The more digital the more disloyal: how flexibility comes at the expense of commitment

"Can everyone see and hear me?" is a phrase we have heard more often in recent years and months than in the previous decade. 

Often followed by the amused-annoyed addendum, "You're still on mute." 

This has become the classic intro to our daily business in countless online meetings. We are all familiar with these phrases, but do we really want to become permanently accustomed to them, given the familiar, but for many new organisation of work that Corona has brought us and the increase in time spent in the home office?  

I would like to point out a few downsides of supposed progress and also name a few limits of modernisation, because I have the feeling that some current developments tend to be boundless and not exactly people-friendly - sometimes...

Welcome flexibility - bye-bye, loyalty!

So there we are, sitting at the kitchen table/living room table/desk, working in our own four walls for an employer who is far away - as are the colleagues, the customers and the company headquarters. And aren't employers and colleagues becoming more and more interchangeable, not least because of the increase in home office?

Home office allows us to work for an employer based in the USA or South Africa (or insert any other country) while living in, let's say, Germany. What reasons are there then to work for exactly our current employer? Now that all doors are open to us and we can be employed remotely all over the world, despite manageable personal mobility. For a salary increase of 10-30%, we can be sitting at our own kitchen table/living room table/desk tomorrow for another company. 

Under these premises, why not? No risks, just benefits. Can one still speak of a traditional job change? After all, numerous aspects and risks are eliminated that had to be weighed up beforehand when changing jobs: corporate cultural fit, working atmosphere, colleagues...  

The bottom line is that the obstacles to changing jobs from remote positions are extremely low and we are observing a steady decline in loyalty to employers, which is already at an all-time low. 

For employers, therefore, it remains very challenging in terms of employee retention. However, in many cases, the argument that remote work is a modern and employee-engaging benefit comes back as a digital boomerang.

After all, what is the easiest way to convey, experience and live corporate values if not in the circle of colleagues and the daily atmosphere at the workplace?

If employees lack a connection to the corporate culture and the values of the employer, identification naturally decreases and embodying the company also becomes more difficult.

How should the salesperson then represent the company to the customer? The humanity in the company, the practically lived corporate culture is transferred from employee to employee when you sit in the same office or spend your lunch break together. 

Whether this works perfectly in the "stand-up" on Monday via Zoom may be doubted. Our candidates regularly report back to us that digital induction in particular is not expedient or desirable.

 "How's it going in Workation?"

Even if the phrase "How's it going?" can be dismissed as an empty phrase - in times of home office, we would like to hear this kind of empty phrase in person more often again. Undermined and situational small talk does not take place in the home office, which few interpret as a productivity gain and the majority assess as an interpersonal loss of quality.

The originally highly valued work-life balance is also gradually being reduced to absurdity by the "new work normality". The boundaries between private and professional disappear almost completely when working at home, culminating in the benefit of "workation". 

While the pasta water is heating up, you can quickly answer a colleague's question or finish writing the customer's offer. A modern and flexible employee without a laptop at the pool now seems unthinkable, and picking up children without a phone in the car on arrival and departure seems somehow old-fashioned. All this is hailed as a gain in flexibility - but is it really that, or rather a double and triple bombardment on all channels that will bring us further phenomena of overwork in the long run?

Flexible workers miss human contact 

A study by Microsoft , in which about 30,000 workers from 31 countries were surveyed, shows that while about 70% of the respondents appreciate the home office, this contrasts with 60% who lack contact with colleagues in their daily work. 

This suggests that more remote work does not only make people happier. After all, should personal contact with colleagues and presence in the office be an important part of any corporate culture? 

Satya Nadella , the CEO of Microsoft, also addresses the tension between wellbeing and flexibility:

"Employee expectations are changing and we need to define productivity much more broadly - including collaboration, learning and wellbeing - in order to advance the career of every employee. All of this needs to go hand in hand with flexibility in when, where and how people want to work."

The conflict between digital working and wellbeing described above is becoming a challenge for employers as it makes modernisation projects even more complex.  

In any case, what is needed are companies that, with a sense of reality and against the backdrop of a clear set of values, set out to find a master plan that assures employees the necessary flexibility, but at the same time inspires them for the company, generates the necessary loyalty and promotes and upholds interpersonal and personal contact.

A more differentiated view of the new normality of work is needed, as the temptation to blindly follow technological trends seems greater than ever. The motto conveyed in the majority of the trade media seems to be: everything that is technologically feasible must also be advanced at a rapid pace. 

 But there is also the truth, which currently seems unpopular to some, that there are values and cultural achievements that are not flexible but, on the contrary, are more ancient and solid: Loyalty, interpersonal relationships and personal rights are certainly among them, also in the professional context. 

Finally, and to end a serious topic with a grin: in the trend addicted world of work could apply, what Kurt Tucholsk, the German Weimar-era writer and satirist, once described as follows:

those who are open on all sides sometimes simply run the risk of not being completely tight.

My conclusion on the transformation of the world of work is therefore:

digital is not always just great and too much flexibility can lead to a lack of restraint and moderation and thus also makes people dissatisfied. 

To run after trends uncritically and to accelerate them on all levels while ignoring the numerous disadvantages is certainly not modern but rather naïve. 

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I have written down my point of view pointedly to polemically and given free rein to my thoughts. Knowing full well that it is not a popular view, not everyone can agree and that even much of the written could sound outrageous for some. 

So why the writing? Because I believe that in a marketplace of ideas, new insights will only emerge through an open exchange that is as diverse as possible.

Please do let me know your thoughts on the subject - I look forward to exchanging them with you!