Kate Russell says that over the last 10-15 years, there’s been a noticeable decline in the British work ethic. HR needs to take control.
Recently I was asked to take part in a Five Live debate centring around the findings of Centre for Social Justice think-tank that 82% of employers are concerned about British workers’ work ethic. One of the other contributors suggested that British workers are lean, mean and keen to knuckle down and deliver. I am going to stick my neck out here and I make no apologies for doing so.
I don’t agree; from where I stand (delivering HR services and training to a very wide range of industries and sectors) there’s considerable evidence that a substantial body of British workers cannot be described as lean, mean and keen by any stretch of the imagination.
In today’s economic environment many organisations are fighting for their lives and it is vital that business takes steps to ensure that all employees are performing to their optimum. Let me be clear. I am not suggesting that British workers are lazy (some are, but you get lazy in any language). In fact, most people want and try to do a good job. But over the last 10-15 years, there’s been a noticeable decline in the British work ethic. While I fully support a reasonable work-life balance, I have seen a somewhat casual attitude to work spread across some members of the workforce and employee expectations are often that the employer should make provision for them to work flexibly, but there’s no ‘quid pro quo’ when the employer asks for flexibility.
Let me give you an example. I have employed a number of people in my company. They are very nice, diligent people. Last year the mother of one of my employees was very ill. My employee asked if she could make a few calls during work time to sort out her mother’s care arrangements. Of course I agreed. She made several 45 minute calls while I was in her office and at different times a number of my consultants were in the office with her and reported the same length of conversation. I had no problem with that. But I did notice that while she thanked me for my kindness and flexibility, she didn’t come in early or stay late as a token effort to repay the time off even once. And when I asked her to stay one evening for 15-20 minutes to complete some work, she said she couldn’t because her daughter (aged 13) needed her tea. This sort of thing does tend to make an employer grit her teeth… and it is not an especially unusual response.
Work–life balance is here to stay so employers have to make sure that employee delivery is at a level acceptable to the employer while the employee is actually at work. Most employees do achieve the employer’s standards, but it’s abundantly clear from the application of my question to employers, “are all of your employees meeting all of your reasonable management standards most of the time?” that the answer is always no, and that tells us we have work to do.
Unfortunately, many managers are singularly reluctant to do so.
It is commercially crazy to accept an under-performing employee. The cost of employing staff is the highest it has ever been (salary + 34% + the cost of any other benefits you provide) and is set to get higher.
However, with costs rising and the economy still struggling, it’s time for business to revise its own expectations of employees and ask more of its staff. Too many employers are routinely tolerating poor performance. It’s like paying for a Rolls Royce only to take delivery of a Corsa. (There’s nothing wrong with a Corsa, but you take my point I hope!)
HR now has a fantastic opportunity to get into the business driving seat and make a real difference. We should be training line managers to clarify and raise standards, help them understand the essential requirement to gather objective data, drive them down the performance improvement route where necessary and generally stop tolerating the ‘I’ve done just enough to get away with not being disciplined’ brigade.
HR’s function is now more crucial than ever to ensure that ‘OK’ performance is raised to deliver at 95% all the time. Are we prepared to grasp the nettle? Can we afford not to?
Kate Russell, The HR Headmistress and MD of Russell HR Consulting.
8 Responses
Kate Russell on “The British Work Ethic”
It is always possible that this article was written with tongue firmly in cheek in order to provoke debate. I think that Ms Russell may be a barrister with all of the careful selecting of evidence that implies when your purpose is to win debate rather than seek justice or the truth.
What the CSJ press release on 5 July actually said was that employers are concerned about the work ethic of the long term unemployed and the lack of skills. It makes no comment in the release about employers’ feelings about the work ethic of skilled employees, whom I imagine Ms Russell most likely employs.
The CSJ is trying to raise awareness about a very important issue that affects our society, but it is not the issue that Ms Russell discusses. That is a shame from someone whose core claim is that of HR professional. Her article is a distraction more than a constructive contribution.
Having turned the CSJ headline to suit her own purpose, Ms Russell then tells a story of her own to demonstrate her point. Unfortunately one story does not prove anything except perhaps that you cannot ‘manage’ human resources, nor compel commitment. What you can learn to do is win people’s engagement.
Managers whose employees are not delivering what they want often enough may look in the mirror and reflect what they are doing to demotivate their people, everyone of whom arrived on their first day wanting to do a good job in the company of good people for a fair reward. The fair reward does not often mean excessive pay.
Employees do sometimes disengage, sometimes to the point that they leave and their reason for leaving is usually to do with failed management. Employers may have expectations of their employees and sometimes feel disappointed and employees also have expectations of their managers and also sometimes feel disappointed. And I expect Ms Russell’s own employees reading her article will feel very disappointed about her attitude to them and to HR confidentiality, unless she was telling a fictitious story to make her point.
Jonathan Wilson 07971 018921 Humap
Why Good Enough is no longer Good Enough
In my experience a similar situation has arisen in New Zealand. One of the reasons here I believe, is that there are far more laws with their attendant precedents to protect underperfomers, or at least support them, than whatever there are laws to encourage better performance. As a result, managers and especially middle and front line managers/supervisors, are reluctant to push for that bit extra. Add to that we now have the latest ‘fad’ here called bullying, which too often is translated into making people perform to the standards required.
And that brings me the next point………….time after tikme I find the standards are not clearly enunciated. We talk about work being done ‘correctly’ or ‘professionally’ which of course can mean many things including nothing!!
I would really appreciate ideas from Heather as to a solution or solutions, as I suspect this cannot be fixed with one solution.
Good article. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Cheers. DonR.
‘Old’ School headmistress?
I’m afraid that I have to agree with quite a few of the commenters above.
The opinions represented in this article are archaic and while probably intended to provoke a ‘bring back corporal punishment’ response from your readership they only really serve to demonstrate how out of touch the writer is with today’s workplace.
It is fair to say that employment relationships have change beyond recognition over the past 20 years and there is a new attitude amongst British workers about what work means to them. But the premise that there is necessarily something wrong with this is completely wrong.
The reality is that workers now expect more from their work – not necessarily in terms of pay or benefits but absolutely in terms of inspiration. The organisations that spotted this opportunity years back started to think about how they could inspire their employees to give above and beyond the bare minimum contractual expectations. They looked at employee engagement surveys and addressed gaps in unwritten psychological contract that has always existed between employees and employers.
It is these companies that are changing the workplace and forging a new meaning for work.
It is the old school that are still hanging on to the ‘should be grateful to even have a job’ view and, with any luck, just like the dinosaurs before them will one day become extinct.
One final comment – what kind of person asked for kindness to be repaid? You might think it but would you ask it!?
The wrong attitude
I think there are clues in this article as to why a workforce might feel demotivated, dispirited, alienated and not as keen to go beyond the call of duty..! A heavy handed approach from HR never works well- and is this really ultimately an HR issue? There are several channels any underperforming employee often passes through before HR are involved, and I for one am sick to the teeth of hearing ‘That’s an HR issue’ when often it’s a problem that can be sorted out between individuals. Instead of gritting your teeth Kate, a quiet chat with the employee would have put things back on track.
I find it hard to accept criticism of any mother who has to leave at a set time to feed her child and spend a little time with her, regardless of time she may have spent on the phone that day dealing with a verty stressful and worrying situation.
Often, HR is not viewed as approachable or on the side of an employee, and this article illustrates more than a few reasons why that may be.
Work ethic and the older workforce
I agree in general that the pressure is on to try and achieve pretty much outstanding results, not simply good enough. And I can see how the work/life balance demands of a younger workforce might be encouraging a more ‘negotiative’ style of work ethic – they are generally much more confident, commercially aware and growth-minded. But perhaps whats needed in the current climate is less of a ‘whats in it for me’ culture, and more of a ‘how can we get through this together’.
Perhaps we could draw on the experiences of the older workforce with their "Been there, seen it, got the T-shirt" experience! They have usually been through many an organisational crisis, and know what ‘survival’ involves, what it feels like, and are living proof of what working together can achieve. Maybe we should look at how we can make use of this experience to both help build a committed workforce, and capitalise on the skills and strenghts that ‘experienced’ managers can offer.
Lazy workers?
Kate’s experience is not mine. I certainly agree that work ethics have changed over the last 15 years, with both a much greater emphasis on work-life balance and also a much more frequent application of family-friendly employment policies. And surely, that is all to the good?
But I don’t find well managed workers are any less dedicated – in fact, quite the opposite.
What I think Katie has identified is that, given an inch, some employees will always take a mile if allowed to. And that is down to weak management – not employees’ work ethics. And on that, we might all agree?
good enough is no longer good enough?
I liked your article but I disagree that this is HR’s problem. Surely it is the managers role to manage performance. Once HR steps in the managers are all to keen to delegate this to us which is not helpful or sustainable. If managers cannot manage performance, its their performance that needs to be questioned, not HR.
Face time is no proper measure of productivity
I’m afraid this article made me grit my teeth – as a new mother myself I’ve found it necessary to cram my career into about 3 hours a day, fortunately I can do this as the managing director of my own company. What’s startling is that my productivity has soared and I actually now produce better quality work and have more than doubled my turnover. Perhaps your working mother felt justified in taking time to sort out her care arrangements and in going home On Time because she’s producing more than her colleagues in the working day. The fact is that until we stop judging people on face time alone and start looking at their actual output we can’t say for sure who is and isn’t productive. I know many people who stay late at work surfing the net on the sly and would hire the flat-out mum who goes home at 3pm any day of the week. I agree that the work ethic of the workforce isn’t there but most people are just bored and tired. Employers need to do far more to boost people’s energy and vitality levels by giving them interesting meaningful work. If you want to see your workforce go for it, tell them they can go home when they’ve achieved a tangible task to a good quality. I ripped up my company’s time sheets years ago and pay people for what they produce, not how long it takes them to produce it. It’s an approach I would recommend to any other employer where you can separate the output from the input.