Hang on, was the office stressing us out all along?

I’m joined again by co-hosts Ellen Scott and Matthew Cook.

Ellen wrote about her learnings about being a manager

Despite government threats of legal action Cambridgeshire council are continuing their evidence-led trial of the 4-day week. “Nine in ten councils are struggling with job recruitment and retention and a four-day working week could be the answer”

Ellen mentions this article on Stylist about boundaries (registration required)

Half of the employees of Grindr were fired after the firm issued a RTO order. This included 100% of the firm’s trans employees. As Matt points out in the show trans employees are subject to the legislative whims of different states in the US and understandably try to locate in safe places.

We talk about the World Values Survey report “What the world thinks about work”

  • People in the UK are least likely to say work is important in their life. It’s still seems pretty high, 73% of the UK public say work is very or rather important in their life – but significantly lower than other countries. Other western nations such as Italy, Spain, Sweden, France and Norway all rank much higher than the UK on this measure, with more than nine in 10 saying work is important in their life.
  • Headline warning: This is not a new development. the share of the British public who say work is important in their life has hardly changed in three decades
  • But there are big generational differences in views on whether work should always come first. One of the most interesting charts has been millennial’s views crashing: it went from a hustle culture high of 41% in 2009 to 14% in 2022. That is a huge shift in attitude

Libby Sander is an internationally renowned expert on work and the workplace, the MBA Director and Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Bond University. She is a leading thinker on understanding the future of work, and how we can reimagine it to live more meaningful and creative lives.

Read Libby on RTO