68. Re-humanizing the Workplace + There is No Staffing Shortage

Transcript – Episode 68: Re-humanizing the Workplace + There is No Staffing Shortage

 

Joe:

So many conversations these days about what it takes to find and keep devoted employees are missing a key ingredient. I’ll tell you what it is and why it matters. Plus I’ll tell you why we need to stop saying there’s a staffing shortage. That’s what’s happening now on Boss Better Now.

Alyssa:

You’re listening to Boss Better Now. This show is sponsored by Joe Mull and Associates. Now here’s your host speaker and author Joe Mull.

Joe:

Greetings BossHeroes. And welcome back to the show that aspires to be food for the boss’s soul. You can enjoy that metaphorical food during your commute, on your lunch hour, while working out, while walking the dog, wherever is convenient for you. We’re glad you’re with us today. That voice you heard at the top of the show was none other than my fabulous co-host professional coach, Alyssa Mullet. Greetings and salutations, my friend.

Alyssa:

Talking too much about food. My stomach like was on cue. It was like grumble, grumble, grumble.

Joe:

<Laugh> No breakfast today. We’re recording in the morning.

Alyssa:

I, yeah, I usually, unless I it’s like a super duper hungry thing. I usually just do my coffee with the protein shake stuff in it. Oh, okay. But, but it’s, it’s getting to that time where I would, you know, generally have a little sneaky snack or a little

Joe:

Something, something

Alyssa:

Lunch, one <laugh>

Joe:

I like that thinking lunch one. So what number do we normally get up to on the lunch? Is there a lunch three at some point?

Alyssa:

No. Well, if you wanna call like the late night, not really late night, it’s like eight o’clock, 8:30. You. I mean, like there’s, there’s like, you know, the other period after the kid goes to bed where you start to eat the other,

Joe:

That’s like there’s lunch one. Maybe there’s like lunch two and then there’s dinner. And then there’s

Alyssa:

There’s snack meal.

Joe:

Snack meal. There’s post dinner. Yeah. There’s the dinner debrief usually involves nachos. Yeah. <Laugh> well it’s funny because our Camaraderie Question of the Week coming up in just a few minutes is food based. So we’re just weaving the theme throughout the episode.

Alyssa:

Yummy, yummy, yummy.

Joe:

Before we get there though we’re gonna have a conversation about a key ingredient, as I said at the top that has been missing from this national conversation. That’s taking place around why people are switching jobs. And I wanna frame this first around something that happened recently. So, if you were reading or paying attention to the news a few weeks ago, you may have heard about this executive at Applebee’s. It was an Applebee’s franchise group who sent a blast email to franchise managers, store managers at a large number of restaurants. The email was atrocious and it resulted in managers walking out and the email got posted on the internet. And then of course Applebee’s, you know, parent company had to disavow the whole thing. So in the email, this vice president said that inflation and rising gas prices and so many people who are trapped living paycheck to paycheck that these conditions that so many people were enduring would be a benefit to Applebee’s. Um because they collectively are going to force people back to work. This is not the only thing that this man said in this email. He went on to say that, you know, a lot of mom and pop stores are struggling and some of them might even close and that’s good for us too, because it might drive more potential employees into the hiring pool and the way that he said it in this email, he almost sounded gleeful. You know, that that businesses were struggling and that many people were struggling to pay their bills. Then he went on to acknowledge that often Applebee’s employees need to work two jobs to make ends meet. And now you would think that would be an opportunity to discuss the economic insecurity that their employees face or the inhumanity of having to work 60 to 80 hours a week across two jobs just to survive. But no. This man said that because a lot of the people who work in Applebee’s stores have to work two jobs to get by that managers should get their scheduling done early quote, so they can plan their other jobs around yours. So this was a, a horrible email and, and reaction was pretty swift in some of the stores that received this email. Managers actually quit. They, they just couldn’t stomach this messaging from senior leadership. This guy’s online profiles vanished. And, and like I said, the parent company released a statement that said, this in no way shape or form aligns with our values and what we believe. And so this email got a lot of coverage and kind of sparked an online conversation. But I said that there’s a key ingredient missing in a national conversation. And I think that it’s related to this email, Alyssa. I don’t think that the sentiments expressed in this email should be a surprise because what’s happening here in this email isn’t about inflation. It isn’t about job switching. It isn’t about a “worker shortage”. That’s all just window dressing. No, this guy believes something that a lot of people in the workplace have believed for too long. And it’s not that, you know, people aren’t going to work because the stimulus or laziness or greed, I mean, those are inaccurate misinformed beliefs that we’ve talked about on the show here too, but I’m talking about a much more entrenched belief about people in the workplace and it’s this: that people are a commodity that they are to be leveraged and exploited as producers first, people second. That we leveraged people, leverage people in service to revenue, regardless of the individual suffering it creates. This is the dehumanization of the workplace. And this thinking is everywhere. It’s a huge ingredient to what is driving people away from workplaces, that there has been for too long, a steady increase in the amount of comfort that businesses and leaders have with employee suffering. So it’s really funny how the universe works sometimes Alyssa and I promise I’m gonna stop talking in a minute and give you a chance to chime in here. But I’ve been thinking about this idea of dehumanization a lot. I’m writing about it in the new book. And it just so happens that last week I was reading 162-page dissertation, from, from an organizational development specialist who got their, her PhD about dehumanization in the workplace. And so then, you know, this email comes out and, and it’s very part and parcel with this ingredient of dehumanization. That is a, a part of why people are so unhappy at work or changing jobs. Dehumanization is the perception in treatment of people in ways that ignores their humanity. It ignores that employees are fully formed people with lives and families and wants and needs outside of work. And that we need to treat people fundamentally as people first. When we ignore that their humanity or worse, when we inflict or exploit suffering, we’re, we’re creating a dehumanized workplace. It’s a workplace where the needs of the organization always come first. I would argue that in too many places, this has become normalized. It’s something that we talked about on the show a few weeks ago about the inhumane experiences that people are moving away from the absence of a living wage, carrying too much work, having to work for a year without getting any benefits. And so I think the one change that needs to come down the pike, if we really want to create a workplace that people are attracted to, is that we need to rehumanize the workforce. And so I wanna talk about this and talk about what it means to, to be dehumanized, but also what it means to rehumanize the workforce. So take it away, my friend. I’ve, I’ve given you a lot to chew on there. Where do you wanna start?

Alyssa:

Yeah. So when I first read that email, it, it, unfortunately wasn’t shocking. It was more of this realization. He said the quiet part out loud.

Joe:

Yes.

Alyssa:

Right?

Joe:

Yes.

Alyssa:

This dynamic, these themes of we are what we do. We are what we produce. You know, it’s not specific to one industry, right. As leaders you know, when someone asks us what we do, what’s the first thing that comes to mind, what do you do? Well, first of all, I’m a freaking human, but we don’t say that ever.

Joe:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

Ever. Right. we say what we do for work.

Joe:

I’m a senior Vice president of blah blah blah,

Alyssa:

At company I produced. Right. And so this identification of self as a product of what we do is so innate and it is now become such a prevalent sense of specifically here, because I know other countries do not, <laugh> have these same mentalities.

Joe:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>

Alyssa:

Specifically here in the states to say this identity as of what we do and that we are a product and that in order to obtain dreams, it must be a product of exactly the effort that we put in to that. And so the mindset, this dream of working our tails off to get that we have in essence, dehumanized ourselves and over time, what that has resulted in is this culture in which we contribute to that continual dehumanization. So, you know, someone might think, oh, well, you know, the guy he said, he only said, you know, you’ve gotta, they he’s, he’s a realist, you know, they have to have two jobs to survive. Right.

Joe:

Do whatever it takes.

Alyssa:

So get the schedule. Yeah. Get the schedule out, you know, first, well, that’s a good thing. That’s a good idea. You know, get this, I’m being nice. I’m getting the schedule out in advance for people.

Joe:

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Alyssa:

Right. And it’s a mentality like that at someone at a senior level who actually has the authority to do something about the fact that people have to live paycheck to paycheck and two jobs in order to survive, that continues to cultivate <laugh> the dehumanization. So we’ve put people in power, we’ve brought them up through the, the, the culture of dehumanizing, and then we’ve put them in power over us to perpetuate that. And so what do we, as this kind of imagining ourselves in the middle of this, this middle layer, you know, we, we might not be the VP. We might not be the CEO where we can say across the board, yes. We’re gonna raise everybody’s wages, that kind of thing. What do we do to counteract our own dehumanization and to not perpetuate that culture in the workplaces, in which we lead?

Joe:

Well,

Alyssa:

It’s a simple question, Joe. Right? I mean…

Joe:

You want that in bullet point format? Or should I, you know, put a slideshow together?

Alyssa:

Maybe a book. Maybe a book.

Joe:

Well, it turns out so let’s talk about this in a couple different ways. Because I think that in a way I, I, I experienced some cognitive dissonance around this myself. So I just got done saying that this thinking is pervasive, that, like you said, he said the quiet part out loud, right? This thinking is everywhere. The, the, the, this email that this guy sent is what happens after years of getting comfortable with employee suffering of, of low wages, crushing workloads, minimal benefits, expanding hours, unsafe workplaces, abrasive bosses, right. All in service to what matters most for a lot of organizations, which is revenue. Um at the same time though, the cognitive dissonance that I experience is that I also believe people are genuinely and generally good. That most people actually don’t have a stomach for suffering. Most people in business, even, even really high up on the org chart, genuinely do care about their employees generally do want them to lead a good life. And so they often get trapped in between their responsibility to shareholders and, you know, business outcomes and the people that report to them and work in their organizations. What I think we have to do is acknowledge that cuz something I said earlier, which is that there has been this very slow burn toward inhumane experiences in the workplace that have been normalized. And I think when senior leaders get an up close, personal, look at it again and again and again, there are more likely to go wait, this isn’t sustainable. So let me give you a, a, a couple examples. We know that so a couple years ago, a company called Gravity Payments. The CEO is a guy named Dan Price. He encountered employees in his organization who was having, who were having to work two jobs to make ends meet. And it, when he started thinking about this, it changed his perspective around how he paid people. And he ended up getting a lot of news coverage because he announced that he was raising the minimum salary for every employee at his company to $70,000 a year. It was a, a massive jump. He wanted to lift people out of you know, a, a a situation where they were experiencing a substandard of living, where they weren’t making a living wage. And it’s transformed his company in incredibly positive ways. Um I think when, if you’ve seen shows like Undercover Boss, this is an example of that, right?

Alyssa:

Mm-hmm, <affirmative>.

Joe:

Where a senior leader escapes the confines of their corporate environment. And they work alongside the boots on the ground and they, they meet the genuine, authentic people and they’re able to access their humanity and they end up wanting to do for them in a way that expresses gratitude and, and helps them overcome the, the different kinds of challenges that they’re facing in their lives. I believe I, I believe all of those people have, have a good nature in them and they want to, to do for their people. But sometimes there’s so much separation between senior leadership roles and the boots on the ground that they don’t get that kind of exposure to the actual suffering that people experience. And so I think that the inhumanity of this executive is a bit of an outlier in terms of him not being able to give voice to why it’s such a problem that people are, you know, having to work two jobs. Um but the exploitation isn’t, the exploitation is inherently baked into the structures that we have around work and how we pay people and how we do schedules. And so to your question, Alyssa, I think what is key is that the frontline and mid-level leaders who, who listen to this show and who wanna be better bosses, they’re acting as a mirror, reflecting up to senior leaders, the stories and experiences of the people who work for them. And they are advocating for them. They’re saying you can’t keep putting this much work on our folks. You, you can’t keep expecting to pay wages at this level. You can’t expect people to be on call or to fill in, or to have these kinds of reduced benefits. In this day and age, our employees have kids. They need time to be with their families. They they’re going to have health events. They need better healthcare coverage. People are leaving us because they’re suffering at the hands of you, of us because we’re not providing adequate training, adequate schedules, adequate balanced workloads, adequate time away from work, adequate wages. Managers can be advocates and be storytellers that reflect the actual lived experience and the humanity of the people that they supervise to the folks who have less access to it,

Alyssa:

Making those intangibles that you, as the leader experience, you know, the, the heartbreak of someone getting terminated because their childcare facility is closed down for the 16th billionth time because of a COVID outbreak. And they don’t have any more time to take. And your company policy doesn’t allow for unpaid time or whatever it might be.

Joe:

Yep.

Alyssa:

Being the voice to those stories, being the advocate for perspectives that generally don’t hold weight.

Joe:

Mm-hmm, <affirmative>.

Alyssa:

Continuing to elevate voices that are not our own. Those are some of the key things that I believe can try to reestablish some level of humanity in our workplaces.

Joe:

Absolutely. When I talk about the re-humanization of the workplace, what I’m thinking about is building the employee experience through the lens of reducing suffering. Suffering that we have gotten comfortable with. Creating a more humane employee experience. The belief that people need to be treated fundamentally as people first, who have lives outside of work, who have families who have wants, who have needs and they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and care. They have a fundamental right to a life devoid of suffering inflicted upon them as a result of their job circumstances. That doesn’t mean that work isn’t gonna be hard every once in a while. That doesn’t mean that every once in a while at work, we have to, you know, miss a kid’s soccer game or put in a couple extra hours at night, because, because that’s what it takes. That is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about consistent persistent patterns of suffering that we’ve grown tolerant to, that we, that we’ve come to normalize. And it goes to your earlier point, Alyssa, which is that too often, we blame ourselves. Like when we can’t keep up with the work we say, what’s wrong with me. Maybe I’m not, I’m not good at this. Maybe I should try harder. We, we inflict that judgment on ourselves first that I just need to work harder. I need to pick myself up by my bootstraps. And so, so much of what’s happening in the market right now with people switching jobs are these epiphanies that they’ve had both before and during the pandemic where they said, hold on, this is not the life I wanna live. I, I need a better quality of life. This is, this is an unreasonable set of expectations for what I’m being asked to do or endure, and that has to change. And so that’s how we, rehumanize the workforce. We lower our tolerance as low as possible for suffering. And I think that starts with not treating people as a commodity. And I think that’s why emails like this, we have to, we have to call them out every time we see them. And we have to name it for what it is, which is this underlying set of beliefs that some organizations have been operating with where people are treated as producers first.

Alyssa:

Yeah. I, I love the position of easing suffering.

Joe:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

And I think that if that seems too big for you right now, as a boss, ease your own suffering first.

Joe:

Yeah. Well, we wanna hear what you think, friends. We’d love to hear your reactions. We’d love to answer any questions that you have about things you’re struggling with in the workplace. You can get in touch with us here on the show, including submitting your own question for us to answer by emailing us at BossBetterNow@gmail.com. Again, that’s BossBetterNow@gmail.com.

Joe:

We are going to lighten things up here, considerably Alyssa with our Camaraderie Question of the Week. Bosses build camaraderie on teams by making it easier for people to find things in common with each other. That’s why every week we give you a question you can use at meetings to facilitate connection and build camaraderie. This is a really intense, heavy question. High risk question might make some people uncomfortable, might need to create a safe place. Might want to invite a professional counselor in, in order to have this conversation. I kid. Our camaraderie question of the week this week is this: Alyssa, describe your perfect sandwich. Really heavy stuff.

Alyssa:

It is warm. It is warm, but not toasted, not crispy. Okay.

Joe:

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Joe:

So I’m thinking like a quasi like toaster oven situation, just to melt some cheese, preferably either Swiss and or pepper jack depends on the meat. Most likely ham and also Turkey cuz you know, health, but then, but then it becomes all about the condiments.

Joe:

Okay.

Alyssa:

I want shredded shredded finely shredded lettuce. I want a little bit of tomato. I could go without depends if it’s farm fresh, you know, from the garden. Yeah, definitely put it on there. If not, eh, but then we gotta have delicious, delicious pickles. Pickles must be on there. They need to be dill if they’re spicy, even better. And then I want a combination of like avocado Mayo and some Italian dressing situation.

Joe:

Okay.

Alyssa:

I need to pick it up and it, and it drips. <Laugh> That, that, that is the that’s it. Perfect scenario right there.

Joe:

First of all, I, I wanna, I wanna applaud you for the great detailed answer. Let me hit the applause button. <Applause> There. It’s I, I love the enthusiasm with, with which you answered this question. I, you were like,

Alyssa:

My stomach really was answering.

Joe:

If you’re watching on video. You’re gesticulating. Right? You were like making the sandwich in front of us in this, in the space in front of you. I appreciate that your first answer, I was thinking of this through the lens of like Myers Briggs in our, how we describe things and that your first answer was to describe like the experience and what it feels like and warm, but not too toasty. Right? Some people would have just immediately gone to like, I need some ham. I need some cheese, I need some, this, this and this, but you first started with like the ambiance of the sandwich, which is really fun. I am with you on the meat variety. I do like a sandwich. That’s got like a, maybe a Turkey and a ham and then maybe a piece of roast beef on there. That’s good stuff. You said two words that I think are central to a really great sandwich and that don’t get enough play in this world. So we’re gonna shine a light on it. Shredded lettuce. It’s a game changer. <Laugh> shredded lettuce. It

Alyssa:

It is.

Joe:

Yes.

Alyssa:

Textural. Yeah. Textural the crunch. The aesthetic of how your sandwich looks.

Joe:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

With the shredded lettuce <laugh>

Joe:

Now I will also say that a good crispy, fresh cold piece of like green solid, like single piece is also really good on a sandwich at the right time. See, my problem is I get trapped in between of them. So we’ll buy the bag salads. And so if I make a sandwich at home, I’ll grab some of the lettuce out of the bag salad, which is neither shredded nor whole. And so it’s kind of a lettuce purgatory that I’m living in because of the bag salad. <Laugh>

Alyssa:

This is life. This is suffering. Lettuce. That’s lettuce suffering. That’s the equivalent.

Joe:

All right. I can’t go with you on the pickles. I’m not a pickle fan, but I understand that that’s right for some people, but I, and I appreciate the, the enthusiasm that you brought to that.

Alyssa:

You come from Picklesburgh. I mean, I, I like smack, smack.

Joe:

That’s not my game. Sorry.

Alyssa:

<Laugh>

Joe:

All right. So I guess I gotta describe my perfect sandwich. So I’m with you on a lot of this. I, I like I, I have two answers. I’m gonna give you two quick answers. People are already tired of hearing about our sandwiches. So yeah, two soft pieces of bread. Something on the continuum from white to a light wheat. I don’t like a real dark wheat. Super soft, like first two slices out of the bag, right? I’m going two or three pieces of meat. I love a Mesquite Turkey maybe a piece of honey ham and then a piece of roast beef altogether. Drop me a piece of Swiss or I like white American cheese or Provo, like any cheese as long as there’s cheese. I’m good. White cheddar on a sandwich is a good move too. The one ingredient on my sandwich that was not on yours is I like one or two rings of fresh onion.

Alyssa:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Joe:

Raw. I don’t like cooked onions on sandwiches. Give me, give me a fresh cut piece of onion, not too strong, right? Cuz you don’t want people backing away from you when you talk to ’em later in the day and some mayonnaise, so and lettuce shredded lettuce preferably. So lettuce, mayonnaise, meat, cheese, onion, and it’s gotta be cut Alyssa. It has to be cut diagonally. I don’t need that. Cut down diagonal cuz you start on the corners. You’re nodding with me. You feel the diagonal cut?

Alyssa:

I did. I did in my version. I should specify it was sub it was a sub roll.

Joe:

Yes! Ok.

Alyssa:

Like a delicious, yeah, it was not, you know, straight up sandwich bread, but I concur if it’s sandwich bread, diagonal.

Joe:

It has to be diagonal cut. Absolutely. I’m also just gonna say for the record that a cheese steak of any kind also is I’m here for it. I love me a good cheese steak. Yep. Okay. we spent a lot of time talking about our sandwiches and it’s almost lunch. So let’s wrap up this episode and let’s go eat something. That’s the Camaraderie Question of the Week.

Joe:

All right, friends. Don’t forget, BossHeroes. That tickets for our upcoming BossBetter Virtual Summit are now on sale. And for a limited time, podcast listeners, like you, can get them for half price using our exclusive podcast coupon code PODCAST. That’s right. The word PODCAST is the promotional code to get you those half price tickets. We’ve got world class and hall of fame speakers doing sessions for this event on rich relevant topics, including blasting through service fatigue, how bosses retain staff through connection, how to reinvent your culture to be the upgrade that employees are looking for and we even have a session on the latest, greatest apps and tools to hack your personal productivity. So for more info or to grab your seats before we are sold out, visit BossBetterVirtualSummit.com and use the discount code PODCAST.

Joe:

Now we’re gonna wrap up today, Alyssa with one of my favorite segments on the show, Stop It! One of the things that I am going to, to proclaim that we need to stop doing right now is using the phrases staffing shortage, or worker shortfall or describing what’s happening in the jobs market right now, as a struggle to find people. Do you hear the common thread, Alyssa? Every single one of these labels, blames people. They blame workers. And that is part of this national conversation that is taking place, right? We’ve decided that the problem is workers. We’ve decided that no one wants to work anymore. We’ve decided that people are lazy or unprofessional that they don’t wanna work hard. And that is total bunk. Folks, unemployment is under 4%. Labor force participation rate for workers between the ages of 24 and 54 in the US right now is higher than it was 10 years ago. 80% of prime age workers in the United States right now are either employed or actively looking for work. Can we stop calling this a staffing shortage? Can we stop saying it’s a worker shortfall. Can we stop saying that we’re struggling to find people? People aren’t the problem. It’s not a staffing shortage. It’s not a worker shortfall. There is no worker shortage. There’s a good job shortage. There’s a humane employee experience shortage. We have challenges right now, not related to finding people, but to creating the jobs that let people actually live a better quality of life. And this is, this is important because when we blame people, we create a psychological loophole that permits contempt. It allows us to blame people and say, no one wants to work anymore. People just aren’t trying hard enough. None of that is true. It’s a, it’s, it’s a falsehood that is being perpetuated and, and, and worse. It doesn’t address the real problem. It, it, it allows us to abdicate our responsibility, which is to create jobs where people get paid, a living wage, where they get to do a reasonable amount of work in a reasonable number of hours every week for a company that treats them well. And in response, they will commit. They will do hard things. So what I want us to do, Alyssa, is to stop blaming workers, to stop advancing a narrative that hiring challenges are rooted in character defects like laziness or entitlement. It’s patently false. What’s happening right now is that no one wants to work in jobs that create suffering. What’s happening right now is people are saying I’m switching jobs for better of quality life. And guess what, it turns out by saying that I want to provide a better livelihood for my family. I wanna be a better parent. I wanna be more available to my kids. I wanna be a better partner, husband, wife, spouse. I wanna be a better caregiver to my elderly parents. I wanna be a better citizen. I want to have better mental health. Guess what? These are all admirable character traits. We are not in the middle of a staffing shortage. We are in the middle of a good jobs shortage. Stop it! I’m gonna give you a chance to react to the little stop it rant that I was doing there.

Alyssa:

I, I, I, I honestly don’t have anything else to add. I think that it was spot on, I mean, very congruent with exactly what we’ve spoken about today.

Joe:

Yep. It’s just one of those little things that, that I feel like once you draw attention to it, then you’ll notice it. If you, if you flip on the news and you watch and you hear, you know, commentators on business networks or in business programming talking about what’s happening right now, it’s always a worker’s fault. It’s a worker, it’s a, it’s a staffing shortage or a worker’s shortage.

Alyssa:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>

Joe:

It, it, it blames the people and for what.

Alyssa:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Joe:

For wanting to do better by their lives, by their families. It’s, it’s just a real backwards thing that allows those falsehoods to perpetuate and doesn’t fix the real problem. Right? If we don’t name the problem, how can we fix it?

Alyssa:

Yeah, indeed.

Joe:

All right, BossHeroes. Well, thank you for letting me wax loudly and maybe a little bit poetically about these topics on our show here. I think it’s important to helping us really understand what it means to be better bosses by understanding what’s happening out there. And so thank you for being with us today. I hope, if nothing else, you are motivated to finish this episode and go make yourself a world-class sandwich with shredded lettuce. Cut diagonally. In the meantime, friends, reviews are really important to podcasts. So if you like our show, we’d appreciate it. If you take a moment right now to leave us a review, if you’re watching on video, just drop a comment in the box below the episode. If you’re listening in a podcast app, just look around for a link that says, write a review. Many of them give you that option. In the meantime, thanks for listening and take care of yourselves out there.

Alyssa:

This show is sponsored by Joe Mull and Associates. Remember commitment comes from better bosses. Visit JoeMull.com today.