Ever felt like Your boss just doesn’t understand you? That’s because they don’t — and that’s especially true when it comes to flexible working.
Future Forum, a research group supported by Slack, run quarterly”Pulse“Survey 10,000 knowledge workers with focus groups with their bosses in six countries, including the US and UK. For its latest iteration, the Pulse study focuses on the work-from-home experiment imposed by the lockdowns and slow return to the office — and it should come as no surprise to discover that management Managers prefer to see employees sitting at their desks so they work from home.
Research shows that executives are more than twice as likely to want to return to the office full-time – per workday, as it was “in the past” – than their employees, with 44 % of executives aspire to work and fluorescent lighting compared to 17% of their employees. Some bosses are willing to offer a little flexibility, with two-thirds of executives saying they want to work in an office most or all of the time.
But employees — or, as the survey identified them, “non-executive” knowledge workers — disagree. More than three-quarters (76%) said they want flexibility in working from home or in the office, and even more than 93% want flexibility in their work. when they work.
Why don’t bosses listen?
What’s behind this disconnect? Brian Elliot, executive lead at Future Forum and senior vice president at Slack, highlights three key issues. First, executives are more content at work than their employees, reporting 62 percent higher job satisfaction scores than non-executive employees, Elliot said. And no surprise: They have better homes, better offices, and better pay.
“Even when they work from home, executives are better resourced,” he said. “They have a nice house with lots of space, can afford to babysit while schools are closed.” And when they’re at work, he added, executives get offices with doors closed instead of hot table with open space, plus the autonomy and flexibility in their work — they are the main responsible, after all. “Executives are having a much better experience,” said Elliot.
So it’s no surprise that executives are happier in the office than the rest of us, but some are also subject to a broader form of validation, says Elliot, given that we Just as pleased as they were with the setup. This second problem that Elliot refers to as a “focus group of one”: it is the assumption that, because an executive may have worked their way up the ranks, they know the staff. what current employees are thinking, despite the many changes that have occurred in the intervention over the decades, especially around technology and collaboration tools. “This annoys me: 66% of executives in our survey told us their future work plans are being built with no or no direct contribution. from the staff themselves,” he said.
The third issue highlighted by Elliot is the lack of transparency: Some of the effects of these operating assumptions would be mitigated if bosses shared future work plans with employees and listened carefully. their ant. The survey found that less than half of employees believe their boss is being transparent about future plans.
