The Future of People Services - What’s Next? The death of the office & Wellbeing and burnout

Check out this multimedia posting - 

"Welcome to this collaborative piece of research between the Disruptive Innovators Network and Campbell Tickell to explore how leaders in people and HR services have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and what innovative approaches they are developing to help prepare their organisations for what comes next."

I was interviewed and quoted with my trade union hat on about outsourcing and "The death of the office"

"Even if the majority of workers don’t want to return to the office full time, some are wary that the end of the traditional office set-up could further entrench the use of outsourcing as a way for organisations to cut costs. John Gray, a member of public sector union UNISON’s National Executive Council, says the outsourcing trend is a cause of concern for his members.

“It is really tempting to close offices and get more people working from home. And outsourcing to companies who wouldn't treat their workers as well as traditional local authorities or large housing associations is always a threat when times are tough. But most outsourcing is entirely bogus.”

Gray adds: “The only way it works is because new entrants are taken on on inferior terms or conditions, and that worries me, but the change is dressed up as innovation. They say ‘we're going to move people to a more specialist employer’, but the real cause is cutting pay, cutting pensions and cutting conditions.”

and about "Wellbeing and burnout"

UNISON National Executive Council member John Gray says he has seen cases of workers “doing piles of stuff late at night, early starts, including weekends”, and warns managers to keep an eye out for signs of burnout.

“I would hope that employers do have the emotional intelligence to realise this is bad for the organisation. And when we do get people that are burnt out, they do tend to be people whose workloads have been horrendous. I’ve come across some really good managers, who will actually, in a professional, supportive way, push back on people who send them stuff at 10 o’clock on a Saturday evening.”

Gray adds that this requires leadership rather than just management from those at the top of organisations. “Some managers, you can give them all the mentoring, all the training and support, but they haven't got the ability to lead people. So I think that the pandemic has exposed weaknesses. And this particular new way of working, which is going to continue in part, requires I think some special skills.”