True support at work means taking time off when you need it most
Paid leave for events like the birth of a grandchild or the death of a pet is at the employer’s discretion.
The following contribution is from the Financial Times website and is written by Bethan Staton.
Hello and welcome to Working It.
I’m Bethan Staton, Deputy Work and Careers Editor, replacing Isabel today and next week.
Bethan is the Deputy Editor of the FT’s Work and Careers section, covering all work-related issues. Previously, she covered education and public policy and was a reporter for the FT’s Women’s Fund, including economics and transport.
Before joining the FT, Bethan was a reporter at Sky News and a freelancer in Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Egypt.
The heatwave has finally subsided here in London, at least for now. I’ve been thinking about how rising temperatures will affect our working lives: from the dangerous conditions workers face globally to the impacts of heat on productivity.
My climate colleagues wrote an excellent article on this a couple of years ago. But how are readers affected now?
Elsewhere in the world of work, the UK government has been forced to make a radical shift in welfare benefits, intensifying scrutiny, among other things, on efforts to get more disabled people into work.
Ministers had presented the changes as part of a larger effort to increase the proportion of people in employment, but there are other ways to achieve this, such as thinking about how we can integrate work more creatively into our lives.
Time off for important events depends on a flexible manager.
Last week, I came across a concept for improving work-life balance that got me thinking about time off.
It’s called «lifetime leave»: a few extra days or weeks of paid time off, offered to employees beyond annual leave, to deal with the everyday obligations, inconveniences (and sometimes even pleasures) that life throws at them.
Maybe you have to take your mother to the doctor, wait at home for someone to fix the refrigerator, or go to your child’s sports day.
Clarion Housing Group, one of the few companies I found that offers this benefit, gives its employees five days of milestone leave: «fully paid and flexible» time off for «significant personal events,» like moving, taking exams, or just when something unexpected happens.
Feeling supported by the company
«We want our employees to feel supported in every aspect of their lives,» said Catrin Jones, Clarion’s chief people officer.
That «means going beyond traditional policies to create a culture where they feel trusted, empowered, and valued.»
Sounds great. But I also wondered if this kind of leave is really that rare.
Isn’t giving a hard-working team member the morning off to deal with an exploding washing machine or a sick parent simply being an understanding boss?
The same thing has come to mind when reading about specific, trendy leaves, such as grandparent leave, heartbreak leave, or bereavement time.
A Culture of Understanding
It all sounds great at first. But would it be better to offer flexible working policies and a culture of understanding, support, and trust so that staff can decide which situations warrant time away from the office?
According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, many employers believe so.
A 2023 report found that nearly two-thirds of organizations offered remote working on a regular or ad hoc basis, and more than half offered their staff «informal flexibility.» This wasn’t just limited to office-based jobs: 65% of organizations offered some degree of flexibility to frontline workers.
In the UK, all employees have the right to request flexible working and annual leave.
There are also some statutory rights to time off for family emergencies, which are generally unpaid and restrictive.
However, as management professor Ellen Ernst Kossek points out, the provision is much better than in the United States.
Kossek supports informal flexibility, calling it «idiosyncratic treatment,» which sounds nice, but a little unreliable. That’s also one of its downsides. Leaving things up to the employer’s discretion is great for those who work in an environment of trust and fairness, not so much for those with tyrannical bosses. «Organizations are patchy,» says Kossek. «What you’re looking for is a consistent policy.»
Still, she’s not keen on the idea of «doling out leave willy-nilly.»
Hyper-specific policies may please some employees but unfairly exclude others, especially in a diverse workforce (think of someone getting paid time off for a pet bereavement while their colleague can’t get the same to take their parents to the hospital).
Also, «Do I really want my boss to know I’m going through menopause?»
Kossek advocates for a generous «amount» of protected leave that can be used for a variety of things, that isn’t specific, and that’s available to all staff. I think the life event leave adopted by Clarion fits the bill: the company emphasizes that the leave is inclusive and based on trust and discretion. But it’s also only part of the puzzle.
At the CIPD, Claire McCartney, policy and practice manager, says that «embedding a broader culture of support» and flexibility is crucial for effective leave policies.
This involves training for managers, but also careful planning. And, potentially, investment.
As Kossek reminded me, flexibility must be an integral part of the system.
Colleagues must be present to cover staff absences, and increasing the stress of those who are present doesn’t make for a good policy. What may be simple in working from any computer at any time is also very different in customer service.
Ultimately, a flexible work culture, based on mutual respect and accommodating the chaos of life, is beneficial for employees and for the companies that care about attracting and retaining them.
But it’s not enough to rely on managers and teams to achieve it alone. «More formal paid time off is needed, but we also need to create a culture of care,» says Kossek.
Can corporate preventive health plans prevent people from missing work due to illness? Some employers believe so, and are stepping in to help staff where government services fall short.
Help Your Employees Find Purpose or Prepare to Leave
The following contribution is from a McKinsey report and was authored by Naina Dhingra, Andrew Samo, Bill Schaninger, and Matt Schrimper.
About the Author(s)
Naina Dhingra is a partner in McKinsey’s New York office; Andrew Samo is a Montreal alumnus; Bill Schaninger is a senior partner in the Philadelphia office; and Matt Schrimper is a consultant in the New Jersey office.
Employees expect their jobs to provide a meaningful sense of purpose. Employers must help meet this need or be prepared to lose talent to companies that will.
If the turmoil of 2020 has prompted your organization or leadership team to reconsider people priorities, such as employee well-being, resilience, or purpose, you’re not out of luck.
Your employees are reconsidering you, too.
Reflecting on Each Person’s Individual Purpose
Nearly two-thirds of American employees surveyed said COVID-19 has caused them to reflect on their life purpose.
And nearly half said they are reconsidering their work due to the pandemic. Millennials were three times more likely than others to say they were reevaluating their jobs.
These findings have implications for your company’s talent management strategy and its results.
People who live their purpose at work are more productive than those who don’t.
They are also healthier, more resilient, and more likely to stay with the company.
Furthermore, when employees feel their purpose is aligned with the organization’s, the benefits broaden to include greater engagement, greater loyalty, and a greater willingness to recommend the company.
However, if you’re like most senior executives, you haven’t given much thought to your employees’ individual purpose.
The topic is deeply personal, potentially inaccessible to employers, and seemingly as uncomfortable to broach as it is to actively foster.
Despite these challenges, our research revealed that 70% of employees said their sense of purpose is defined by their work.
So, whether you like it or not, as a company leader, you play an important role in helping your employees find and live their purpose.
And you have a lot of work ahead of you: our survey also revealed disparities in how frontline employees and other groups feel supported—or frustrated—in living their purpose at work.
In this article, we describe the role work can play in individual purpose, highlight what employees expect from their employers and what they don’t get, and outline what you can start doing about it.
The prize? If you get it right, you can help your company become a better place to work and tap into the enormous potential of a purpose-driven workforce, aligned with a purpose-driven organization.
But beware: purpose isn’t just «another corporate initiative.» You can’t impose it.
And if you approach your people with inconsistency, hypocrisy, or arrogance, you’ll likely do more harm than good to the organization and your reputation.
Understanding Purpose at Work
To understand the challenge, we surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. employees about individual purpose and the work and personal outcomes associated with it.
The survey is part of ongoing McKinsey research to better understand the role of purpose in organizations.
Before analyzing the findings, it’s helpful to consider the context in which individual purpose operates at work, as well as the unique challenges it presents for employers.
Individual purpose can be thought of as an enduring, overarching sense of what matters in a person’s life; people experience purpose when they strive to achieve something meaningful.
There are clear patterns, or archetypes of purpose, that help employers categorize what people find meaningful, but ultimately, a person’s purpose can be as varied as the people themselves.
In short, while companies and their leaders can have a great deal of influence on their employees’ individual purpose, their direct control over it is limited.
Therefore, companies need to approach their employees in their own circumstances to help them optimize their sense of job satisfaction.
To better understand how to achieve this, consider the conceptual relationship between a person’s purpose and their work.
Each person’s purpose may be unique, but a portion, large or small, comes from forces external to work, just as another portion comes from daily work.
Support employees in their current situation to help them achieve job fulfillment.
If an employee finds very little purpose in their work, the size of the middle circle will be smaller. Conversely, if another person finds their work very useful, it will be larger. Intuitively, the size of the core circle represents the portion of personal purpose accessible through work, as well as the degree of purpose employees seek in their work, and it can grow or shrink. Employers should consider this core circle as a goal they strive to understand and achieve. They should influence its expansion, whenever possible.
The innermost circle (the organizational purpose) represents the company’s means of influence; it is the only aspect of purpose that organizations control. How? By establishing a corporate purpose that considers the company’s role and contribution to society, and by providing employees with meaningful ways to reflect on the company’s efforts and their impact. Companies can also exert influence by improving the underlying health of the organization and its culture, driving inclusion and the employee experience, and transforming work itself.
As a company leader, you want the organization’s relatively small sphere of influence to expand to match the size of employees’ sense of purpose at work (the core circle). The closer the company gets to that, the more fulfilled the employee feels. Furthermore, a closer fit provides the company with more opportunities for employees to seek (and expect) greater purpose at work and feel more aligned with the organization’s purpose.
The key word here is «earned.» Remember, when it comes to purpose, you only have access to what your people allow you. Your first task is to figure out what they want and then see if they’re getting it.
What Employees Want and What They Get
Your employees are likely seeking more purpose at work than they are getting. For starters, we know that employees at all levels of the organization report wanting purpose in their lives. 89% of respondents agreed, a proportion that closely matches academic research.
Furthermore, 70% of employees surveyed stated that their sense of purpose is largely defined by work.
The senior executives in our sample slightly raised that average, but still, two-thirds of non-executive employees stated that work defines their purpose. This represents a clear opportunity for employers and leaders: an open door to encourage employees at all levels to develop and live their purpose at work.
However, when we asked whether people live their purpose in their daily work, the gap between executives and the rest of the organization multiplied. While 85% of executives and senior management reported living their purpose at work, only 15% of managers and frontline employees agreed. Even worse, nearly half of these employees disagreed, compared to only a few executives and senior management (Exhibit 2).
There is a marked purpose gap between senior management and frontline staff.
This gap in the hierarchy of purpose extends to feelings of job satisfaction. Executives are nearly eight times more likely than other employees to report that their purpose is fulfilled at work. Similarly, executives are nearly three times more likely than others to report that they rely on work to achieve their purpose. Interestingly, the group that most relies on work to achieve their purpose, across all roles, is parents (see the «Meet the Parents» box).
Finally, we sought to quantify the scope of the overall challenge for businesses by comparing respondents’ responses, regardless of their role, to questions about their desired and actual states.
This revealed that only 18% of respondents believed they get as much purpose from work as they would like. 62% stated that while they get some purpose from work, they want even more.
Understand the Implications
You might consider «getting something but wanting even more» to be quite good, especially if you lead or manage large groups of people. You would be wrong. These less satisfied respondents reported lower average work and life outcomes than their more satisfied peers: from a lower sense of energy and life satisfaction to lower engagement, satisfaction, and enthusiasm for work (Exhibit 3). Negative work and life outcomes for employees inevitably translate into negative outcomes for the business.
Employees who get the purpose they desire at work rep
