Conflict or collaboration?
Which construct lends itself most favourably to the workplace? Sounds a simple question really. Surely there can be few employers not opting for harmony and engagement over strife and antagonism?
Let’s interrogate the recent Amazon furore over workplace culture. Following a New York Times article highlighting an apparently brutal, callous and dystopian employment experience, CEO Jeff Bezos felt the need to defend his organisation’s position around engagement.
Little wonder, because the original article pulled few punches. Amazon encourages ‘purposeful Darwinism’ as regards its annual staff culling. It pushed people allegedly to their limits – ‘Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk’. And woe betide anyone suffering bereavement, illness or disease, and ill-advisedly seeking time off.
Bezos’ answer was interesting and nuanced. Not for him an indignant and outraged denial of the themes emerging from the article. His approach was rather to suggest that he simply did not recognise the organisation depicted – “I know I would leave such a company (described in the NYT)”.
In a way his most telling point was around the employment market. If working for Amazon was so utterly horrendous, his people have options – and given the strength of the tech market right now, more options than has been the case for at least a decade. “You are headhunted every day by other world-class companies, and you can work anywhere you want”.
Equally telling in his email to Amazon employees was his signposting of them to both the original article and one largely rebutting it. Forums and threads emerging from both appear sharply divided, perhaps not surprisingly.
However, returning to the original article, over and above the somewhat sensationalist stories was a picture of an organisation that undoubtedly worked its people hard, which did not allow flabby and flaky thinking to emerge, which challenged, questioned and probed its people.
‘It’s the greatest place I hate to work’, in the words of a former executive, John Rossman.
It pushes people past what they thought were their limits, according to the original article.
‘Conflict brings about innovation’, suggests another employee.
In the face of organisations such as Facebook and Google, with their generous paternity commitments (Amazon don’t do paternity), their desk massages, free and rather fine food and even pets welcomed into the workplace, Amazon is making its own statement. It is being true to itself. It has created a defined and memorable working culture and environment. It will suit some but not others. For those who choose not to stay, they have a fantastic addition to their CV.
Whether we like what we hear and read about Amazon, they have created a community, they have created a defined work place culture, a clear and clearly differentiated employment experience.
And this has much to recommend it, as we seem to be only too keen to create schisms and points of difference in the workforce.
Let’s take the hoary old chestnut of Millennials or Gen Y. Something approaching an industry has been created around this demographic, with organisations queuing up to advise on how employers should best engage with this entirely different group of working professionals.
Or it is really that different?
As a father of three of the above, I would absolutely agree to individual differences but not to generational differences. An article from the Economist this month highlighting survey data from CEB makes this point much more articulately.
Tasked with confirming or contradicting some of the lazy clichés that tend to collect around Millennials and their approach to work, the research sought their responses (all 90,000 of them) around collaboration, feedback, work/life balance, meaningful work and ethics.
59% of Millennials thrive on competition, more than baby-boomers. 58% compared their own performance with that of their peer group – 10% more than did other generations. 37% had little trust in the input of their peers, a much higher figure than was registered for older workers. Just 35% emphasised the importance of CSR, compared to 41% of baby-boomers.
Perhaps the key outcome from the research was not the difference between what generations want from employment, but the common ground – regardless of age, the research suggests that people are looking for interesting work, to be rewarded on their contributions and to be given the chance to work hard and progress.
Millennials might be accessing it from a different device, but they appear to be on the same page as the rest of the workforce.
Just as we seek to construct gaps and differences between younger generations and the rest of the workforce, we seem equally keen to do the same with older employees, or indeed ex-employees.
According to research from BITC, the UK has just over 1m individuals over the age of 50 who have been pushed out of employment involuntarily, largely through unconscious bias, and who seek a return to the workplace. Getting these people back into work could benefit the UK economy by up to £88bn, according the report.
Rather than divide the workforce on the basis of some now discredited theories and clichés, great organisations bring them together to create employment communities. They create common cultures, behaviours, lived values and dialogues. The Amazon culture clearly won’t suit everyone but it suits Amazon. And it suits those employees who thrive in their particular environment, whatever their age, gender, ethnicity and sexuality.
The strength of Amazon’s culture and working dynamic creates – for those who stay – cohesion, commonality and a clear and recognisable employment experience.
Arguably, Amazon’s employer brand has not been damaged by the New York Times article, rather it has been re-affirmed.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 