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Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc. | |
PRODUCTIVITY
Hello, old friend
The dreaded performance review is back ― and this year you can expect it to be tougher than ever
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IF YOU’VE GOT a performance review coming up in the next few months, it would be wise to steel yourself ― this year, performance reviews are getting tougher and harsher.
“Long gone is the pandemic era of work, when managers gave performance issues a pass,” wrote the Wall Street Journal’s Ben Eisen. “Back then, hiring, not firing, was the order of the day and companies feared tough love would drive away stressed-out talent. Businesses’ mantra now is, ‘Make sure every seat is filled by the right person.’”
Company leadership is increasingly prioritizing performance management, especially as some look to quietly scale back on the size of their workforce. Usually, job turnover can do some of that on its own, but last year saw the job quits rate drop to very low levels; people simply aren’t quitting their jobs for new ones the way they were in the past (to say nothing of the anomalous years of 2020 to 2022).
“As they look to trim financial fat, some employers are looking to performance reviews to separate high performers from low performers and identify where to invest,” wrote Trey Williams at Fortune.
There’s some disagreement on whether this is a good thing or not. On the one hand, some suggest that making performance reviews tougher “could be the reality check you need to get your job back on track,” said Eisen. On the other, performance reviews have not historically been all that effective: only 14 per cent of workers polled by Gallup said that a performance review is a source of motivation or inspiration in their careers, and only 26 per cent feel they are accurate.
If you are on the receiving end of a tough review this year, experts suggest not reacting quickly. Take a beat, absorb the criticisms and try to adjust course. If a tough review feels like it comes out of nowhere, it’s usually a good sign to be more proactive in reflecting on your own performance.
“Seek out honest feedback from colleagues,” Eisen suggested. “Supervisors are often lousy at delivering candid feedback in the normal course of the job, making it easy to be lulled into thinking you’re doing well enough.”
It may not make a tough review any easier to stomach ― but at least it might not feel like you’re being sucker-punched.
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REMOTE WORK
The rise of the remote husband
Thanks to the way jobs are gendered, more woman are back in-office while their partners work from home
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ACROSS THE WORKFORCE, women are heading to the office for the day, leaving their husbands behind at home for the day. House husband? Stay-at-home dad? Not quite ― it’s the remote husband, who works from home while his wife returns to the office.
“All over the country, among the well-heeled and well-educated, a new trend appears to be emerging,” wrote The Economist. “When the wives head out in the morning, to their offices, classrooms or hospitals, they are waving goodbye to their husbands, who remain at home.”
This is not, they point out, “a gender-swapped 1950s revival,” but reflects “an underappreciated effect of the rise of remote work: the rise of the remote husband.”
It’s a trend produced by the way jobs are gendered differently. Men still outnumber women in engineering, computer science and tech jobs, which have remained remote at higher rates than teaching, nursing and medicine jobs, which are largely in-person and which attract more women. A recent McKinsey survey found that 38 per cent of men had the option for full-time remote, compared to only 30 per cent of women; half of women don’t have the option to remote work at all, while only 39 per cent of women can say the same.
This, naturally, has knock-on consequences, as traditional gender roles in the home are seeing a bit of an inversion.
“I’m feeling like I have lost all respect for my husband since the pandemic sent him working remotely from home,” wrote one letter-writer to Slate’s advice column. “I have discovered that it means he works a total of two hours a day and feels he can meander through the home for the rest of the time.”
On the other hand, research from Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business found that “when wives had inflexible work arrangements, husbands completed significantly more family tasks when working from home.”
What this trend means in the long-term is hard to say, but The Economist suggests that for professional women looking to climb the career ladder ― something many would like to see in the economy ― the trend is a positive one.
“It may sound like yet another way in which women have ended up with the short end of the stick, but that view is myopic.” they wrote. “If she is offered a big promotion, conditional on moving to Chicago [e.g.], she may have to turn it down if his job is tied to New York.” However, with a remote husband, “the geographical liberation of either partner makes it possible for the other to ascend the corporate ladder.”
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CULTURE
Your what now?
Having a tough time getting along with your coworkers? Maybe a personal user manual is the answer
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IF YOU, UNLIKE your remote husband, are back in the office, gelling with your coworkers may prove to be a rocky process. Workplace conflict in the office has been swelling significantly, according to many analysts, and some companies are addressing this with the introduction of the “personal operating manual,” or “personal user manual.”
What is it? Simply put, it’s a package of information ― about you and put together by you ― that helps your coworkers understand your work style. “Accessible documents packed with details about what people are actually like in the workplace, from stress triggers to communication styles,” explained the Financial Time’s Bethan Staton.
The idea stretches back to the mid-2000s but has caught on among big companies in the wake of the pandemic as work styles grew more idiosyncratic, and people fell out of practice working alongside others.
“Think of it like when you get a new appliance,” workplace coach Barbara Palmer said. “You can plug it in and it will work. But the manual describes the features that make it a great tool and work more efficiently and effectively. Same with your team.”
An ideal personal user manual might include info such as the best way to get ahold of you, the times of day when you prefer to get your deep focus work done or how likely you are to be reachable after hours. Other iterations of the personal user manual might include fun facts, or a list of things that annoy you. What you put in there is ultimately up to you.
It can, said workplace software company Atlassian, “produce a profound level of transparency. Multiply this across your entire team and it’s much easier for people to understand each other and work productively and cooperatively together.”
“Sometimes, they get a bit odd,” concluded Bloomberg’s Matt Boyle. “But overall, they’re an invaluable corporate culture field guide. When actor Jodie Foster recently bemoaned gen Z as being really annoying to work with, I couldn’t help thinking that a user manual could have helped bridge that generational divide.”
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CAREERS
The new retirement is no retirement
As with so many other things, younger generations aren’t interested in following the retirement paths their parents or grandparents took
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When the government of France announced changes to the retirement age last year, it sent French workers out into the streets in protest in an attempt to preserve the traditional retirement age (a spry 62 in France).
You probably won’t get such a reaction here, though ― a new study from Wealthsimple finds that working-age Canadians are less wedded to traditional retirement schemes than ever, with younger people leading the charge.
Three quarters of Canadians between the ages of 24 and 44 told Wealthsimple that the conventional approach to retirement ― of working up to 65 and then calling it quits ― is outdated, and that workers of that age have in mind a less linear, more flexible interpretation of retirement.
“The study reflects ambition among many millennials and gen Z Canadians for a modern form of retirement that allows the pursuit of personal and professional passions throughout their adult lives,” the survey found. “It’s no longer a linear career path to eventual retirement, but a hybrid mix of work, travel, volunteering and entrepreneurial pursuits.”
For a lot of respondents, retirement is really about breaking free from having a boss, more than it is about hanging up the proverbial cleats and taking up gardening. Forty-one percent of Canadians want to retire early, so that they have time to chase bigger ambitions (among them, entrepreneurial pursuits). Only seven per cent have a traditional retirement plan in mind.
With less than half of Canadian workers enrolled in a workplace pension program, it’s also unsurprising that a majority of Canadians view investing as their retirement plan. “It’s a new perspective on the future,” said Mike Katchen, Wealthsimple’s CEO. “They are looking for flexibility, personalization and control over their future, rather than feeling controlled by conventional wisdom.”
That so many Canadians want to retire early presents some challenges. “The challenge is to ensure that these hybrid retirement ambitions can be realized, especially as 41 per cent of respondents want it to begin well before they even reach their 55th birthday,” wrote Wealth Professional’s Steve Randall. “Getting to where younger Canadians want to be in their retirement journey may take some creative thinking.”
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