To 'Build Back Better' we have to rethink the role of work in our lives

Dealing with mental health issues, achieving equality and restructuring will affect countless organisations after lockdown, writes Brendan Barber

The guidance about home working where possible means organisations have had to adapt (PA)

As we ease out of lockdown, there are hard choices to be made about our economic priorities and where to direct investment. How can we promote green growth and minimise unemployment, given that a whole generation of young people entering the world of work are at particular risk?

If we are truly to “Build Back Better” we really have to make big changes in the way we think about the role of work in all of our lives. At its best, work can be a source of enormous personal pride and satisfaction, where skills and learning are deployed in worthwhile endeavour. Work can provide someone with a sense of identity – far more than just the answer to the question “what do you do?’” It gives a sense of purpose and often lifelong friendships too.

But, at its worst, work can be bleak, humiliating, ill rewarded and exploitative in an environment dominated by unfairness.

So the challenge over this next period is not just to save and provide jobs but to breathe life into the notion of “good work” for everyone.

There are several challenges to accomplishing this.

The first is the challenge of equality and diversity. Yes, there are more women in boardrooms and that is to be welcomed but as the gender pay gap reporting has exposed, at the current rate of change it would take almost another 200 years before we have secured equal pay. Women are still concentrated in too many lower paid roles, and in roles that we should really value more highly, like care work. Pregnant women still risk unfair treatment in selection for redundancy. There has been a growing number of calls to our helpline advisers about allegations of pregnancy and maternity discrimination.

As the Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted so powerfully, we are still lightyears from delivering true equality for members of the BAME community. If you are black in Britain today you are more likely to be unemployed, less likely to be promoted to senior levels in your workplace and massively more likely to be stopped and searched in your neighbourhoods. BAME people have of course been disproportionately negatively impacted by Covid too.

And too many people with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ community still face discrimination that blights their life chances.

These inequalities persist notwithstanding compelling evidence of the benefits of equality and diversity with a 2018 Deloitte study suggesting that organisations with greater diversity, coupled with an inclusive culture, were three times more likely to be high performing.

Second, we need a new focus on wellbeing and mental health. A recent ACAS survey highlighted that nearly two out of five people working from home felt stressed, anxious and were experiencing mental health difficulties. Over 40 per cent of employers had been dealing with mental health issues for employees in the last 12 months. And if we are to see a major shift towards more homeworking longer term, we really have to strike the right balance between the benefits of flexibility alongside the concerns about increased isolation and loss of identity with the organisation.

The third key challenge is how to manage what could be a tsunami of impending changes in organisations.

There have been immediate challenges when it comes to returning to work in a safe way that also inspires confidence in the workforce. But longer-term change and restructuring will affect countless organisations. Handle this well, with genuine and meaningful workforce engagement, and the benefits in terms of staff motivation and commitment will be overwhelming. But there are still too many companies relying on “command and control”, rather than listening to what works for their employees.

Our country still needs to solve the “productivity puzzle” that leaves our performance lagging behind our major international competitors. We need better physical infrastructure, capital investment and a stronger focus on skills. But also, the way work is organised, the skills of managers and leaders, and the role and involvement of workers and their representatives are all critical to successful innovation and organisational success.

Building a partnership approach is the key to managing change in individual organisations, but national policy-making can benefit from such an approach too.

Faced with the prospect of major redundancies in many sectors and fast rising unemployment, the Chancellor recently announced major new interventions in the labour market. But further measures will no doubt be needed. These must be designed with great care to minimise the use of public funds to support jobs that would be there anyway, and to ensure that new jobs created are not simply displacing existing jobs. New training programmes need to be high quality too so that young people are given genuine transferable skills that will improve their prospects for the future. Getting all of these factors right needs the close involvement of those with the responsibility for making them work on the ground.

The Trades Union Congress and Confederation of British Industry contributed significantly to shaping the emergency government responses to the Covid-19 crisis, such as the furlough scheme. Their insights and wisdom should now be marshalled to the task of steering the economy through the coming turbulence.

Brendan Barber leaves his role as chair of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) this weekend after six and a half years in the role. ACAS is a non-departmental public body that aims to improve organisations and working lives