Let’s Make It Better

Someone was asking me the other day why I do what I do.  In the big picture, I want to make people’s work lives better.  I focus on the tech environment because that’s where I’ve spent much of my career.  Work should be a source of pride, growth, satisfaction, community, problem solving and a host of other positive things.

Too often, it isn’t.  Instead, it’s a source of stress, fear, humiliation, dread, difficult personalities and ridiculous rules.  I see the answer in leadership, leaders who are focused on people, not on profit or products.  When you focus on the people, they will take care of the patrons, the products, and the profits.

In the Beginning…

When the first large factories started in the early 1800’s, created to spin fiber and weave cloth, the hours were long, the environment was dirty and unsafe, and child labor was common. When I say the hours were long,  12-14 hour days, six days a week were the norm for all workers, including children.  The environment was set up to maximize the productivity of the machines and the owners’ profits; the effect on workers’ health was rarely considered.  For example, the machines operated best in a climate that tended to cause pneumonia in the workforce.  Injuries were common as well; if a worker lost a finger, he or she should have  been more careful.

While these conditions seem dreadful to us, in those early industrial days, the conditions reflected how literate, wealthy men looked on the rest of society.  An economist argued that paying laborers better wages would ruin the industry and the economy.  Others said that the workers would just spend any time off on getting drunk and committing crimes.  Even Adam Smith, the great economist, said that children had always worked and conditions in the factories couldn’t be all that bad.

At Least Most Workers Aren’t Physically Maimed…

It took a different sort of literate, wealthy man (and woman) to look at the workers as people with value, not just as laborers to run the machines.  These people had the vision to see that treating people better, allowing them more time to rest and better food to eat, giving them more education, could result in more productivity, not less.  They were able to look at those awful working conditions and say “we can do better.”

Today, the average office / knowledge worker is not at any significant risk of being killed or maimed at work.  An eight-hour day and a five-day-work-week are the norms, (though often violated in many companies).  Flexible schedules such as working four 10-hour days or three 12-hour days are not uncommon.

Mentally Maimed and Unengaged Workforce

Yet, for all the strides made, worldwide, only 15% of workers report being engaged in their jobs.  In the US, 30% report being engaged.  While that is twice as good as the rest of the world, it’s still a pretty lousy percentage.  It means that 70% of the workforce is unengaged.  Not only is that bad for productivity, but it’s no way to live.  We spend a large chunk of our time at work.  We ought to find some sense of satisfaction.

We Can Do Better Still

I see myself as the heir to those early factory reformers.  They looked at what was happening and said, “we can do better.”  I look at today’s work environment and say, “we can still do better.” It’s time to reform the workplace once again.

Photo by Janko Ferlič on Unsplash