The Great Resignation & The Future Of Work: Blaire Palmer Of ‘That People Thing’ On How Employers and Employees Are Reworking Work Together

An Interview with Karen Mangia

Self-managing organisations: More companies will embrace self-management and non-hierarchical working. It’s far more agile, more efficient and more meaningful for employees. Companies like Mayden and Valve provide huge amounts of autonomy and push decision-making out to the different roles in the business. This requires a shift in the role of leaders in the business, something which demands continual personal growth as the temptation is always back to command and control.

When it comes to designing the future of work, one size fits none. Discovering success isn’t about a hybrid model or offering remote work options. Individuals and organizations are looking for more freedom. The freedom to choose the work model that makes the most sense. The freedom to choose their own values. And the freedom to pursue what matters most. We reached out to successful leaders and thought leaders across all industries to glean their insights and predictions about how to create a future that works.

As a part of our interview series called “How Employers and Employees are Reworking Work Together,” we had the pleasure to interview Blaire Palmer.

Blaire Palmer is a former BBC journalist turned leadership consultant and keynote speaker, who has worked on flagship Radio 4 programmes like Today and Woman’s Hour. For the past 24 years, Blaire has worked with organisations helping to drive real change in their businesses and create places where people can come and do their best work. Currently, Blaire speaks internationally at conferences and events, calling on audiences of senior leaders to rethink what leadership means in the modern era. Her new book, Punks in Suits — how to lead the workplace reformation, is out now.

Thank you for making time to visit with us about the topic of our time. Our readers would like to get to know you a bit better. Can you please tell us about one or two life experiences that most shaped who you are today.

My parents lived and worked in an unusual way. They moved from Canada to the UK in the 60s and both had careers when we were small. In the 80s they bought a smallholding in the Wiltshire countryside to become self-sufficient in food. My Dad worked remotely even then. That upbringing showed me that there were many ways to live and many ways of working. It probably also means that I embrace change. My parents never let fear of taking a leap into the unknown stop them pursuing their dreams.

The second big influence was my experience as a journalist for the BBC back in the 1990s. I had wanted to be a journalist since I was a young child but the environment of the BBC at that time was very tough. It was very much “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” and we were reminded constantly that a queue of people were waiting to take our jobs if we couldn’t hack it. It was my experience there that started me thinking about organisational culture and why it matters. It’s no surprise that my passion now is helping companies create an environment where people and their ideas can thrive.

Let’s zoom out. What do you predict will be the same about work, the workforce and the workplace 10–15 years from now? What do you predict will be different?

I don’t think we will recognise the workplace in a decade from now. The type of work we will be asking human-beings to do will be very different to what they do today. Generative AI will change work in ways we can’t even imagine. If you don’t have to liaise by email to set up a meeting, scan multiple dashboards to see how the business is doing today, spend hours or days creating the PowerPoint slides for the upcoming board presentation, make a project plan or budgeting plan, because AI is on top of all that, how will humans add value? I don’t believe we will have today’s archaic job descriptions, or that we will hire people like we do today, or that we will structure our businesses as we do now. I don’t think offices will look the same and I don’t think the systems and processes by which we manage people will be the same.

Because it will be people’s creativity and imaginations, their ability to connect on a human level with each other, customers, stakeholders, and themselves which will be valued most highly, we will have to rethink how we work, and therefore how we lead. You don’t access the greatest creativity, clarity of purpose, deep engagement, and willingness to bring your whole self to work by having humans sit at a desk staring down the lens of their computer camera. If it’s our humanity that humans will uniquely be able to offer their organisations, we will need company cultures that actively do everything they can to protect those qualities in their people. I think we will gather differently, we will collaborate differently, we will blend work and the rest of our lives differently. This won’t happen because we’ve become more enlightened! It will happen because there will be a commercial imperative to treat humans humanely.

What advice would you offer to employers who want to future-proof their organizations?

Stop trying to have all the answers, and stay curious. When employers talk about ‘future-proofing’ it’s as if they want a guaranteed plan. They want to be prepared for any eventuality in advance. But, if the last few years has taught us anything, it’s that you cannot create a meaningful future-proof plan in a context that is changing so fast. Instead you need the people in the organisation to have the skill and the ‘permission’ to look for ‘tensions’ in the system and fix them, continuously. That requires a different kind of leadership where the leader is asking questions, coaching, providing wise counsel if they have it, but ultimately pushing problem-solving and decision-making as low down their organisation as they dare…and then pushing it a bit lower. When authority is distributed like this an organisation becomes more agile and more responsive to the customer. And people start feeling they have agency, that they make a difference. This feeling motivates them to want to make the business better. And that’s what drives their desire to find and resolve tensions even when no one is asking them to.

What do you predict will be the biggest gaps between what employers are willing to offer and what employees expect as we move forward? And what strategies would you offer about how to reconcile those gaps?

The problem is not only that employees are changing their expectations. Yes, they want more from their employer — more flexibility, more autonomy, more empowerment, faster progression. But employers want more from employees too. We want their hearts as well as their brains. We want them to care and go the extra mile.

I think we are stuck with a Victorian attitude towards people and people management and that is coming face to face with radically different employee expectations. Employers need to update their attitude. Instead of focusing on salary, bonuses and job titles, they should look at whether working for them is a life-enhancing experience. Is their organisation a force for good in the world? Are working hours and deadlines generally humane, even if there are busier seasons? Are people encouraged to be themselves, even when that is uncomfortable?

If the only way an employee can express their need for recognition and a sense that they’ve made a difference, is through their salary or their job title, they will focus on that. They will constantly be looking for a better deal in the belief that the sacrifice they make for their work needs to be worth the compensation. Companies can and do attract people without having to make over-inflated promises about salary and progression, even in a difficult recruitment market. But they do that by being a better place to work not just by throwing money at the problem.

We simultaneously joined a global experiment together last year called “Working From Home.” How will this experience influence the future of work?

I hoped that the mass ‘working from home’ experiment would show that working from home is better than working from an office! I love being based at home and it’s one of the reasons I enjoy working for myself. But we’ve seen clearly that, while working from home or some other non-office space is a huge benefit when working on certain types of problems, or juggling complex homelife priorities, there are many benefits to having people gather in person as well.

What I don’t think we’ve done well is work out what that looks like. I’m seeing a lot of companies now turning away from flexibility and hybrid and demanding that people are in the office — regardless of the kind of work they are doing that day — 3 days a week. This feels like a backward step. It is built upon one of those Victorian beliefs I mentioned — that people are trying to get away with something. If we believe our people are trying to take us for a ride we will need them in the office where we can see them. Instead of identifying criteria to support people in making good decisions about where to work on any particular day we just dictate where we want them to sit.

I think we will see a divergence of company cultures — we will see some organisations really embracing flexibility, agility, seeing business as a force for good, and reinventing the world of work, and then we will see others entrenched in old fashioned ways of managing people (which some people are very comfortable with, it’s what they expect. They like the structure and the clear hierarchy). I won’t tell you which of these approaches I’d bet money on to be the future of work, but I will let you guess!

We’ve all read the headlines about how the pandemic reshaped the workforce. What societal changes do you foresee as necessary to support a future of work that works for everyone?

I think inclusion is the big re-shaper. If we can create organisations where people can bring their whole selves to solving problems on behalf of our customers and clients, we can capitalise on the creativity and heart of our people. It’s critical that we find a way for everyone — regardless of race, age, identity, sexual orientation, neurotype, political leanings, gender, working style preferences or any individual personality quirks — to make a contribution.

People’s experiences at work shape their perspective on their life. When their work is interesting, when they get to express their authentic self, and when they enjoy the people they work with, they come home a very different person in the evening compared to the person who spends all day being bullied, threatened, expected to keep quiet and play the game, and the person who works super hard and doesn’t get any credit.

When this applies to the whole population you can see the massive impact better organisations can make.

So I think prioritising inclusion is vital.

I also think we must completely change our education system. Our system is not preparing today’s youngsters for the future of work. They are being educated to work in a world that doesn’t exist now, let alone in the future. Sitting in class, writing notes, calling your teacher ‘Sir’ or ‘Miss’, getting up when the bell rings, putting your hand up to speak, being sent to the head’s office…these all reinforce behaviours that might make being a teacher a little easier but do not work at work. If we want people who are emotionally intelligent, great at collaboration, embracing of change, understand how to manage risk and are willing to make judgement calls, we need an education system that produces this.

What is your greatest source of optimism about the future of work?

When I speak to younger generations, particularly Gen Zs and younger millennials, I feel optimistic. While researching for my book I was just as inspired by the younger people I interviewed about the ways they think work will change, what matters to them, and the world they want to live in, as the more seasoned experts I talked to.

I hope we won’t have to wait for new generations to take over our major corporations for dramatic change in how we work to occur. I would hope that today’s Boomer and Gen X leaders would be humble enough and curious enough to see that they could drive change, if they were willing to let go of the need to control everything. We can’t really afford to wait for a generation or two. But if necessary, and if this current generation of leaders isn’t brave enough to bring about sweeping change, I believe future generations will demand it.

Our collective mental health and wellbeing are now considered collateral as we consider the future of work. What innovative strategies do you see employers offering to help improve and optimize their employee’s mental health and wellbeing?

Unfortunately most organisations have tried to apply a sticking plaster to problems of their own making. We are pushing our employees too hard. I understand why — it’s harder and harder to make money and people represent a significant cost. The focus on efficiency savings has meant that we now expect one person to do a job that used to be done by a team. And then we offer lunchtime yoga and create mental health ambassadors to try to minimise the harm those decisions do to people.

The organisations that are serious about optimising employee wellbeing look at systemic causes of burnout and stress. They ask “Is working here a healthy experience? What makes it unhealthy? What can we do about that?”. That might mean recruiting, even when that reduces profits this quarter. It might mean getting serious about siloes and hierarchy which gets in the way of collaboration and open communication. It might mean firing clients and customers who make unreasonable demands of your people (even if they pay a lot for the privilege).

A client I worked with recently bought a new business to provide jobs for employees that it no longer needed in one of it’s plants. Although they found ways to reduce their costs by introducing new technology in one part of their business, they were not willing to accept redundancies as a result. Instead they found a business that would benefit from the skills of the human-beings they had on the payroll. This is the kind of creative thinking that inspires me. It shows that a company — who says people are their most important asset — means it.

It seems like there’s a new headline every day. ‘The Great Resignation’. ‘The Great Reconfiguration’. And now the ‘Great Reevaluation’. What are the most important messages leaders need to hear from these headlines? How do company cultures need to evolve?

All of these are presenting issues not systemic causes. Leaders need to look beyond the headlines and today’s pressing emergency, and ask “What lies at the root of this and other manifesting issues we are facing?”. The way we organise, motivate and take care of our people hasn’t really changed in 250 years. We may talk about empowerment and engagement but what we really care about is efficiency and predictability. And if we continue to treat our people like they are machines we will see them either act like machines and not bring all that wonderful humanity to their work (because it isn’t valued or nurtured), or we will see them choose employers who can offer a genuinely humane working experience, where values align and where they are seen as more than just a cog in the machine. Company cultures need to evolve to be environments where humans can thrive. That’s dramatically different to what we have, in the main, today.

Let’s get more specific. What are your “Top 5 Trends To Track In the Future of Work?”

1. Trend 1 — Self-managing organisations: More companies will embrace self-management and non-hierarchical working. It’s far more agile, more efficient and more meaningful for employees. Companies like Mayden and Valve provide huge amounts of autonomy and push decision-making out to the different roles in the business. This requires a shift in the role of leaders in the business, something which demands continual personal growth as the temptation is always back to command and control.
2. Trend 2–7 Generations Thinking: Enlightened organisations will start considering the impact of their decisions, not just over the next 5–10 years but on future generations. 7 Generation Thinking is about inviting ancestors and future generations metaphorically (or physically) into the room and considering how today’s decisions will change the future. Wales is the only country in the world, so far, to have a Future Generations Commissions who ensures all policy meets 7 future-generations criteria. It will not be the last.
3. Trend 3 — Outcomes not inputs: Rather than judging employee contribution by how much activity they generate (working late, holding meetings, sending lots of emails,number of sales calls made, producing a lot of reports) companies will embrace ‘outputs’ and ‘outcomes’ instead. With AI taking over much of that ‘busy’ activity anyway, it will be pointless to measure people by the same criteria we do today. All that will matter is whether they got the best outcome. Achieving that in a two-hour working day, while at the supermarket, from the beach or by pulling an all-nighter won’t matter as much as whether they took ownership for the result and used their expertise (and the expertise of others) to solve problems and create opportunities.
4. Trend 4 — Alternative education providers: Home education has become a more popular choice over the last few years and one reason is the number of parents who don’t feel their children can thrive in the current system. Whether that is due to neurodiversity, mental health or simply a recognition that our education system is outdated, many parents and carers are seeking an alternative. Currently there aren’t many, other than elective deregistration from school. But I predict we will see new education providers popping up and challenging the status quo. This, in turn, will give employers a broader range of candidates to choose from, including an increasing number who did not have a traditional education and can offer rather unique perspectives to their company.
5. Trend 5 — Hiring for qualities not expertise: Expertise and experience matter, of course,but we currently have a system of job roles and descriptions that bear no resemblance to what we actually want and need people to do in our businesses. We hire the whole person but then we don’t capitalise on that whole person, instead trying to fit them into a puzzle piece shaped role. And then we ask them to go over and above that role. With assistance from AI I believe we will see companies hiring for a broad range of human qualities and skills, not just expertise, knowing that expertise can grow on the job but that certain attitudes, values, perspectives and thinking styles are essential in a fast-changing world. If we need people who can stay in our organisation but flex their contribution depending on what’s needed at the time, we need people who have the capability to do this. We need to look for that as a priority when hiring, rather than a tick box of qualifications and previous job roles which meet our needs today.

I keep quotes on my desk and on scraps of paper to stay inspired. What’s your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? And how has this quote shaped your perspective?

This one is quite bold and I only heard it quite recently from my Personal Trainer — “To become the person you are going to become you need to assassinate the person you are today”. We can get stuck thinking “This is who I am, this is how I behave, this is how life treats me”. We have rules that we operate by that determine what we experience in life and how we interpret those experiences. But if we want to grow, we might have to kill off some of those old, unhelpful beliefs about ourselves. This can be scary — who will we be without this ‘knowledge’ about ourselves and the kind of person we are? That’s why people cling on to beliefs needing to be true. But in this new world of continual change, leaders need to be able to adapt and change their opinions. That’s only possible if they hold lightly to what they believe MUST be true about themselves, other people and the world around them.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He, she, or they might just see this if we tag them.

I would love to meet Steve Bartlett for lunch if you can arrange that. He remains curious, almost childlike, in his humility and willingness to be surprised and to learn. I think he appeals to a lot of people who would typically resist the need for personal introspection and personal growth and I think we would have a very interesting conversation about the stuff I talked about here — what is the future of work, how do companies bring out the best in their people, what Victorian values persist which make it almost impossible for people to do their best work and make business a force for good in the world.

Our readers often like to continue the conversation with our featured interviewees. How can they best connect with you and stay current on what you’re discovering?

LinkedIn is the best way to connect with me. https://www.linkedin.com/in/blairepalmer/ You can order my new book, Punks in Suits — How to lead the workplace reformation, here https://amzn.eu/d/4NYoxPi and my company website is https://www.thatpeoplething.com/ where you can sign up to my newsletter and read more about my ideas.

Thank you for sharing your insights and predictions. We appreciate the gift of your time and wish you continued success and good health.

About The Interviewer: Karen Mangia is one of the most sought-after keynote speakers in the world, sharing her thought leadership with over 10,000 organizations during the course of her career. As Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce, she helps individuals and organizations define, design and deliver the future. Discover her proven strategies to access your own success in her fourth book Success from Anywhere and by connecting with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.