The Cost of Work
Building Better Equations For Employees in The Future of Work
Hello and Welcome!
If you’re new here, drop me a line to say hello. This week, I’m talking about the cost of work, and what it means for how employers think about delivering a better value proposition and contract to their employees.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about what companies miss in understanding the employer value proposition, and how we need to reimagine how we think about this to construct better employee value propositions:
Every day, we go to work, and we do so for a reason. We give up our time, talent, and energy which is put to use in our job and for our employer, and in exchange, we get a bunch of things. Tactically, a paycheck, benefits, and something to do each day.
But philosophically, each individual also gets out a whole bunch of other things. Depending on who you are, that might be something like meaning, purpose, excitement, connection, a chance to do something each day, etc.
At the core, this is the fundamental employer-employee deal. This is what we sign up for when we take a job and build a career, in its simplest form.
One area they routinely miss can be seen through the things that they put on their employees each day that prevent people from actually doing their job.
That’s the basis for today’s post which I’m calling the Cost of Work.
The Cost of Work
As a baseline for this conversation let’s take the assumption that nobody goes to work to do a bad job, and people want to be able to be good at what they do. Companies, willingly and unwillingly, put so many things in the way of allowing their employees to do good work, and to do the job that they have chosen to show up to do each day. There are so many things that get in the way of people actually being able to do there job and make progress toward their goals.
I like to call this the “Cost of Work.”
In its simplest form, we go to work each day as part of the social contract we have with our employer. Employers give us some things, and we give up some things in return. We keep that social contract so long as we feel it benefits us. While each of us gets a bunch of benefits in return for our time, talent and skills, there are also associated “costs” that come with that.
I tend to think of costs in two ways:
Direct Costs: These are the costs that you you feel directly in the course of doing your job. Common ones include
The manager who micromanages, and makes work harder
The meetings that never end, and make you have to stay late to get your work done
The digital notifications that interrupt your work and cause more work
The physical pain from a job that requires you to go through strenuous activity
Indirect Costs: These are costs that impact you either before you show up, or after you finish your work each day
The stress, emotional exhaustion, burnout, and anxiety from a manager or teammate
The costs associated with traveling from and to work, as well as the hours associated with it
Lost weekends or activities due to work commitments
The mental and cognitive load you put on yourself from making sure you’ve figured out your childcare situation so that you can actually do your job (assuming that child care isn’t the reason that you are no longer in the job)
Many more..
Costs have always been a part of the deal, but the costs that employees have faced over the past few years have changed how many employees think about that social contract with their employers to look for better alternatives.
Is it really worth it to work on the front lines as an “essential worker” during a global pandemic? Should I go back to commuting 2 hours each way for a job that is making me return to the office? What about all these pings, distractions and notifications that distract me from being able to do my actual job? Is it worth it to keep working this job because it’s advancing me toward a path that takes me farther away from my family? These are some of the many questions that face employees of all walks of life, and many of them relate to the cost of their job.
To be sure, working in 2023 is far less costly (and deadly) than working in the medieval or industrial era. But all of us, especially those on the front lines, have had our own share of costs we’ve had to deal with and a chance to sit and stew with them over the past three years.
I don’t think statistics around the mental health crisis, loneliness crisis, exhaustion and burnout, and toxic workplace cultures at this point really surprise anyone, but rather, illustrate how fixing the employee value proposition and social contract starts with examining the cost of work that we collectively put on employees.
One of my frameworks for helping friends and colleagues who come to me for career advice and evaluating their job is something I call the “Give/Get Ratio. In any given job, you give things, and you get things in return. You have a cost of work, but there’s a benefit to it.
For employees, the key is figuring out A) what your current ratio is and B) evaluating whether all the benefits are worth or greater than the costs.
One thing that employers miss (outside of actually taking the time to understand the true impact of the costs) is that when they do discover costs, many times, their immediate solution is to focus on addition.
For example, after HR runs the employee engagement survey and finds that more people are reporting being burned out, we institute a wellness webinar. This misses the point, addresses a symptom and not a root cause, and misses a huge opportunity of the cost of work equation. Instead of trying to add, perhaps it’s time to subtract, and find ways to remove costs that employees bear, so they can do the job that they signed up to do as part of that social contract.
Another more visible example of this are the people who are frustrated with the transportation “costs” of returning to the office, and one way some companies are taking advantage of this is through moving to a “remote-first” policy.
While this is not a full on endorsement of making your company fully remote, it is about being thoughtful and intentional about how you are choosing to be consistent in your approach to removing the constraints and costs of your employees, so that they can actually show up and do the job they signed up for as a part of that social contract.
The good news (or bad news, depending on how you look at it) is that there are all sorts of “costs” of a job that exist that are ripe for removing or subtracting. Furthermore, there are examples of companies building products and services to solve for this. A few examples include:
Time: Not everyone has time for a full-time job. But there are plenty of capable people with high skills who, even though don’t want to work full-time, still have talent. Enter Roleshare. Roleshare works with companies to hire part-time talent to fill a specific need. This “lessens” the burden of the worker, but “adds” to employer recruiting and retention efforts,
Childcare: Nearly 60% of workers who leave the workforce cite childcare as the main reason why they chose to leave. Enter Vivvi, a startup building a new childcare model specifically to accommodate working and professional parents.
Family Planning: Companies like Carrot Fertility, that are removing the friction and consternation that women go through in the fertility process
While “costs” of work may be a subjective measure that is different for everyone employee, markets speak, and if we agree that market’s speak it does make you wonder how certain professions, industries, and roles will fare over the next few years as many roles and industries face their own labor shortages that don’t seem to be going away. Whether it’s construction workers, architects, truck drivers, teachers, or other professions, many professions in these roles are voting with their feet because to them, the costs are not worth the “Give/Get” ratio.
While in some cases this might be due to compensation, benefits, or other visible factors, much of it can also be attributed to the sheer “cost” that these jobs place on the workers themselves.
I am not a labor economist, policy wonk, or higher education leader, so I will let those people suss out the arguments about skills, workforce development, accessibility of education, t and teacher salary issues, all of which are critical issues that we as a society must solve.
I do have an understanding of what employees are looking for out of their employer and out of a career as they try to navigate a changing world of work. As employees continue to to exercise the choice and autonomy they have in how they choose to work, what modes of work to choose, how they define a career, and in turn signify what “costs” they want to tolerate and what they want to ignore, this will have direct implications for how professions and employers need to think about how they are defining their employer value proposition, and structuring the social contract they give to their employees. They too, must think about their collective “Give/Get” ratio.
As I wrote in a previous newsletter, great products solve problems and pain points. Taking the time to understand what “problems” the job that your employees take solves for them, and what their own “Give/Get” ratio is so that you can remove the “cost of work” might make your company and employer value proposition much stronger.
While this post was geared for employers, I don’t want to leave employees hanging. If you’re an employee, here are some questions for you that are worth reflecting on:
What are the costs you bear at work? What are the benefits you get in return?
What is your give/get ratio? How does that sit for you?
What is one cost you wish to remove, that would make your overall well-being better?
If you’re looking for some help for your learning and development, team meetings or professional development for next year, I’d love to work with you: Here is how I might be able to assist:
Team Trainings & Professional Development: Happy to facilitate training or professional development opportunity for your team & organization - common topics include: career development, influence without authority, effective relationship building, and stakeholder management
Support Your Offsites & Meetings: Speak or facilitate at your team’s offsite. Need a guide to facilitate or speak at an upcoming offsite, QBR or all hands? Happy to engage here.
Leadership & Learning Programs: Formal training and leadership development in your company, such as new manager or new leader training, or skill-based programs.
Feel free to contact me directly for more details!
Have a great week!
Al