One Life - Agnes Uhereczky - E-Book

One Life E-Book

Agnes Uhereczky

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Beschreibung

How to improve the management of your staff ?

One Life is a must-read guide to successfully adopt work-life integration within your organisation. How can you attract and retain talent, reduce and prevent burnout, engage and motivate employees? You’ll find the answer in this book. Bursting with real examples and multidisciplinary case studies from all over the world, One Life is a fundamental reading for leaders, line-managers and small business owners alike.

Discover a new complete and essential guide for all business leaders who want to manage their business in the best way !

EXTRACT

Do you remember the last time, you got a glimpse of the future? How exciting it feels to learn about something that is brand new, yet makes total sense: why hasn’t this been around before? We all remember some of these decisive moments, like hearing for the first time about the possibility of making free phone calls on a service called Skype. Or being able to share videos with everyone on YouTube. Or seeing prototypes of self-driving, or even flying cars, humanoid robots, or hearing Google assistant make a phone call to book an appointment at the hairdresser. The ban on cigarettes in public spaces was another such break-through. Learning about something that will change the way we have been doing certain things in one way for decades is exhilarating, perhaps fear inducing too. It’s difficult to think back on our lives before we could search for things on Google, shop online, travel via low-cost airlines, or had the single currency in the European Union.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Agnes Uhereczky is the co-founder of the WorkLife HUB, and the host of the WorkLife HUB podcast. Agnes is a change management professional, who is passionate about helping organisations reach their highest potential in attracting talent and improving employee wellbeing. She is also interested in research, and has coordinated a number of research projects into exploring the new world of work, learning about how working parents and carers cope with daily demands of work and family life.

Zoltan Vadkerti is an entrepreneur, speaker and workplace consultant. He is the co-founder and Executive Director at the WorkLife HUB. He studied economics in both the Netherlands and Hungary before he moved to Brussels to becoming a lobbyist on EU social and employment policies. That experience, and many others, led him to an interest in the organisation of work and specifically on the quality of work and work-life integration.

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Seitenzahl: 284

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

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Cover

Title page

Advance reviews

‘Work-Life integration allows the worker to have freedom of choice and view both work & life as a blended journey towards happiness & wellbeing. This book is a new horizon that will take your human practice in the workplace to a new dimension.

Dr Mansoor Habib, Senior Director – Employee Happiness, du

‘This is a book that is a must-read for every manager, HR professional, and C-suite executive looking to create dynamic, innovative yet sustainable enterprises. One Life, how the most forward-looking organisations leverage work-life integration to attract talent and foster employee wellbeing synthesizes extensive research from a wide variety of sources, fascinating case studies, as well as the authors’ years of on-the-ground expertise, to provide an approachable, sensible framework for developing and implementing work-life integration strategies that will lead to lasting change. Want a guidebook to creating a better future of work – and a better world? This is it.

Brigid Schulte, award-winning journalist, author of the NYT bestselling Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play when No One has the Time and director of the Better Life Lab at New America

‘Vadkerti and Uhereczky expertly explore new concepts related to work-life integration and suggest innovative new frameworks and approaches. Among all the books on work-life integration, this is one that delivers.

Tracy Brower, PhD, MM, MCR, author of Bring Work to Life by Bringing Life to Work

‘Moving the work life discussion on from balance to integration, Uhereczky and Vadkerti make their 10 years of research accessible to us all. The case studies, from various countries and sectors, are a great insight into the challenges and successes of this revolution. An informative and practical book for anyone interested in applying these principles to their organisation.

Nick Brook, Head of Facilities for Pinsent Masons LLP

‘There were times that organisations and HR did not look at the whole person but only at their competencies and productivity. But people come to work as a whole and connected with their roles outside of work. Without saying that everyone needs to have a perfect balance all the time (life is not like that), we need to make sure that people are able to cope. And that’s why work-life integration as a target and as a means is important in any debate about the future of work. This book gives you the inspiration and the framework to think about how you can make your organization progress in this field.

David Ducheyne, Chief People Officer, Founder of Otolith

Foreword

Do you routinely struggle with the stress of today’s work environments, the lack of technology boundaries, the complexities of caregiving arrangements and the impact that those arrangements have on work productivity? Are you faced with increased pressures to attract and retain top talent? Do you question outdated ways of working that collide with the realities of our modern lives? Do you wish you could build a case, influence your organizational leaders, and act as a change agent in your workplace to transform work environments and reduce work-life conflicts? As a working parent, a human resource professional, and a representative of the work-life profession, this book excites me. It is a practical, insightful, and helpful gathering of best practices and frameworks. The ideas presented show us how to ignite and accelerate change in our workplaces.

As the current President of the College and University Work-Life-Family Association (CUWFA), I collaborate with many passionate and impactful practitioners in the work-life field. We represent the advocates and change-makers who create the vision and strategy for our organizations, build the programs and services our constituencies need, and work tirelessly on behalf of caregivers and their communities. My colleagues at CUWFA represent institutions that have recognized the value of work-life supports and know the critical link to employee engagement and performance. Many of us are fortunate to represent pioneer organizations in the work-life arena who have designated a work-life department and leader. We recognize the tremendous opportunity represented by institutional commitment, consistent and sustained resource allocation, and leadership engagement on this topic.

In my current role leading work-life strategy at a higher-education institution with a diverse population of men and women seeking to live their best lives, while creating world-changing research and educating the future, my team and I work daily to shine a light on the unique needs of our population and strategize ways to evolve our culture. While we’re fortunate to have robust programs and services, we are still on the journey.

My career path has included roles in a variety of industries with specific responsibility for work-life programs and services. I have also done this work by “extension” in diversity and inclusion, leadership development, manager education, culture change, and employee engagement roles. I have done this work when my title dictated it and when my role had no direct responsibility or authority for these programs. I have done this work inside organizations that recognize its strategic importance and offer a comprehensive and well-articulated set of work-life programs and I have done it inside organizations that had neither the focus or inclination to make it a priority.

I’ve also been a recipient of the value of these work-life programs as a working parent and partner, a daughter of aging parents, and someone with aspirations for my career and the health and well-being of my family and community. The ability to enroll my children in on-site early education programs after taking a leave of absence, continuing to breastfeed upon my return to work, having the benefit of flexible working arrangements or accessing eldercare consultation has all contributed to my career and family.

One Life has the potential to be an accelerator for the work-life field. It represents a single resource and a practical framework and tool to help organizations, HR leaders and managers to learn in a systemic way about how work-life supports and services, and flexible work initiatives can bring the desired and sustained results for their workforce. The authors, Agnes Uhereczky and Zoltan Vadkerti, offer practical, well-informed advice that will be helpful to all types of practitioners.

The book authors spoke to experts, understood the history of the field, and found examples to share representing all steps in the progression to the workplace we all aspire to have. I would love the message of this book to drive a whole new generation of work-life leaders to emerge and flourish. And I hope that some will be inspired by the idea that a career can be shaped around this work and recognize the transferrable skills that can be leveraged. I hope people will recognize a dream job described in this book that enables a focus on deep listening and understanding of employee’ needs, designing and implementing programs and services, creative communication, cooperation and collaboration across organizational lines, and aligning work-life integration to the overall strategy of an organization.

My pragmatic side knows that in reality, we will also have to continue this work in organizations that will fold it into other already over-taxed roles or teams. Or we will have to count on passionate change-agents who want to drive organizational change from within their own business unit or personal agenda. For these people, I also recommend this book as it is filled with tools that can enable you to recognize the opportunities that may present themselves and take advantage of those to change your work environment for yourself and in support of caregivers.

I have spent my career working to improve the workplace experience of women and men introduced in this book as those “who would like to make a living for themselves, care for their families, and enjoy life”. Isn’t that all of us? Regardless of era, demographics, or industry? One Life is filled with practical advice for the institutional change agents wishing to drive this work to the next level with the dedication of organizational resources to a work-life function.

Phyllis Stewart Pires, M.A.Ed

President of the Board (2018-2019),

College and University Work-Life-Family Association Senior work-life strategy leader, higher-education

‘Work-life balance is not something that happens, it is something that you create.

Table of contents

Advance reviews
Foreword
Introduction
How is this book organised?
1.The Time is Now
Changing context
What is work-life integration?
Where to start?
Why should you keep reading this book?
What will tip the scales?
2.The Work-Life Integration Management Framework and Maturity Model
The map: the Framework for work-life integration
If you want to go far, don’t go alone
The GPS: the Maturity Model
3.adidas case-study
Introduction
Early days
Mastery
Children at adidas
Visionary
Strategy – “Creating the New”
Culture – 3 Cs
Visionary work-life integration programmes and policies
Leadership
Stakeholder cooperation
Lessons learnt and the way forward
4.Strategic Work-Life Integration Management
Three spheres of influence of Work-Life Integration Management
Implementing strategy through work-life programmes and projects
Organisational culture
Visible expression and work-life integration
The norms and values which govern work-life integration
Basic assumptions about work-life issues
Work organisation and job design
5.Putting work-life integration into practice
The Work-Life Integration Management Plan
An overview of the current work-life integration situation in the workplace
Positioning work-life integration within the strategy of the organisation
Structure and its place within the organisation
Functional responsibilities and roles
Performance measures on work-life integration
Communication plan
Maintenance and long-term thinking
6.The way forward
Strategic position
Leadership
Employee lifecycle
Resources
Peer support and the power of the network
Accountability
Resources
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Copyright

Introduction

It’s 17.59 on a Tuesday afternoon. Susanna is holding back her tears as she stares at the clock, willing it to take that 1 minute leap, as she can only leave her desk at 6pm, and not a minute before. As soon as 6 o’clock arrives, she picks up her coat and dashes out the door. Her ailing mother has been on her own the whole day, shopping needs to be done, her medication needs to be administered and she needs to eat the first warm meal of the day. Susanna’s boss refused to give her the option of flexible working hours, which would allow her to see her mother during the day, take her to the doctor and spend some time with her.

Fast-forward 7 years. The company threw Susanna a small party for her retirement, thanking her for more than 30 years of dedicated service. The party was bitter-sweet however, as Susanna could never forget the psychological stress this conflict has caused her, and as a result she never gave her everything ever again to that employer. Susanna felt utterly let down by the management of the company during that critical time, and never really recovered from it. Her employer, just like many others out there, didn’t even realise the cost that her disengagement caused the company, due to their lack of empathy and attempt to find a temporary solution. Susanna was by far not the only disillusioned and disengaged employee; others had either been in the same situation, or had witnessed their colleague being distressed by the lack of solutions to manage this critical life situation.

Unfortunately Susanna’s story is not an isolated incident. The lack of support by employers to navigate critical and important life events, caring for family members and children is an all-too frequent occurrence. Employees nowadays however, won’t stick around like Susanna did following such an experience. Employees have two legs, they can walk in the door of your company, and they can just as easily walk out. Especially in the current economic climate and the “Glassdoor world”, employees will want to know in advance how they will be able to combine their work and their private and family lives and if they are not satisfied, they will make their voice heard and leave, taking their skills and knowledge elsewhere.

Many employers still refuse to recognise the link between workplace flexibility and employee engagement and performance, even though they may already be struggling with attracting the right talent or are experiencing above-average staff turnover rates or absenteeism. Some employers may understand the urgent need to act, many of them are deploying half-baked solutions, which in the best of times raises morale, in the worst cases reduces trust and engagement even further. In many organisations work flexibility or tele-working is still considered as a perk or benefit, and not as the default way of organising work.

In the meantime employees are suffering. The number of people who told us their stories during the writing of the book created an emerging picture of workplace cultures where employees were still discriminated against for having family responsibilities, restricted in how much control they had over their working hours and workplace and a picture of line-managers unable to cope with a diverse workforce with different needs over time. There seems to be an existing barrier within many organisations or leadership teams to let go of old management styles and beliefs and create vibrant and healthy workplaces for their employees based on new knowledge and tools. It’s still as if work flexibility was a dirty word.

It was only 2 years ago, in 2016, when a group of researchers1 came to conclusive findings that flexible working initiatives in organisations not only reduce stress and burnout, but improve job satisfaction, employee wellbeing, individual effectiveness and productivity; all of which contributes ultimately to the bottom line of the organisation.

Researchers from MIT Sloan school of management and the University of Minnesota ran the first ever randomised, controlled trial in a Fortune 500 tech company to compare outcomes between teams that benefited from flexible work schemes and teams that didn’t. Over the course of 12 months, the company, which employs 700 people, introduced flexible work schemes, tele-working options, and very importantly offered training to line-managers to manage this new way of working to half of the organisation. Selected teams of employees then adopted the new ways of working by shifting their work schedules, working from home more, or rethinking the number of daily meetings they attended, increasing their communication via messaging apps, and overall doing a better job of anticipating very busy periods, where demand for their input was high.

The study adds to a growing body of research evidence showing that flexible work arrangements result in happier, healthier and more productive employees. It is clear, that employees who are allowed to shape their working hours and location to suit their lives not only feel better about their jobs, but are also less conflicted about their work-to-family balance. Critically, these workers are also more efficient and more productive on the job. In other words, workplace flexibility is beneficial – not detrimental – to organisations.

A host of other studies have shown that organisational initiatives which improve employees’ subjective wellbeing also improve the bottom line: they increase productivity and decrease absenteeism, turnover, and presenteeism – which means showing up, but not being engaged at work.

Unfortunately, even though a lot of great research exists around these issues, from labour market disciplines, occupational psychology and work and family scholars, very little of this knowledge, if anything, trickles over into the grasp of practitioners, HR managers, team-managers, and leadership in general.

Hence we recognised the burning need for a single resource and a practical framework and tool to help organisations, HR leaders and managers to learn in a systemic way about how work-life balance and flexible work initiatives can bring the desired and sustained results for their workforce. This book will help your organisation attract and retain the much needed talent, improve employee wellbeing and engagement by reducing absenteeism and burnout and also, help improve diversity and gender balance within the teams and at leadership levels, through a new organisational design.

We will introduce you to a totally new, yet proven way to organise your HR and people management team, by designating a work-life manager or even an entire work-life integration department. And it’s not only us giving you the framework and our views, you will hear and learn from some of the most iconic and successful companies in the world, who have taken this bold step and understood that in order to beat their competition, they needed to first and foremost take care of their people, by allowing them to take care of themselves and their families. We will take you right into the heart of the adidas global Headquarters in Herzogenaurach (Germany) to show you each nook and cranny of the work-life integration department, sharing with you all of their policies and programmes.

One of the challenges of growth is that we don’t know where we are at any given moment in terms of reaching our full potential. In this book we will help you place your organisation on a scale from the worst to the best performing organisations, thus you will be able to situate yourself compared to others and learn about the room there is in your organisation for improvement. We will arm you with a wide range of services, programmes and initiatives that you can offer to your employees, to ensure that they get the best possible employee experience they can.

Wouldn’t you love to become the organisation everyone wants to work for? To receive glowing reviews on Glassdoor or kununu, and be inundated by spontaneous applications from the best talent worldwide? Wouldn’t you love to be constantly asked about how you are doing it, and invited to conferences and meetings to share your secret sauce with others?

Wouldn’t you love to create an organisation where your employees are happy, healthy and creative; they will be so engaged in helping your company to succeed that they give their everything by bringing their whole selves to work? You could conquer new markets, launch fantastic products and services and stand out with your top-notch customer service.

If you follow the instructions and lessons from this book, there is a high chance that you can join the league of extraordinary employers. We will share with you the success stories of large global companies and small local businesses to inspire you and show you that every organisation can do something!

How is this book organised?

The organisational design and change you are about to learn in the book have proven results. Each chapter provides new insight that will help you shape your existing HR and people policies in a way that will create an irresistible organisation, improve well-being and support working parents and carers. It will also help you get a leg up on the competition for talent.

First of all we will set the scene as to why work-life integration is gaining momentum, and no organisation can ignore the work-life needs of their employees. We will share with you the latest trends and research on what drives employees and what organisations need to keep in mind when they want to hire and keep the best people.

Next we will introduce you to two new concepts, the work-life integration management Framework and the work-life integration Maturity Model. These two tools have been developed based on hundreds of interviews with the most successful companies and how they approach the issue of work-life balance in their organisations.

Still sceptical? In Chapter 3 we will take you on a trip to Germany, the heart of Bavaria and the work-life integration team at adidas. Join us for a visit into their childcare facility, learn about their tele-working programme and most importantly, we take you through the different stages of how adidas matured into a world-leader not only in sporting goods, but also in how they treat their employees.

From there we will tackle strategic work-life integration management in Chapter 4, and the three spheres where work-life integration managers can have the biggest influence on how employees experience their daily work at your organisation. We will delve into culture, work-design and the different work-life programmes you can choose from.

Most of all, you will discover what you can do as of tomorrow. We will take you step-by-step through the process of either becoming a work-life integration manager yourself (perhaps your dream-job), or help somebody else claim this vital role in your organisation.

We will close the book by presenting our predictions about the future of this emerging profession and what networks and resources there are for you to tap into, to receive support and access knowledge and insight to solve your own challenges.

In almost all domains there comes a time, when we can no longer keep on doing the things the way we have always done them, and expect a different result. It’s time to challenge the status quo within organisations and take a risk to try something new, to even have the chance of success. If you don’t do it, others will.

There is no better time than now to review your current people policies and HR management structure and to transform it with the help of this book to a more modern, adaptive and solution-oriented way. The wish for better work-life balance and talent shortage issues are not going to go away. Way too many companies are dragging their feet to engage with this new paradigm, and they will lose out in the next years.

Companies that lack diversity in their workforce or their management are beginning to be frowned upon and are being called out on it – you really don’t want to be at the receiving end of this criticism. Employers that cannot retain women employees following their parental leave or those who don’t allow or even encourage new dads to take their leave entitlements will lose out on a lot of competitive advantages on the market for skills and talent.

With your passion for people, and attention to trends we are absolutely convinced that you will do a great service to your colleagues and organisation by reading this book. Even if you take away 10 % of the examples and tools we offer, we are sure that you will get closer to becoming an employer of choice, you will improve your employee value proposition and your employer brand.

Congratulations, the fact that you are holding this book in your hand means that you are one of the few forward-thinking people-professionals worldwide, who is not afraid to walk off the beaten path to find better answers to new problems.

So turn the page and begin now!

1. Moen, P., Kelly, E.L., Fan, W., Lee, S.R., Almeida, D., Kossek, E.E. & Buxton, O.M. 2016, “Does a Flexibility/Support Organizational Initiative Improve High-Tech Employees” Well-Being? Evidence from the Work, Family, and Health. Network”, American Sociological Review, vol. 81, no. 1, pp. 134-164. DOI: 10.1177/0003122415622391

‘This book will help your organisation attract and retain the much-needed talent, improve employee wellbeing and engagement by reducing absenteeism and burnout and also help improve diversity and gender balance within the teams and at leadership levels, through a new organisational design.

1. The Time is Now

Do you remember the last time, you got a glimpse of the future? How exciting it feels to learn about something that is brand new, yet makes total sense: why hasn’t this been around before? We all remember some of these decisive moments, like hearing for the first time about the possibility of making free phone calls on a service called Skype. Or being able to share videos with everyone on YouTube. Or seeing prototypes of self-driving, or even flying cars, humanoid robots, or hearing Google assistant make a phone call to book an appointment at the hairdresser. The ban on cigarettes in public spaces was another such break-through. Learning about something that will change the way we have been doing certain things in one way for decades is exhilarating, perhaps fear inducing too. It’s difficult to think back on our lives before we could search for things on Google, shop online, travel via low-cost airlines, or had the single currency in the European Union.

Innovation in technology, and particularly consumer products is perhaps the most visible manifestation of the future becoming our present, even though it is happening in all areas of life, from agriculture to healthcare, permeating even the most traditional sectors of the economy. It also takes place in our homes and at our places of work, with differing intensity.

This book is our contribution to reimagining a different future, a future in which work-life integration is considered to be of strategic importance in every organisation, expressed through a dedicated work-life manager or even a work-life integration department. This became our mission, and we spent the large part of the past 7 years researching this field, interviewing and working with hundreds of organisations and looking for validation for our big idea. The thing about the future is, it doesn’t come to everyone at the same time. Some people are already living in this future we imagined, and we had the opportunity to meet with them, and write about it in our book. We now want to bring this knowledge and insight to as many people as we possibly can, unlocking some of the rigid thinking that is still shaping many of the workplaces today, and showing that there can be a different way to live and work; one that is healthy, happy and productive.

Attracting and retaining the best talent, improving innovation, connecting to the local community, ensuring your workforce is healthy, motivated and engaged – these are just some of the areas where work-life integration demonstrates clear positive impact.

Having sifted through numerous studies, interviewed researchers on both sides of the Atlantic and met with the pioneering organisations, we are more convinced than ever that elevating work-life integration to a strategic level is the missing piece in taking organisations to the future. In the following pages we will take you through how we came to this conclusion, and how you can follow in the footsteps of pioneering organisations that have designated a dedicated work-life manager or even set up an entire department, with the roles and functions we detail in the book. If you would like your organisation and people to thrive in ways you couldn’t imagine before, the following chapters contain a lot of resources, ideas and examples that will take you there.

Change is never easy, as it requires conscious effort to unlearn old patterns and behaviour and letting go of “business as usual” which is no longer in our best interest. As you will hear from a number of early adopters we interviewed and share in the book, once they adapted their way of working to the needs of the society and the economy, once they took work-life balance to the next level in their organisation, there was no looking back, as everything clicked into place. There may come a day, when we will look back and wonder, just as we do now when we think about the time people drove without seatbelts, did we really work in organisations without a work-life department?

Changing context

The world in 2018 is very different from the 1950s, the 1970s – even when compared with the 1990s. The speed with which the world around us is changing is increasing. More and more areas of life are confronted with the fact, that what worked up until a couple of years ago is no longer fit for purpose now. This changing environment influences our values, our behaviour and our relationship with work, with family and friends and also the rest of the world. What we may not realise however, is that humans don’t change with the same speed. We remain the same, and we are very good at adapting to the changing context. One of our messages in the book, is that we have much more control over shaping this context, than we realise. And changing the context will change how we behave and interact.

We may not observe a large number of these changes, what we notice however is the growing disconnect between scientific management and our world today. What worked in organisations after the Industrial revolution and Taylorism, where employees were part of the assets has been outdated for a number of years. The context has changed, yet the internal workings, beliefs and values of organisations largely remain the same, which causes all sorts of ills, from disengagement to burnout or discrimination. Let’s have a look at some of the trends that are very heavily influencing our world today, hence also how work is organised, how people management is affected and what is their link with work-life integration.

The movement of people towards cities has accelerated in the past 40 years2. This results in more cars and more people being transported on buses, trams and trains. Traffic congestion and long commutes are affecting some countries more than others. For instance, Belgium is ranked as the country with the worst traffic in Europe, closely followed by the Netherlands. In terms of cities, Londoners spend on average 96 hours per year waiting for the roads to clear, Belgians spend 74 hours3 in traffic per year in the capital Brussels, followed by German commuters in and around Cologne with yearly 65 hours. These are not occasional traffic jams due to bad weather or public transport strikes, but are structural congestion, that builds up every day. This has a huge collective impact on employee wellbeing, productivity, air quality and time-use. Could this issue be partly solved by allowing for more tele-working?

Allowing US employees to telecommute, has saved Dell $39.5 million and avoided an estimated 25 million kWh of energy and 13,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions since fiscal year 2014, when they introduced the Connected Workplace programme. “When a company is considering a work-from-home program or telecommuting or remote work, sustainability is probably not the primary reason why,” said report author John Pflueger, Dell corporate responsibility, principal environmental strategies, in an interview. “The primary reasons are issues related more to work-life balance and being the sort of employer that the 21st-century employee has come to expect. But we found sustainability-related benefits are an important side effect.” In fact, according to the Global Evolving Workforce Study4 commissioned by Dell and Intel, 86 percent of the 4,700 study respondents surveyed said they believed they were just as productive or even more so at home than in the office.

Another example is Fujitsu Ireland, who, as one of 26 leading Irish businesses, convened in May 2018 by Business in the Community Ireland (BITCI), the national network for sustainability, representing a combined workforce of over 90,000 people, to work collaboratively to address social, environmental and economic priorities. Their collective ambition5 is to cut CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030. This also means less commuting, less business travel and more remote working.

Advances in medical science is another issue that is very rarely addressed, but, from a systems perspective, has a very high relevance to the world of work. People are living longer – but not necessarily in good health. Death rates from communicable diseases have fallen sharply according to a major new study6, adding to a major overall increase in life expectancy. But that extra time appears to be spent with either life-limiting illnesses or disability.

Paediatric medicine has developed to a degree that infant mortality is going down, so the chances for premature babies born very early to live, are much better; but a number of health problems later in life are associated with extreme premature birth, which then affect the families.

Sadly, the prevalence of mental health conditions globally also shows little improvement since 1990. Indeed, major depressive disorders ranked in the top ten causes of ill health in all but four countries worldwide in 2016.

Why is this relevant? To put it bluntly, people live longer, but not necessarily in good health, but with illness, chronic health problems and disabilities. The number of carers in the workforce is one of the fastest growing groups in any organisation. These are either parents who have to care for an ill or disabled child, or adults who have to care for a dependent older relative or sibling, and in some cases, for the so-called ‘sandwich generation’ – employees who are confronted with both at the same time.

In addition, we cannot ignore that we are incredibly shaped by our behaviour as consumers. We now have almost unlimited options to choose from in terms of where and what to buy. This greatly increases our sense of freedom and control over our lives, and there are only limited areas where we do not feel this; in school, at work, and probably when we are in hospital.

The global economy and the internet, coupled with AI and other technological advances has allowed us to tap into an overwhelming number of resources and options. Want to fix your washing machine? Just find the corresponding tutorial on YouTube. Interested in decorating cupcakes? Find the right Pinterest or Instagram account. Want to book a hotel? Just log onto one of the travel and hotel platforms and read the comments of other travellers. Travel and other experiences have become affordable, driven by an exponential growth in the services industry, so our lives outside of work have become crammed with endless options to choose from. We can hyper-customise our products and experiences to suit our needs and desires.

In stark contrast however, we seem to lose all of this choice at work. Once we go through the door of our workplace, we zip up our Ideal Worker personas, and sit where we are told to, do what we are told to, learn what we are told to, and behave the way we are expected to. We may still bring our devices with us, and then we have to fight with our urges not to use them, causing us to be distracted from our primary tasks – the ones we are paid for.

This is however changing. All the studies on Millennials7