Marissa Mayer, chief executive of Yahoo, is expecting twins. Investors should not worry, however. She plans on “taking limited time away and working throughout”. No pressure there then, and fortunately, Mayer’s board and executive team are “incredibly supportive and happy” for her, so it does not look like they will be clocking her in and out too closely. Although, with a private nursery in her office suite, being at work is not going to be the problem.
For someone who banned Yahoo employees from working from home two years ago, that is just as well. It does not do to set a bad example. But is returning to work after childbirth without missing a beat really such a good example to give? What message does it send to those who lack the support structures that an eight-figure salary can buy?
As directors of an independent retail business, my colleagues and I operate at the other end of the employment food chain, where low pay and job insecurity are rife. When Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, said a New York Times critique of his company’s employment practices “doesn’t describe the Amazon I know”, it was legitimate to wonder how well he knew the faceless world he had created. Our staff work only a few feet away from the managerial office and we have nowhere to hide.
Employment practices in these circumstances reflect human relationships. These are people we have known for years — decades in some cases. As with all effective relationships, there is a mutuality of interests that both parties have to respect. The starting point is pay. We pay above the real living wage because it is meaningless to talk about job satisfaction when an employee does not earn enough to live. After that come the necessary compromises that make relationships work, acknowledging that people still have to live when they get sick, that they sometimes need flexibility in their lives and that they need their time off undisturbed.
The staff, for their part, understand that shift patterns only work if they turn up on time and that, although stacking shelves and serving customers is not glamorous work, it can be done either well or badly and is worth doing well. So much for the basics. Relationships, however, go deeper than mere terms and conditions and research suggests that fulfilling, self-affirming work far outweighs mere wealth accumulation as a motivation for people to get out of bed in the morning. People like to work, provided the work feeds their human needs.
Personal choice
The first need is for interest. Work should stimulate and challenge, but not overwhelm. It should stretch people’s creative and problem-solving capacities, but still be doable within the allotted time. The key to this — easily overlooked — is to listen to staff, discover their skills and interests and create openings to develop them. The second need is usefulness. People want to know that they are serving not merely their employer’s bottom line, but also the wider interests of society. Many low-paid jobs score well in this area. A street sweeper can see the value of his or her work, while a high-paid professional who is bogged down in paperwork may question their purpose.
The third and most crucial need is autonomy. Mayer has lots of that, since she is judged by results rather than the way in which she spends her time.
People with fun, problem-solving jobs in the tech and creative industries enjoy high levels of flexibility about how, when and where they work. In our business, the when and where are rather important. The how, on the other hand, is irrelevant if the results are good. Interest, usefulness, autonomy: These qualities in the workplace energise the human relationships that make work productive. The length of Mayer’s maternity leave becomes, in this case, not an example to be emulated, but a personal choice. Others will choose differently because people give of their best in different ways.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Martin Whitlock is a businessman, writer and campaigner for a wellbeing economy.
