Workplaces weren’t designed for humans

Workplaces weren’t designed for humans

Workplaces continue to be based on ideas from the 19th century and ideas of industrial efficiency, argue researchers from the University of Leicester and the Technical University of Denmark.

They point to how the ideas of the US industrialist Frederick Taylor, focused on using people as part of an organisational machine that can be measured and its performance optimised. As a result, they suggest, organisations are simply using up people’s resources for productivity, in the same way industries have used up other natural resources. While HR is now far more focused on engagement and wellbeing, it has tended to overlook the key issue of what happens when employee’s energy, and motivation and relationships with colleagues are all spent.

Using the circular economy model

As an alternative to the established attitude to the ‘human resource’, the academics propose a shift to a model based on the idea of a circular economy.

The model they call ‘circular work’ would stop employers seeing staff as a resource of time and energy to be ‘used up’ to meet short-term targets and build in opportunities for recovery and regeneration — the “rest, support and learning” that “help employees bounce back”. In this way, they say, work itself becomes something more sustainable and suited for long-term growth rather than constantly running on empty.

Humanising work

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “Work has obviously been transformed by technology, the pace of everyday routines and cycles of performance targets have accelerated. It’s much easier and quicker to have meetings, to get tasks done. And now we’re impressed by the speed and efficiency of what AI can do.

“But maybe our attitudes to the role of people in work have lagged behind. We’ve tried to make people more like machines rather than considering whether that means work itself has become something inhuman. “Wellbeing programmes in themselves can’t just be used as a sticking plaster to cover up much bigger problems. Instead, the important services like EAPs, and their insights into employee health and experiences, need to be used as part of a wider strategy that looks at the design of work and job roles and their impact on wellbeing.”