New normal: Difference between revisions
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In these neurotic, bossy times we hear a lot about what is, or isn’t, the “new normal” and how employers — especially big institutional ones like banks and asset managers — might be “pivoting” back from the unexpected marvel of compulsory remote working — which let’s not forget, they were bounced into, to get them out of a [[COVID]] jam — to their more usual stentorian disposition, in which they insist employees must come to the office where they can be properly over-watched, audited, monitored, measured and assessed for periodic thinning. | In these neurotic, bossy times we hear a lot about what is, or isn’t, the “new normal” and how employers — especially big institutional ones like banks and asset managers — might be “pivoting” back from the unexpected marvel of compulsory remote working — which let’s not forget, they were bounced into, to get them out of a [[COVID]] jam — to their more usual stentorian disposition, in which they insist employees must come to the office where they can be properly over-watched, audited, monitored, measured and assessed for periodic thinning. | ||
But surely, [[the new normal]] is ''precisely'' the thing for which our friends in [[human resources]] have been carelessly wishing for thirty years. It is only the logical conclusion of the generational push, in the name of cost reduction, to deprecate the experience of office work for the employee. | |||
Simply put, office working circa 2020 is ''nothing'' like office working in 1990. If the COO wants to talk about the “going back to the old normal”, well sorry, chump: that ship has ''long since'' sailed. | |||
Over thirty years, employers have systematically dismantled the peripheral values office life provides to workers. They have treated as regrettable externalities that should not, except by accident, accrue to the worker, things a junior clerk might have expected in 1990: an office, privacy, [[travel and entertainment]] budget, an assistant to manage it, an internal mail service, a typing pool, proofreaders — ''all'' of these have gone. Even the [[IT department|hardware]] the firm brought in to replace it has been taken away again: now the workers must bring their own. | |||
This has been an insidious erosion of the paltry joys office life once offered. They were withdrawn piecemeal, while like frogs in a warming pot, 1990’s respected professional became 2020’s battery hen. | |||
Take, for example, office space. The young clerk had first to share her office, then give it up it for a cubicle with a headset, then a just an un-barricaded dedicated desk, and nowadays has little more than a soft commitment that, all being well, there ''should'' be a spare terminal at a bank of desks that you can log into, assuming enough people are sick or on holiday, and you wipe it clean and sanitise it pursuant to the clear desk policy before you leave for the day. And these are the workers who haven’t been jettisoned in favour of the proverbial school-leaver from Bucharest. | |||
Employees, in the meantime, have kept up ''their'' end of the bargain unalloyed. | Employees, in the meantime, have kept up ''their'' end of the bargain unalloyed. | ||
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Now we have seen that possibility, is it any wonder that the thought of spending hours a day commuting (at our own expense) back and forth into an office where we can expect to sit like battery hens at thin client telescreens and participate in exactly the same Skype video calls that we can do perfectly well from the comfort of our own book-lined dens, only with a larger screen, better coffee and electric guitar handy for those lengthy spells where operations give their monthly budget update to the management opco | Now we have seen that possibility, is it any wonder that the thought of spending hours a day commuting (at our own expense) back and forth into an office where we can expect to sit like battery hens at thin client telescreens and participate in exactly the same Skype video calls that we can do perfectly well from the comfort of our own book-lined dens, only with a larger screen, better coffee and electric guitar handy for those lengthy spells where operations give their monthly budget update to the management opco | ||
The bargain is a two-way street: I employ my intellectual capital in furtherance of your commercial aims: you afford me consideration —partly, but not entirely in the form of money — to do that. | The bargain is a two-way street: I employ my intellectual capital in furtherance of your commercial aims: you afford me consideration —partly, but not entirely in the form of money — to do that. | ||
HR generalists are long on gasbagging about the lessons of behavioural psychology, but short on putting them into practice. | HR generalists are long on gasbagging about the lessons of behavioural psychology, but short on putting them into practice. | ||
Revision as of 17:27, 14 September 2020
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In these neurotic, bossy times we hear a lot about what is, or isn’t, the “new normal” and how employers — especially big institutional ones like banks and asset managers — might be “pivoting” back from the unexpected marvel of compulsory remote working — which let’s not forget, they were bounced into, to get them out of a COVID jam — to their more usual stentorian disposition, in which they insist employees must come to the office where they can be properly over-watched, audited, monitored, measured and assessed for periodic thinning.
But surely, the new normal is precisely the thing for which our friends in human resources have been carelessly wishing for thirty years. It is only the logical conclusion of the generational push, in the name of cost reduction, to deprecate the experience of office work for the employee.
Simply put, office working circa 2020 is nothing like office working in 1990. If the COO wants to talk about the “going back to the old normal”, well sorry, chump: that ship has long since sailed.
Over thirty years, employers have systematically dismantled the peripheral values office life provides to workers. They have treated as regrettable externalities that should not, except by accident, accrue to the worker, things a junior clerk might have expected in 1990: an office, privacy, travel and entertainment budget, an assistant to manage it, an internal mail service, a typing pool, proofreaders — all of these have gone. Even the hardware the firm brought in to replace it has been taken away again: now the workers must bring their own.
This has been an insidious erosion of the paltry joys office life once offered. They were withdrawn piecemeal, while like frogs in a warming pot, 1990’s respected professional became 2020’s battery hen.
Take, for example, office space. The young clerk had first to share her office, then give it up it for a cubicle with a headset, then a just an un-barricaded dedicated desk, and nowadays has little more than a soft commitment that, all being well, there should be a spare terminal at a bank of desks that you can log into, assuming enough people are sick or on holiday, and you wipe it clean and sanitise it pursuant to the clear desk policy before you leave for the day. And these are the workers who haven’t been jettisoned in favour of the proverbial school-leaver from Bucharest.
Employees, in the meantime, have kept up their end of the bargain unalloyed.
In many ways “bring your own office premises” was no more than the logical next step, but in any case, COVID has let the genie out of the bottle: just as we found BYOD a blessing in many ways (though some subsidy for the cost we bore on our employers’ behalves might have been nice) BYOOP offers us so much more: we can fit it our office to our own specification, have an oak-panelled study if we fancy it, and no chief operating officer in the firm need care a row of buttons about it.
Now we have seen that possibility, is it any wonder that the thought of spending hours a day commuting (at our own expense) back and forth into an office where we can expect to sit like battery hens at thin client telescreens and participate in exactly the same Skype video calls that we can do perfectly well from the comfort of our own book-lined dens, only with a larger screen, better coffee and electric guitar handy for those lengthy spells where operations give their monthly budget update to the management opco
The bargain is a two-way street: I employ my intellectual capital in furtherance of your commercial aims: you afford me consideration —partly, but not entirely in the form of money — to do that.
HR generalists are long on gasbagging about the lessons of behavioural psychology, but short on putting them into practice.