At LSE, I have been hearing about issues of flexibility, embedded ness. These issues came up because people now really prefer flexibility and autonomy at work. They want the space to do their work their way, without someone curbing their time, putting them into routine. People find it easier to be creative, if left to themselves. These days many office cultures have become toxic, due to an intrusive environment, leaders micromanaging. Now people are willing to accept low salary in exchange for freedom to do work. Gig economy is on the rise, the reason behind it is the issue of flexibility.
Why are cultures becoming toxic?
According to the Attraction-Selection- Attrition theory, managers attract the same type of people in the organisation as are the characteristics of their CEO’s. Hence, over a period of time a very homogeneous group is formed in the organisation which lacks variety. Office cultures may include gossip, hardworkers not being rewarded accordingly, groupism etc. These attributes have increasingly been seen to disrupt the office culture, impact productivity.
The Rise of Flexibility…
Taylorist methods of productivity have been abandoned long ago. This is because of their negative impact on employees, such as high stress levels, low productivity over time, lack of creativity, boredom etc. Hence employers realised the need of having a more flexible work culture. Now the jobs are designed such that they give the individual some autonomy, this helps him to reduce stress, enjoy work and give a better performance. But people are now also getting bored of office culture, hence the want work from home, or do jobs as per their ease. Free lancing helps you do that. This lets people use their time for themselves, they are in control of their time.
The issue of embeddedness…
Companies have to regularly check out that their employees are happy in the organisation. They have to check out how likely they are to leave the company. If employees are easily leaving the company, then employers have to change their policies, make the environment better, give employees better salary, give them a sense of purpose.
What is this concept of Empowerment…
According to some recruiters in London, the trend is again changing in what employees want. They want empowerment rather than embeddedness. It was observed that even embedded employees left the company. So what was it that the employees wanted? They wanted empowerment. This is a concept of training the employees, giving them the freedom to make decisions etc. is empowerment. And this is gaining strength these days.
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