Help Me Help You
Jerry Maguire could have been talking about optionality
Cameron Crowe is one of my favorite filmmakers, not least because he’s around my age, so when he tackles an age, era, or life stage, it’s often in a way I completely relate to. Jerry Maguire may be his most catch-phrase-laden work, with lines that remain in the common vernacular: “You complete me,” “You had me at ‘Hello’,” “Show me the money!,” and of course, “Help me help you.”
One of the dreams we have for Optionality is to foster an expanded conversation about mutual benefit between organizations and the people whose efforts, time, and wisdom they need if they want to achieve their objectives. Yes, full-time employees, but potentially contractors, consultants, and part-time/fractional workers too.
Here’s the thing: I’m tired of the employment market being talked about like it’s no different than the housing market. With a pendulum swinging between being a buyer’s market and a seller’s. We’re talking about humans not houses, so ideally, organizations and workers should be saying “Help me help you” to one another, and prioritizing a sustainable future for all.
One of my dear friends who brings me much-needed visibility and insight into the big company mindset looks both amused and bemused when I share this vision. What fantasy world am I living in?
Speaking of fantasy worlds: Some wish generative AI was still part of one, but it is here, and it will be affecting most of us. Join our next Optionality webinar to learn more about you should be thinking about using GenAI, both effectively…and ethically. Free and open to all optionality members.
Well, primarily the world where things like employee mental wellbeing and ability to uni-task are understood to improve retention and increase productivity respectively. And where having access to flexibility contributes to that mental wellbeing and better focus. Maybe even more so, a world that acknowledges that people learn, process, and manage tasks differently, so one size may not fit all, and in fact your employee base is likely to be nearly evenly split on what version of hybrid work works best for them.
If this is the case, does it make sense to limit your pool of employees who will both join and stay with your company to only those who fit into one acceptable working structure, or to design for a more flexible workplace that can accommodate two or even more structures?
Back in the day, work shifts were predominantly 8-10 hours straight in a single location (as shifts still are in some industries and sectors), but that was when people could reasonably assume that when they clocked out (the meatspace version of “logging out”) they were actually done with work. Bosses didn’t have access to you after hours or on weekends. With expectation of 24/7 digital access to employees now, our effective working time has increased, perhaps as much as doubled, while the cost of living has soared and average wages, for knowledge workers at any rate, have definitely increased, but not by nearly as much as the rise in cost of living and increase in expected always-on-time should dictate.
We’ve talked a lot here at Optionality about caregiving as a pull on our time and attention. And there is certainly a tax on our energy and acuity that comes with all kinds of care, from elder care to child care to care for any loved one with an illness or condition. The pulls on employees’ time, mental capacity, and full-strength energy don’t always have to be negative, though. Just this week I was on a call with a group of highly skilled and highly ambitious, entrepreneurial small business owners, three of whom had kids who were seniors in high school, and they all talked about the burden and enjoyment found in going through the college application and decision process.
Times have definitely changed since I was 16, got catalogs in the mail, picked 4-5 places to apply to, got accepted by two, and made the decision and signed myself up without so much as one college visit…all without much assistance from my parents. My eyes start to cross hearing friends talk about the FAFSA student aid application process, the number of colleges their kids are applying to, and the college tour trips they take. Like, it’s a whole. big. thing. And while it’s time-consuming and frustrating, it is also a bittersweet opportunity to spend quality, dedicated time with their child who’s about to fly from the nest. Time they wouldn’t trade for anything. And in the case of my friends this week, time they are able to dedicate because as consultants they can make their own schedule, work from anywhere, do their own resource planning, and set their own boundaries.
It may indeed be a fantasy to imagine organizations can accommodate their workers to quite the degree solopreneurs can accommodate themselves. But surely there is a way that lives somewhere between total flexibility and total rigidity. A way that can be outcome-oriented and results-oriented not facetime-oriented or busyness-oriented. This requires organizations to have clarity on the outcomes and results they prioritize (less of a given than you’d imagine). And it also requires workers to know the difference between self-advocacy for humane policies and unearned entitlement (and yes, every generation thinks the next one acts entitled, but can we admit there is a germ of truth in some cases?)
“Help me help you” says the employer to the worker, by respecting timelines, maintaining communication with your management team, and trying to work smart, not just fast.
“Help me help you” says the worker to the employer, by respecting my off-time, maintaining open transparent communication with me, and trying to recognize that not everything can be equally urgent and equally important all the time!
So…am I in Fantasyland? Have you seen people working together on these terms? Do you think this is fine for small business but can’t scale? Let me have it!
I love how you framed this up, Elisa. It makes so much sense that we help companies help us and vice versa. Even though we've created this space of openness to other models, workers are still largely in a conversation with companies, who are saying, "What will you do for me?" How will you contort your life to do this job? Or do you not want it badly enough? And inevitably someone will take that role under those circumstances. I think the balance is shifting though. Fewer of us will consider that role without negotiation, without compromise -- and not just for more money.
This continues to be a worthy conversation. But it has seemed to have hit a peak during a global pandemic when both individuals and companies could not foresee an endpoint.