Central Station. The 2,600 diplomas, provided by American graduates, together account for $470m of debt, given the average US student accrues around $180,000. Designed to call attention to the sheer scale of the crisis, the artwork came courtesy of a promotion by Anheuser-Busch’s Natural Light beer brand, which has pledged £10m over 10 years to help students pay off their loans. Today governments across the world fi nd themselves in a similar situation, having used debt to prop up their populations throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Now we must all consider the repercussions – and the subsequent bill.

Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images