Me @ Work

[This is an archived blog item written in November 2017, when I was working at 44 Communications.]

The annual IOIC Insight Seminar this week was themed around employee voice, and how employers benefit from becoming a listening organisation. The seminar was opened by Cathy Brown, fittingly as employee voice is one of the four enablers identified by engage 4 success.
She posed that ‘Organisational behaviour / culture is simply an aggregation of individual behaviour / culture.’ It sparked a lot of thoughts on the night, and with me. My first reaction, if I’m honest is that I don’t agree.
I believe a few individuals (usually the founders or owners) set a culture and then people click with this or not. In a corporation there is simply too much variety for a culture to be so granular – yes there are common things they recognise, but they must match / rationalise their personal point of view with the company, make a compromise and fit in…. right?

There’s been a lot of talk about why we change when we get to work, how we are perceived and act differently. Some think we should be our authentic selves at work, because only then can be our best selves. If that’s true then we have a problem as a Deloitte research study (Uncovering Talent) found less than half of us do.

As a sales person or anyone in delivery, you have to be more direct than you would outside of work (sometimes it could be considered rude.) You have to be unemotional, logical and objective. If you empathised overly with everyone else’s challenges you wouldn’t be delivering on your objectives. Tell me I’m wrong.

I’ve struggled with bosses, colleagues, clients and suppliers who switch between this directness and a very pally, friendly behaviour. I’ve found the inconsistent behaviour disorientating, and I get on better with people who are more of one or the other, most of the time.

Work relationships are odd. Of course as social animals we need them, we spend so much time with colleagues it would be uncomfortable not to. They are often great fun as you are thrown together arbitrarily. Your common bond is the workplace, so you go out drinking as work mates, enjoying the cross section of society – the forced cocktail of nerds, rockers, golfers and gamers (or whatever your mix).

I guess I feel it’s not just work. Me @ work is different to Me @ home.
Me @ home posts pics of family times onto a family only WhatsApp group. Me @ holiday posts sunsets to Facebook (but not much else). Me on a night out with old buddies posts a lot more laddy banter on FB messenger. Me @ bike posts my average speed and suffer score onto Strava. And me at the hipster coffee shop posts enhanced photos onto Instagram.

Maybe it’s just me – According to the many personality tests, I’m the kind of person who likes to keep different parts of my life in different boxes, to have clear lines of separation.

For decades the internet has given us the ability to have a separate online identity. Social psychologist Alex Krotoski is an expert in this field. In her book Untangling the web she concludes from many research studies and countless interviews for her radio and podcast series the digital human that amazing things are possible when anonymity allows someone to be someone else. We can try new things without being judged, let go our secrets and guilt, find communities that share our passions, enjoy the fantasy of playing a role (like in a computer game.) Obviously trolls are out there too, not all our alter egos are heros.

In October I attended a very slick sales presentation at Facebook of their workplace product. A stand out claim was that for current graduates at FB onboarding included training on what email is and how to use it. This could be a well pitched sales technique for corporates who are ready to believe millenialls are another species, however the claim came back to me at the Insight Seminar. Cathy Brown said we have all got used to being asked for our opinion, to rate, review and feedback every customer experience we have. We expect to be listened to and action taken.

Digital natives that have grown up with this social / online world are going to take this for granted. Facebook explained that the ability of employees to choose their channels and groups meant they could essentially ‘unsubscribe’ from all company announcements. ‘It’ll force your comms to be more engaging’ they told us. Facebook is great at listening to data and personalising content too, so even if they don’t unfollow you, if they aren’t engaging with the content then the algorithm will show it less in their news feed.

A peer to peer / bottom up social network more like chat than email will naturally be all about employee voice – on numbers alone top down company comms is going to be the minority. But the reactions, conversations that spread virally will be huge – and that’s what will reach people. User generated content always stands out as raw and sincere. It hasn’t been carefully crafted and edited – the authenticity is evident. The reader has taken action so are more likely to be on a subject they are passionate about, or at least engaged with in the moment. No internal comms could possibly achieve this – nor should they try. The future role of facilitator not message owner was made several times in the seminar. So I can see a technological democratisation being key to moving to a conversation with the employee voice.