Episode 320 · 21 July 2026 · 56:41
Can you bulls*it a bullsh*tter? PLUS! The European hiring crisis, Gen-Z perfectionism and Tik Tok training
Can you bulls*it a bullsh*tter? PLUS! The European hiring crisis, Gen-Z perfectionism and Tik Tok training
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The European hiring crisis: why 50% of new hires leave within a year
news roundup#hiring#retention#europe#turnover
Why short-form video is bad for learning and memory
news roundup#short-form-video#learning#memory#social-media
Gen-Z perfectionism: rising socially prescribed perfectionism and fear of failure
news roundup#gen-z#perfectionism#fear-of-failure#psychology
Truth or Lie: You can't bullshit a bullshitter
truth or lie#truth#lies#bullshit#communication
Workplace Surgery: Should you offer free gym perks?
workplace surgery#workplace#perks#gym#benefits
Workplace Surgery: Motivating quiet teams during slow periods
workplace surgery#motivation#quiet-teams#slow-periods#team-management
Workplace Surgery: Inclusive hiring and supporting candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds
workplace surgery#inclusive-hiring#disadvantaged-backgrounds#diversity#recruitment
Show notes
The Hiring Crisis, TikTok Training & Gen Z Perfectionism
This Week in Work — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) break down why fewer than half of recruitment processes actually succeed, why TikTok-style L&D might be sabotaging employee memory, and how economic pressure is driving an epidemic of Gen-Z perfectionism. Plus, in Truth or Lie: can you bullshit a bullshitter?
🔥 Stories Covered
1. Are we actually in a European hiring crisis? McKinsey's HR Monitor puts European hiring success at just 46% once you account for offer acceptance and probation survival. An aging workforce and AI-disrupted entry-level roles are squeezing skilled talent further. Companies like Spotify are shifting from external recruitment to internal mobility. Source →
2. Why short-form video is terrible for L&D A new study found chopping training into 60-second micro-clips tanks test scores and speeds up overnight forgetting — continuous video syncs the brain's attention and memory regions, micro-clips just spike change-detection reflexes. Source →
3. Is work making young people hyper-perfectionist? 35 years of data across 82,000 students (Psychological Bulletin) shows a sharp rise in socially prescribed perfectionism — the belief others will judge mistakes harshly. Read as economic pressure and fear of failure, not fragility or entitlement. Source →
🧠 Truth or Lie: "You Can't Bullshit a Bullshitter"
Leanne tests the old saying against research from Christian Blötner & Sebastian Bergold (2023) and Dr. Shane Littrell et al. (2021) — including the split between persuasive bullshitters (buzzword-heavy) and evasive bullshitters (defensive dodgers).
More from Dr. Shane Littrell: bullshitology.substack.com
💬 Workplace Surgery
Three listener questions, tackled live:
- Perks: "Am I being naive putting in a free gym?"
- Motivation: "How do you keep people motivated when work goes quiet?"
- Inclusive hiring: "I want to give someone a chance, but am I doing more harm than good?"
(Got a question? Submit it via the connect link below.)
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Leanne ElliottThis episode contains some coarse language. Listener discretion is advised.
Al ElliottComing up this week in work.
Leanne ElliottYou've probably heard someone describe Gen Z as entitled, fragile, or needy, but have you heard them be described as a perfectionist? Well, a new study suggests this problematic trait is on the rise, and toxic work environments might be responsible. Surely not, Al. We will dive into the details very soon.
Al ElliottAlso this week, now think about this. Your team's already hooked on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube Shorts and short-form video content. So does that mean that short videos are the best way to teach them something new? Here's the idea that we basically, instead of doing boring L&D presentations, we just pop it on TikTok. Someone's actually studied this and I've got the results.
Leanne ElliottAnd in Truth or Lie, can you bulls*it a bullsh*tter? You see now the discretion advised. So the idea is if you are skilled in bending the truth yourself, you're immune to it when someone tries it on you. But is it true? Are practiced bullshitters harder to fool, or does thinking you're good at it just make you an easier target? I've read the research and I've got a verdict.
Al ElliottAnd in the Workplace Surgery, one listener asks, how do you keep people motivated when work goes quiet? The business struggles with quiet patches, and this owner wants to know how to keep people motivated and engaged when there genuinely isn't enough work to go around.
Leanne ElliottThis is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner, and I'm here to ask the questions you might be afraid to.
Leanne ElliottAnd my name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, and I'm here to answer them. We are the co-founders of people and culture consultancy Oblong, and together we'll help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottWe'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams, What you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why?
Leanne ElliottHubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Welcome back, welcome back, Lee. Sad news.
Leanne ElliottSad news? Why? What happened?
Al ElliottWell, it's the end of your football.
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah. I think it ended in the best possible way though.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottWe had, we had a few teams going into it, didn't we? Spain was one of them because we lived there for quite, quite a long time, and I feel that football won last night.
Al ElliottYes, it did.
Leanne ElliottYou know, yeah, I think everyone was rooting for, for Argentina to lose because it's just, they've just been Ugly, ugly tactics. I know it's all part of the game, but surely you— well, I mean, it's not— they're not doing anything that, you know, can be punished to the point that they can't do it. But it's not— it's not good sportsmanship, is it? It's not the beautiful game that we want to see.
Al ElliottSo some of you are going to be very pleased because we'll be no longer talking about football until September when the Premiership starts. But no, it's— I thought, well, if you have been pushing through with our football chat, then I'm with you because I'm not really into football, but I do enjoy the World Cup because it just feels like a great place or a great way to get everyone together. And generally speaking, like the Norwegians, Norway-England match, they lost very graciously. And most teams are kind of like, yeah. And also, am I right in thinking that Messi was about to be— what's that award when you get the most number of goals in there?
Leanne ElliottThe Golden Boot.
Al ElliottYeah. And I think he didn't because he didn't score last night. So it was Mbappé, I think, who Oh, is it? I think so. If only we had like one of those people on.
Leanne ElliottI can't wait to find out.
Al ElliottYeah, we need like that Joe Rogan guy who goes and just checks it. Pull it up, whatever his name is. Pull it up, Leanne, pull it up. Anyway, so—
Leanne ElliottYeah, you're right, Kylian Mbappé.
Al ElliottYeah, yeah. So he was— so Messi's had a bit of a nightmare. Um, do you know what? I don't know.
Leanne ElliottI mean, he's— I don't think it'll take away from his incredible career. I think he'll be just fine. Did you— I don't think, because you didn't watch much of the match last night, did you? But did you see any of the halftime show?
Al ElliottWhat, the fight? No.
Leanne ElliottWhat fight?
Al ElliottThe fight at the end.
Leanne ElliottWhat fight?
Al ElliottDo you not see when the, when the final whistle went, there was proper punches thrown and everything between Spain and Argentina.
Leanne ElliottOh no, I fell asleep after they scored in extra time.
Al ElliottYeah, no, you missed probably the best bit of the match. But what was the, what was the halftime bit?
Leanne ElliottSo, you know, in like the Super Bowl and stuff, they'll get on like Jennifer Lopez and Kendrick Lamar and they'll do a little, they'll have a bit of a turn at halftime.
Al ElliottOh no.
Leanne ElliottWell, they did it and it was It was, it was interesting. I felt, I felt it was unnecessary watching it, but I thought maybe I'm just being a bit grumpy. And it wasn't my favourite people, like Madonna, but I'm pretty sure it's all pre-recorded and she just popped her head out at the end. Um, Shakira was really good actually. Justin Bieber, not a big fan. Um, although they did have Ted Lasso in it doing a little bit.
Al ElliottHey!
Leanne ElliottHe like kind of ushered on, uh, Justin Bieber. And then, uh, BTS, the Korean boy band. And then it finished with Shakira and some other dude that I don't know. But it was just, it was all a bit messy, it was all a bit unnecessary, and it was all very American. And it's already been kind of Americanised, if that's the word. Americanised?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottWith like the quarters and stuff. But it went back to the BBC coverage. The BBC won the coverage from what I've been reading. And Wayne Rooney just went, it was crap. Like, I like some of the artists on there, but let's be honest, it was crap. And everyone was like, Yeah, so second half.
Al ElliottYeah, so that's Wayne going to be struggling to get out of the country back home, isn't he? Um, I'm guessing— were they in— were the commentators in—
Leanne ElliottIn, yeah, in New Jersey. Yeah, which is also confusing. I had to ask Jake about this because they kept saying here in New York, New Jersey stadium, and I was like, well, which one is it? Because I'm pretty sure they're different states.
Al ElliottOkay, yeah, we need Jake on this. Good news, Jake is coming back. Uh, we've also got— right, so August Uh, we've got some different content happening in August, uh, much more relaxed, uh, because let's be honest, who wants to think about work in August? We don't.
Leanne ElliottNot me.
Al ElliottSo we've got some, uh, some more. I think every single week on a Tuesday, we've got, um, a guest, a guest hosting.
Leanne ElliottYep.
Al ElliottAnd every single Thursday is a much lighter, uh, interview or workshop or just discussion. Uh, so don't worry. So don't turn off in August. It's gonna be really good.
Leanne ElliottWe're not doing This Week in Work though, are we? We're doing like different things with our guests.
Al ElliottSo we're not calling it This Week in Work?
Leanne ElliottNo.
Al ElliottWe should have. I see, I missed this in the production meeting thing as I was asleep at the back. Anyway, Lee, anything else to add before we go to your favourite time of the week?
Leanne ElliottUm, only to mention that because it just seems like a topical thing, we've got a new Prime Minister today. That's nice, isn't it? I believe that's our 5th in 4 years. Oh God, or 4th in 5 years. I know, another one, Andy Burnham. We'll see how that turns out. I'm sure it'll give us things to talk about. And before we go to the news roundup, I just want to say thank you to all The lovely listeners who are leaving us reviews and comments. We love to see it. We do reply.
Al ElliottThis is on Spotify.
Leanne ElliottOn Spotify and on Apple as well. We've had, we've had a few reviews. Um, so thank you very, very, very, very, very, very much. One of them, Al, I haven't, hadn't brought it to your attention yet because I wondered how you'd feel about it. So this is somebody from the UK. Their username is DCN Alice, and the review goes, helpful and insightful. I enjoy this podcast and it's full of good tips and resources and ideas, but—
Al ElliottUh-oh.
Leanne ElliottI hate the constant background music, so that's why it's a 4.
Al ElliottOh.
Leanne ElliottI know.
Al ElliottOh, so it's for the news roundup?
Leanne ElliottYeah, maybe we don't cue that jingle. I don't know.
Al ElliottInteresting. Well, I'll cue it today.
Leanne ElliottOr maybe turn it down. I don't know.
Al ElliottOh, I tell you what. Yeah, let's not do it today.
Leanne ElliottLet's not do it.
Al ElliottAnd if you're listening, please Just let us know, either comment on Spotify or you can find us on LinkedIn or you can send us an email, hello@truthliesandwork.com. Let us know whether you prefer it with the music or without.
Leanne ElliottKeep the jingle, drop the jingle.
Al ElliottYes, this is Jingle Gate.
Leanne ElliottKeep or drop.
Al ElliottKeep or drop. Right. Okay, so let's not cue the jingle.
Leanne ElliottLet's not cue the jingle. That's just for you, Alice.
Al ElliottYes. Thank you, Alice. Alice, Alice, who the— oh, never mind. That's a different song. Okay, Leanne, what have you seen?
Leanne ElliottAre we actually in a hiring crisis?
Al ElliottOh, sorry, a glass of water here. You want some answers? You want me to answer that, or is it just rhetorical?
Leanne ElliottSure, yeah.
Al ElliottAre we in a hiring crisis? Yeah, are we not? I don't know. You're the fucking expert here. I don't know. Don't ask me stuff. Let me drink my water in peace.
Leanne ElliottCarry on. Okay, so I just feel like we're always talking about people or companies laying lots of people off, you know, AI taking over people's jobs, lots of people unemployed. But according to new research, The hiring market has become much tougher than many organisations realise. So this came from Francesca Cassidy in Fortune Europe, and the article opens with new data from a McKinsey HR Monitor survey, which found that overall hiring success across Europe is just 46%. They measure hiring success by combining offer acceptance with whether the new hires actually stay beyond their probation period.
Al ElliottMm.
Leanne ElliottAnd according to the article, business are now fighting the hiring battle in several different ways. So first of all, they're competing for experienced workers, um, but they're also competing with things like retirement, as lots of older employees are kind of leaving the workforce faster than the younger people are replacing them. And at the same time, of course, AI is changing the shape of entry-level work. So if we are automating those more routine tasks. Organisations aren't offering the jobs to the younger kids, which means skilled candidates don't even start to be developed in kind of the lower rungs of an organisation. And the article also argues that companies are spending enormous amounts of time, money, and effort trying to recruit skills from outside the organisation, often with disappointing results. So, it asks whether businesses need to think differently and highlighted one company, Spotify. So yes, Spotify, as you remember, I think we actually covered it on the show in 2023, laid off about 17% of its workforce. But the company has since been investing heavily in internal mobility. So basically encouraging employees to move between teams, develop new skills, and build careers inside the organisation rather than looking externally for talent. And what they're saying is that it's not that hiring new people in doesn't matter, but if the labour market is getting increasingly difficult, Growing the talent you already have may be a more sustainable strategy. Thoughts?
Al ElliottSee, now it's funny because I'm sure we have covered stuff where people are saying there's no jobs out there. I'm sure we've covered stuff saying that AI is taking all the jobs, so therefore there literally are no jobs to be had. And now what we're saying is that actually there are plenty of jobs, but they're— but 50% of them get— they fill them and then they disappear. The person disappears again. So I'm struggling to understand why, how all these things can be true.
Leanne ElliottI think what it's highlighting here is that recruitment processes are failing.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottBecause if you're running an expensive, time-intensive recruitment process and your success rate is only 50%, as a business owner, I'd be looking to whether it be HR or my hiring managers or the external recruiter I'm using and going, that isn't acceptable. That's not— it's basically chance. We just pluck somebody out of the pile and start them and hope it goes well. So I just feel that it's highlighting that recruitment is failing and that needs to be fixed. And it's a really easy thing to fix. And it really frustrates me that organisations aren't fixing it because it isn't sexy and it isn't interesting. Why should it be? You're just trying to find good people in your business. And the second thing I think is that rather than always looking to external hires, which of course is important, investing in recognition and career development, people who are already in Your business, whether that means moving it into different roles or different departments or doing different things. I think we just have this very narrow view what it is to develop employees, and that's basically put them on a management track, whereas it could be doing lots of other different, different things. It could be retraining somebody who's worked in a technical role to more of a sales-based role. It could be lots of different things. So I think it's really highlighting that the companies that are getting it right have got a really sharp recruitment process that is going to be a lot more successful than a 50/50 chance. And they're taking the time to develop their own internal talent. So actually, they're probably overall cost and frequency of hiring is lower anyway.
Al ElliottYeah, I suppose that makes sense. Yeah, you just explained it to me. So what we're saying is that this stat here has got really nothing to do with the number of jobs available. It's got to do with the quality of the selection process. Is that what we're saying?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah. Well, I think if you're listening to this, you're going, yeah, do you know what? I'm about, I'm hovering about 50%. Then you need to speak to Leanne because Leanne has got the We need to package this up into some kind of product or service, something, because Leanne's got the answer to this. She says it like once every 3 episodes, she'll say exactly how you do it. And I'm not gonna tell you because you should have listened the last time, you should have implemented it. So you've got Leanne's email in the show notes, drop her an email. She'll sit there for half an hour with you and she'll, well, it depends how many people actually email you, but if you've got enough time, I'm sure she'll sit there and tell you how it works. Of course I will. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Leanne, so here's an idea that sounds brilliant on paper. A lot of people we talk to say that L&D is boring, and it often is. It's PowerPoint, it's cheesy games, it's not the best experience. But you know what's not boring? TikTok and Instagram, because that's where people are actually already on it. So why not meet them there?
Leanne ElliottTicking and gramming out.
Al ElliottTicking and gramming.
Leanne ElliottTicking, talking, and gramming.
Al ElliottThat's what it is. And, and ewing, the YouTubing. We call them, we call it TikTube, don't we?
Leanne ElliottTikTube, because it's basically everything that's on TikTok, but it's put on YouTube for the old people.
Al ElliottYeah. For us. So this is the, this is the idea. Compliance training, for example, in bite-sized reels.
Leanne ElliottOr if it was like a difficult management conversation, it might be like that.
Al ElliottYes. So you can act it out.
Leanne ElliottTikTok style.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah. Like it.
Al ElliottSo it sounds like this is gonna be a great idea, but actually we found out according to this study, it's one of the worst ways to learn something and actually remember it. So researchers in China, they ran a proper experiment. Now they took a 10-minute travel documentary. And they did one group watch the entire documentary start to finish.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottOne group watched sort of TikTok-style little chopped-down bits of it. Short video group did much worse. They were basically asked to do this quiz straight afterwards and couldn't remember nearly as much as people who watched the long form. What's worse is when they said, and they didn't tell anyone about the quiz the first time, second group, they said, right, there will be a quiz on this, so remember as much as you can. They still did much, much worse. And then they tried the same quiz the next day to see if that made any difference. Again, the people who watched the entire documentary, they remembered more, retained far, far more. They did a brain scan as well. And this is the interesting part, I think, for anyone who manages people. The people who watched the continuous video, their brains actually synced up with, with each part of the region tied to attention and memory building. So they were building this entire memory map, but with a chopped up version, that synced activity just didn't exist. Instead, these people's brains were just firing in the bits that reacted to sudden change. Basically like, oh, new thing. Oh, new thing over and over again. So people felt engaged. They weren't bored. But the front and back of the brain stopped talking to each other properly and nothing gets filed away long term. Does all that make sense?
Leanne ElliottIt does. It does.
Al ElliottSo thoughts?
Leanne ElliottI mean, it's not that surprising, given what we know about, about the impact that this short-form content is having on on memory and attention. It's those dopamine hits, isn't it? They're really addictive, but don't really kind of activate much in a way that is useful or helpful.
Al ElliottLike brain chewing gum.
Leanne ElliottYeah, exactly. So it's— I don't, I don't think it's too much of a surprise. I think what could be interesting potentially is if you kind of considered whether kind of the short form could be used almost as like revision cards. So say you've gone on like a course or something like a management course, And then part of kind of the in-between sessions before your next module or, or kind of the wraparound after continuous learning was going over the same principles that you'd done in long form in kind of short-form videos. I'd be interested to see the research on that, to see if it facilitated memory and retention. I don't know the answer, but I wonder whether it could.
Al ElliottSo anyway, Le, what else did you see, my love?
Leanne ElliottI too saw a study this week, Al. from the British Psychological Society's Research Digest. It was actually published in Psychological Bulletin.
Al ElliottOh yeah.
Leanne ElliottIf you're interested. And it's basically saying, or asking, are young people becoming more perfectionist and is work partly to blame? Gen Z, I feel like we haven't talked about them recently. I'm starting to miss our Gen Z friends. We know that they're described as entitled or fragile or Or, you know, challenging in the workplace in terms of being a bit needy.
Al ElliottJust to be clear, we don't describe them that way.
Leanne ElliottNo, people, people do. We love Gen Z. We think Gen Z are frickin' awesome.
Al ElliottWe do.
Leanne ElliottThis research, though, does paint a different picture. So it looked at data from 307 separate studies.
Al ElliottMeta-analyses.
Leanne ElliottThank you very much. Involving more than 82,000 university students in the UK, US, and Canada, collected over a 35-year period between 1989 and 2024.
Al ElliottLongitudinal study.
Leanne ElliottBeautiful. So what does this tell us about— what does this kind of— what do we know then if we're looking at a longitudinal meta-analysis study? What should we— what comfort can we take from that as social scientists?
Al ElliottWe can take from it because— listen, I'm going to see this. See, you've asked me difficult questions. I think because they're meta-analyses, then it's not just one sample survey set of data. It's lots and lots of data. And because it's longitudinal, we can actually see changes over time. Is that right?
Leanne ElliottYes, it does. Al, come on.
Al ElliottThank you.
Leanne ElliottThinking like a psychologist.
Al ElliottGenuinely grinning now from ear to ear.
Leanne ElliottWe can, we can be confident, fairly confident in this data and the conclusions it's coming to because, like you say, massive sample, long period of time tracking behaviour, in this case personality traits, to see what shifts. And it gives us an idea.
Al ElliottStatistical relevance or something. SSR.
Leanne ElliottReliability and validity. Yeah, yeah, that we're looking at. Various different— I won't get into that because there's lots of different forms of reliability and validity.
Al ElliottFair. I slightly overreached.
Leanne ElliottBut just know they're strong.
Al ElliottI overreached there a little. Carry on.
Leanne ElliottSo the researchers found that perfectionism has continued to rise since 1989, and it has continued to rise from their last kind of snapshot they did of their findings in 2019. Now, what they're looking— well, what they think they're looking at is not necessarily that young people are just setting themselves higher standards. But the biggest increases are coming from socially prescribed perfectionism. So that's the belief that other people expect you to be perfect, expect one to be perfect, that mistakes will be judged harshly, and that your worth depends on meeting impossibly high expectations.
Al ElliottOh.
Leanne ElliottOh, as a millennial, I feel so seen right now. The research has found particularly sharp increases in fear of failure.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottIndecisiveness and fear of negative judgment, especially since the early 2000s. And in fact, concern about making mistakes increased more than any other perfection-related trait. That included 3 beliefs becoming much more common. 1, reacting badly to mistakes. 2, seeing mistakes as failure. And 3, believing other people would judge you negatively when you get something wrong. So the authors say that these trends mirror the rise we've seen in anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts that we have seen amongst young people over the same time period. So why is this happening? Well, interestingly, I thought the researchers don't think social media started the problem.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottThey believe that the rise in perfectionism actually began before smartphones and social media became more widespread. And instead, they're putting it down to economic and cultural changes. So as economic growth slowed and opportunities became more rare, young people appeared to respond by striving harder. Then as inequality increased, so did worries about making mistakes and what other people might think. So the researchers suggest that if social media does play a role, it's probably amplifying pressures that already existed rather than creating them. And their conclusion is that tackling the youth mental health crisis can't just focus on individuals. It also means looking at the economic and cultural conditions that are encouraging perfectionism, perfectionism in the first place, including our workplaces. But I think the thing that kind of got me over the past— if you think about what's this, over maybe like 30-odd years, isn't it? 40-odd years. I would be interested to, to see or to kind of track this data along with leadership and management competence.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottUnless that I think that I mean, I don't think we're investing in management and L&D as much as maybe we did 20, 30 years ago, but also that it's a lot more complex, the world of work that managers and leaders are dealing with. So, actually, they need even more training. So, I think it's probably more that we've not increased the amount of training and support we give to our leaders and managers, and just expect them to deal with a much more complex world of work with AI and hybrid and the internet and all that kind of stuff. But I would be interested to kind of see that tracked in terms of that against the failure to make mistakes. Because what that is talking about is a lack of psychological safety in the workplace, isn't it?
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottSo even if you had, if you think about our young people, even if you had a world of social media that is constant judgement, constant finger-pointing for failing, if you are in a work environment where the narrative changes and goes, no, we want you to fail. That's how we learn. That's how we innovate. That's how we create. That's how we figure out new and exciting things. Failure is a sign of success, I wonder how much we'd be able to kind of counteract the narrative that's coming from social media. So I, I just feel that there is an, an element of responsibility we need to take as older people in the workplace for our younger people if they are feeling a lot of anxiety around making mistakes, is teaching them how to make mistakes safely, teaching them how to How to recover from mistakes in a way that, that we're learning things, or how to prevent these mistakes from happening through different safeguards and peer and leader support. I just think if that's the main finding that's coming out, there is a lot we could be doing as leaders and business owners to just make that whole situation better.
Al ElliottYeah, absolutely. Totally agree. Totally agree. You learn more from the money you lose than the money you make. And if you aren't making mistakes, you're not making enough decisions. So yeah, there we go. Some wisdom from Al who stole from someone else. Okay, if you have your own, um, your own, uh, yeah, so we want to hear from you twofold, 2 reasons. One, did you, did you prefer it without the, without the, um, the music on the background?
Leanne ElliottPersonally, I didn't notice a difference. It's funny because Al puts it in post, so we're not listening to music now.
Al ElliottAnd, uh, and 2, if you have your own story that you'd like us to talk about, I know someone sent us something recently, I think, was it, um, Christian sent us something? Uh, so, uh, yeah, we'll definitely include that. All right, we're gonna take a quick break, and then after that we're gonna come back and Leanne is going to dispel a myth for us in our Truth or Lies.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking.
Leanne ElliottAnd you're not going to see that in Truth, Lies and Work.
Al ElliottSay which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. We've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottOh, I am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Leanne ElliottSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in. Welcome back. Yes, you're right. Truth or Lie. It's that time of the week where we take a popular workplace idea and ask if the research actually backs it up. This week's saying is one you've definitely heard. You can't bullshit a bullsh*tter. Also, if you're Scouse, you can't kid a kidder. And if you are from Manchester, you can't blagger blagger. Those are the—
Leanne ElliottThat probably would've been a more, a more kind of friendly radio version, wouldn't it? So in my defense, one of the studies was actually called You Can't Bullshit a Bullshitter.
Al ElliottYou can't bullshit a bullshitter.
Leanne ElliottYou can't shit a shitter.
Al ElliottYes. No, I totally agree. I totally get it. So do you wanna set this up or should I just give you a—
Leanne ElliottNo, please carry on.
Al ElliottOkay. So I think this is the basic idea that if you are skilled at, should we say, bending the truth yourself, then you're immune to it when someone tries it on you. Supposedly, frequent liars and exaggerators develop a built-in radar for spotting when someone else is doing the same thing. So is that actually true? Are practiced bullshitters harder to fool, or does thinking you're good at it just make you an easier target? Leigh, over to you.
Leanne ElliottThere is some evidence that suggests this is true. You can't bullsh*t a bullsh*tter. So the first study, Christian Blatner and Sebastian Burgold. Fabulous names. I believe they're Scandinavian, maybe German. I don't know. They ran a study in 2023 with 525 people, mostly university students. This tends to be the case with a lot of psychology research.
Al ElliottA lot of time on their hands, haven't they?
Leanne ElliottIndeed. Indeed. And what they basically said first is, let's define bullshitting because it's not necessarily just one behaviour. So they split it into 2 different types: persuasive bullshitting, So that's kind of talking the big game, the inflated, very impressive sounding language to look competent with no real concern about whether it's true or not. I don't know, to pluck an example out of my head, Donald Trump. The second is evasive bullshitting. So that's different. That's giving kind of vague, non-committal answers to dodge a question or avoid causing harm without technically lying. Think Keir Starmer.
Al ElliottOkay, fair.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYes. And also other reasons.
Leanne ElliottMaybe it's unfair to Keir, I don't know. But the last few, I mean, there's a few scandals, weren't there? You just seem to kind of knock away and not really deal with. So they also then split the personality trait behind bullshitting into 2 different things. And that trait is Machiavellianism.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottOne of my favorite words to say because it took, it took me a little while to learn it.
Al ElliottYou say it so beautifully.
Leanne ElliottThank you. So Machiavellianism is basically being manipulative. cynical. It's a cynical way of dealing with people. And they split that into 2 types as well. So a Machiavellian approach, where you're actively working an angle to gain something, or Machiavellian avoidance, that's more defensive, guarded, distrustful style, and really just to kind of protect yourself to not get embarrassed.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo to test how these traits and behaviours connected, they use a statistical method called structural equation modelling, which is basically when research can look at several traits at once and see how they relate while accounting for the variables. It's almost like a little waterfall kind of effect of statistics to kind of see what's shaking and what's connected and what's not, and which one is the most important. So the results showed a very clear split. People high in Machiavellian approach were likely to bullshit persuasively.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottSo their Machiavellian approach are the people that are trying to gain something. Bulls*it persuasively is the Donald Trumps of the world.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottSo somebody in a meeting may be very confidently throwing around buzzwords about a project that's actually behind schedule, but just to sound like they're kind of still on top of it.
Al ElliottGot it.
Leanne ElliottPeople high in Machiavellian avoidance were more likely to bulls*it evasively. So if somebody was asked directly if they missed a deadline, Instead of giving a straight answer, they might say something like, oh, it's been a complicated week, there's lots of moving parts. Technically, it's not a lie, but it's not really an answer either.
Al ElliottGot it.
Leanne ElliottBut here's the part that matters for us. That same guarded avoidance-driven group were better at spotting bullshit.
Al ElliottOh.
Leanne ElliottYes. So the researchers tested this by mixing meaningless pseudo-profound statements in with genuinely insightful ones. And seeing who could tell the difference.
Al ElliottCrafty.
Leanne ElliottCrafty. And the defensive bullshitters did better. And that link held up even when accounting for other factors. The study also measured raw reasoning ability using, using a standard cognitive test. All that really means is that it's a test similar to an IQ test that measures how well someone can kind of think through problems in real time. That kind of the, the, your kind of the highest score on a standard cognitive test was the strongest predictor of spotting bullshit overall and stronger than any personality trait.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottSo kind of being naturally sharp mattered more than being a bullshitter yourself. So there is some evidence to suggest that guarded, defensive bullshitters, not the flashy persuasive kind, do seem Harder to fool. And basically, their own skepticism is working as a shield against other people's bullshit.
Al ElliottGot you. So someone who's, who likes to make up stories, well, not make, but embellish, embellish stories, then if they're talking to someone else who's also got the same trait, they aren't necessarily good at detecting whether they're— but the other way around, though, someone who's a bit evasive will notice if someone doesn't answer the question because they go, oh, I do that too.
Leanne ElliottExactly.
Al ElliottGot it.
Leanne ElliottExactly.
Al ElliottGot it. So that's argument 4. Sounds pretty strong to me.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it is. There is definitely some evidence there that you can't bulls*it a bullsh*tter. So if we look at the against, so the against argument would suggest that you can bulls*it a bullsh*tter.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo the first study I wanna share with you comes from, it was led by a psychologist called Shane Littrell. I have talked about Shane's work on the show before. It was actually Shane that sent me this study. That then made me think, ah, this could be a good truth or lie.
Al ElliottWell done, Shane.
Leanne ElliottWell done, Shane. So Shane and some of his colleagues ran 3 separate studies in 2021 with 826 people in total, and they were recruited online. They wanted to settle a very specific question, which is exactly what we're looking at. Are people who bullshit often better at spotting bullshit or worse?
Al ElliottHmm.
Leanne ElliottSo the first 2 studies measured how often people bullshit using a self-report scale, then tested them against 3 kinds of bullshit. The first was pseudo-profound statements that we've heard about before. The second was fake scientific claims written in very convincing scientific language. And the third was fake news headlines. So across all 3, people who scored highly on persuasive bullshitting— so that's the confident, impressive sounding kind were more likely to rate these fake statements as true or meaningful.
Al ElliottHmm.
Leanne ElliottAnd this wasn't explained away by other factors. The researchers also measured general intelligence. So as we said before, a person's tendency to think things through carefully rather than go on their gut, and they call this cognitive reflection. And they also looked at how confident someone was. And even accounting for all of these things, the link between persuasive bullshitting And falling for bullshit held up.
Al ElliottInteresting.
Leanne ElliottA third study they did then dug into the mechanism. So participants were shown the same set of pseudo-profound statements split into 2 groups with different instructions. So one group was asked to rate how deep the statement sounded, and the other was asked to rate how true the statement sounded. And people who scored low on persuasive bullshitting answered differently depending on which question they were asked. So the people who scored low on persuasive bullshitting, they could tell the difference between something sounding clever and something being true. Whereas people who scored high on persuasive bullshitting rated the statements as the same.
Al ElliottAh.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So the researchers basically took this as evidence of a blind spot. So for frequent bullshitters, sounding impressive and being true had essentially merged into the same thing. And if you think about that alone, and all the political world we've seen unravel in the past 2, 3 years, it's people that can't tell the difference between sounding impressive and being true.
Al ElliottInteresting. Like, we have covered these people.
Leanne ElliottIndeed. There was a related finding as well from a different angle. So a researcher called John Petruccelli ran 2 different experiments also in 2021 on bullshit as a persuasion tool, and he found that when an argument was weak, dressing up— dressing it up as confident in a bullshit-style language made it much more persuasive than presenting honestly. But it did backfire when an argument was strong, so people found the honest, evidence-based version more convincing. And the second experiment looked into why. So when arguments were framed as bullshit, people stopped weighing the actual content and were swayed by surface things like how attractive the speaker looked in a photo, whereas with the evidence-based framing, that didn't have an effect at all. So basically, bullshit works by pulling people away from careful thinking, which is part of the reason why even sharp people can fall for it at times. And then one final study I want to share with you, which I thought was interesting— this was in 2018 and looked at 125 people And measured narcissism using a very well-established questionnaire called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory.
Al ElliottThe NPI.
Leanne ElliottAn NPI. Participants also rated their own ability to tell lies, detect lies, and tell convincing truths. The people who scored higher on narcissism constantly rated themselves as better at all 3, but the study only measured self-belief, not actual skill. So nobody tested whether they could really detect a lie. Um, it just kind of shows confidence rather than competence. But I think the key thing here is that narcissists tend to think they're really good bullshitters. So all the research is suggesting that bullshit works by switching off that more careful thinking, and the people most sure they can't be fooled are often the ones that are worse spotting it. So whether that's persuasive bullshitters or people who are high in narcissism.
Al ElliottInteresting, interesting. And there is a cheque for £5 for the person who counts up how many times Leanne said the word bullshit. I'd imagine it'll be a record.
Leanne ElliottBefore we move on, I just, I couldn't help but reflect on what this could mean for business owners, because I know sometimes our truth and lies are very kind of in the workplace and others are less so. But I think this one is very much in the workplace in kind of advice for leaders is don't mistake confidence for quality. If you're listening to a presentation, it's very polished and jargon-heavy, it could be trying to hide a weak idea. If somebody is rating their own work performance, ask them to back it up. Confidence and competence are not the same thing. And if you're— just a moment of self-reflection— if you're the one who's sure you can't be fooled, Maybe reflect on that. Because it is often, as we heard, the surest people who fall for the bullshit.
Al ElliottInteresting. So if you say, I can't be fooled, no one fools me, it's more likely that you are a persuasive bullshitter yourself.
Leanne ElliottThe science would suggest so.
Al ElliottOh, well, that's a— yeah. So we've lost those people now. They've gone, right, I'm not listening to this bullshit anymore. Anything else to add before— I'm guessing the links are in the show notes as always, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottYeah, sure.
Al ElliottSure. You say sure, you're just gonna throw the document into Claude, aren't you, and say, do me some show notes. We should mention that this week's episode was inspired by a conversation with Dr. Shane Littrell, one of the researchers behind the study we covered. If you want to go deeper on the psychology of bullshit, I think you should. He writes about it regularly on his Substack, which has got the best name ever, Bullshitology. We're gonna pop the link in the show notes. Okay, on to my favourite time of the week. It is the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery where I put questions to Leanne. Okay, so I've got 3 questions here. Uh, that have been sent in, and I will put them to Leanne. As I've just said that, they're a bit tautological there, Leanne. I didn't mean to say that. Just, just in case you're wondering why, if we're— Very warm in here. If I seem to be slightly off today, the aircon in our studio seems to have broken, um, on a day when it's like 38 degrees outside and humidity is high and struggling a bit here, really struggling. So, uh, I might do the last question in my pants. Let's find out. So question number 1, am I being naive putting in a free gym. This person says, hi, Al and Leanne. Oh, thank you for including me. Most of my team are office-based and it's stressful in there. I'm restructuring a few things and I want to do something for morale. Free meals, free childcare, or building a small gym they can use around the clock. Everyone says happy staff equals productive staff, and I've read the reports, but I've got no idea if I'm about to spend a load of money on something nobody actually uses. Lee?
Leanne ElliottAsk them.
Al ElliottAh, yes, that's probably a good idea, isn't it?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottDidn't you say— sorry, just Slightly off. I'm sure you told us a story about this company who wanted, who were going to like increase salaries. And actually when they asked everyone, they said, I don't want to. No, it wasn't.
Leanne ElliottIt was Dr. Carey.
Al ElliottEquity share.
Leanne ElliottYes.
Al ElliottDr. Carey Cooper, wasn't it?
Leanne ElliottYeah. There was like the grand idea of kind of the partners to offer equity share. And when they talked about nobody wanted it, they wanted investment in either basic salary bonus or professional development, I think it was.
Al ElliottSo anyway, sorry, you were saying?
Leanne ElliottSo yeah, I mean, I think You're always going to hear kind of negative conversations around things like gym memberships and fruit in the break room and ping pong tables and stuff like that. That's not to say that these things can't have a place in a well-thought-out wellbeing and wellness strategy, but they're kind of what we call hygiene factors in that people will notice when they're taken away, but won't necessarily appreciate them while they're there. And often kind of the gym can, can fall into that. And I think it's also, what's the intention? Are you wanting to keep people on site even longer because they'll go to the gym after work and then maybe just pop upstairs to finish that email? Is it that you'd encourage them to do it at lunchtime so then they're using up their own free time, like paid, you know, in the work when it could be, should be used for doing something else? Or it could be that actually physical fitness is very, very important to the people that you have working.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottwith you, and they would absolutely adore to have free gym membership, whether that be a gym that you build yourself or elsewhere. I don't know the answer to that. You're gonna have to ask them. Things that you mentioned though that could be a lot more impactful as part of a wellbeing strategy, things like free childcare. That could be massive for, um, carers who, who— yeah, it's a huge cost and expense, isn't it? Couldn't free up a whole load of of kind of, uh, worry having something like free childcare, particularly if it was on or near site. Um, you say that people are in the office all the time. Maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe there is a genuine reason for that. But is there some flexibility you can offer in that? Again, in terms of people dealing with other demands and priorities in their life, that could be an absolute game changer and would have a massive boost to morale and wellbeing. And just, I think, to, to kind of say, you know, happy staff equals productive staff.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottBut happiness is a really difficult metric for you to chase as a business owner, because happiness is a state, ebbs and flows, and there's lots of different things that are going to impact an individual's happiness and, and wellbeing that are beyond your control. So, I'd be asking questions about what can we provide you to help you rest and recover better? What can we do to help you set better boundaries between work and life? What can we do to build in more flexibility? It could be free childcare and hybrid working. It could be free meals and a gym in the basement. It could be something else entirely. Do you remember we were talking about an organisation called Slate that introduced a cleaning stipend?
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottSo, rather than a gym membership, you could use that same value against a cleaning service to come and clean your flat twice a week. It's things like that that can have a real impact, because again, you're, you're giving somebody hours back, you're giving time back in terms of rest and recovery, because that's not time they have to spend cleaning their house. So there's, there's lots of different things that you can do, but of course none of that is going to make any impact whatsoever if you don't have manageable workloads, if you don't have supportive relationships, really great managers, a clear vision and mission for the organisation, people are paid fairly, They're developed in terms of their professional development and career development. All of that stuff is gonna have a much bigger impact on the wellbeing and morale of your team than perks like this. So, it has to be part of a bigger package. But ultimately, if you want the specifics, go and ask 'em.
Al ElliottNice. Nice. And also, I think probably the way that I sort of teased this by saying, am I naive putting in a free gym? To be fair to the person who wrote in, they said, they said there were 3 options: free meals, free childcare, or building a small gym. Um, and so yes, you can, but I think Leanne says the, the simplest way is to just say, just start off and go, right, okay, so we're doing 3 this month. We're doing 3 vouchers for 3 particular services. So we're going to trial it for a couple of months. So you can either use a, use a voucher for a gym, you can use a voucher for cleaning your house, or you can use a voucher for childcare, or perhaps the 4th option is, or you can give it to charity.
Leanne ElliottDefinitely. And that's a good idea as well, isn't it? To keep it, to test it. And try all these things or give people flexibility. It's not that everyone has to get a free gym or everyone gets a cleaning stipend. Maybe they can choose which one they'd prefer.
Al ElliottYes, absolutely. Absolutely. I think if anyone, if anyone's putting anything like this together, just be careful that you're not skewing. Because if this person writing, let's say they are, they love the gym and they're like, oh, the gym changed my life. Then if you're not careful, you start to sort of go, yeah, but, and everyone else's lives would be so much better if they just went to the gym. And it's like, It's not, not the same. Anyway, to question number 2. So work's gone quiet. How do I keep people motivated? So this person writes, my business is going through, goes through the occasional quiet patch, and I always struggle with what to do. I don't want people sitting around feeling bored or worrying about the future, but I also don't want to reward a lack of work with extra time off or bonuses, which might accidentally send the wrong message. So what's the best way to keep a team motivated, engaged, and developing? When there genuinely isn't enough work to keep everyone busy. Lee, thoughts?
Leanne ElliottAl, what are your thoughts on this one?
Al ElliottI'd be looking at this and going, I think you're trying to solve the wrong problem to a certain extent. You're going, what do I do when it's quiet? You go, how do I bring in more interesting work so it's never quiet? That's the way I'd look at it, I think. Lee, give us the— give us a scientific version.
Leanne ElliottI don't think I have a scientific version. I agree. I think it's a commercial. It's a commercial issue, isn't it, in terms of, of during that downtime, why is it there and what function is it serving? I remember reading about a company that has like— and it also depends on how your business works— that has their client projects a very intense but fairly short period. So their typical client project will be 6 weeks, but it's intense, really, really intense. So they kind of look at their kind of working year in sprints. So they'll do 6 weeks of really intense work and then they'll give everyone 2 weeks off.
Al ElliottMm.
Leanne ElliottSo you can always do things like that if that's kind of the structure of your business and how it works, where you've got more than enough business coming in, but this is just the nature of, of kind of whether it be seasonality or whatever else that you have these quiet periods. Give that time back to the people to go and rest and recover. Maybe you go down to a 4-day work week. Maybe you look at, as you said, Al, other ways in terms of business development or continuous improvement. Other things you can do operationally within the business to fill this time in a really productive way. So long as when you're— if you have your really busy periods, if they're unsustainable, and thank goodness it's only a period of time, then trying to match that level of productivity and performance expectations might be problematic in terms of the wellbeing of your people and their morale and their overall engagement.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo, I think it depends on the nature of the business, and you haven't really told us much about that for us to kind of— well, for Al really to give you more advice on that. What I would say is, if you just genuinely have these times where it's really quiet, and your busy periods aren't that intense, I guess my question would be, well, how can you develop these people that they could potentially fill the time in productive ways in the future, or that you're investing in them in a way that is supporting their engagement for the future. It's kind of like, do you remember we looked at that research that looked at kind of during times of economic downturn, investing in employee engagement meant that when the economy recovered, organisations who had invested in people during that downtime recovered something like twice as fast in their share price, like went up by 10% in the same period compared to competitors. So, there is genuine research that shows that if you invest in people during a kind of a downtime, then you're going to get much more back in terms of their motivation engagement, which is what you're hoping to do. So that could be an option as well, to kind of set aside that time. And then also just making sure that people are taking all their annual leave. The number of business owners I speak to are looking to do something in wellbeing, and then I'll ask how many, you know, what percentage of annual leave people are taking, all of it, and they'll be like, I don't know, maybe 60, 70%. It's like, well, that's probably step one of your wellbeing strategy, isn't it, is allowing people that recovery time. So, make sure people are taking their holidays and encourage them to take it in the quiet, quiet periods. There's lots of different things you can do, but I think there's an element of, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as Al perfectly said at the beginning of this question, you're looking at ways to innovate and to fill the, fill the void and fill the time. Yeah, that's your job as an entrepreneur. Your team don't necessarily feel that drive.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottNor have the energy to give you that. 365 days a year. So, it might be you just see these kind of ebbs and flows as part of their rest and recovery time while keeping things ticking, maybe tightening up some processes, giving things a polish, rebuilding relationships with clients maybe they haven't spoken to for a little while. There's more kind of, I guess, quality-based activities you could be doing during that time than necessarily quantity.
Al ElliottExcellent. And I'm enjoying the 2 ways of looking at that. And I've come round to your way now. I think, yes, it would be a good idea to go out and try and find some extra work. At the same time, yes, you're right. If it is very intensive work, then this sounds like a perfect way to retrain or reset. Love it. Love it. Okay. Question number 3 is this person writes, I'm recruiting at the moment. I'd really like to give someone a chance who might normally get overlooked. So the people I mean are the people who've struggled to get into work or maybe have got gaps in their CV or faced barriers that have got nothing to do with how capable they are. It's not about hitting diversity targets or looking good. It just feels like the right thing to do, but what I'm wrestling with is whether good intentions are enough. I don't wanna hire somebody and then realise my business isn't actually set up to give them the support they need. So how do you know when you are genuinely creating an opportunity as opposed to setting someone up to fail? Leanne, there's lots of, lots of gaps here, but what are you getting from this?
Leanne ElliottThe first thing I'd say is good for you thinking about hiring candidates from backgrounds that are disadvantaged in various ways and giving people a chance. I quote this all the time, but Adam Grant in his book Hidden Potential makes a really excellent point that we're very good at assessing for levels of success and achievement. We're not very good at assessing level of difficulty in achieving that. So, I think it's really nice that you're thinking like this and wanting to give these people a chance. There's a few things here that I need to kind of make very, very clear. First of all, it's not that you can just decide to hire somebody who has a big gap in their CV or maybe comes from a certain, um, demographic background, you can't just decide to hire that person into your business without putting all candidates through a fair and objective recruitment process. That is called positive discrimination, and that is illegal in the UK and has been for some time. It's unlawful hiring, so you can't do that. What you can do is open, open up the job to various advertising places. So you might put it in, you know, might go into schools or colleges or universities that are in a more disadvantaged areas, you might put your job advert on lots of different websites that are going to attract very different people. In the example that you're using, so people who struggle to get into work, had gaps in their CV, look at whoever is, is currently delivering welfare-to-work contracts in your area. That's going to be people like G4S, CTEC, Ingeus. They're kind of the big players, but there's hundreds of providers that will be delivering contracts DWP, Department of Work and Pensions in the UK, that are actively working with people who are struggling to get into work. They have entire teams that are just looking for employees exactly like you to help get there, you know, get people into work. So, definitely looking into different ways of, I guess, widening the stream of candidates that you have coming through your recruitment process. The final thing I'd say, and I worked in this area for, for a number of years, if somebody has been out of work for 12 months plus, it's not necessary that you're going to have to put in support mechanisms in your workplace necessarily. But what you are going to need is probably a good bit of patience and a lot of good faith. Because being out of work for that long has a massive impact on mental health and confidence. It gets you out of a routine. It gets it hard to kind of get in that sleep pattern that's conducive to going to work for eight hours a day and starting at nine o'clock and making sure you're up in time to get the bus in in the traffic at time of day you never normally travel. There's gonna be lots of practical considerations that you're gonna have to consider and give people some leeway within those first few months if they are late or they don't show up or they call in sick. Might be a confidence issue. There could be something else, kind of they're overstimulated or overwhelmed, because somebody who's been out of work for that long does experience social isolation and depression and anxiety at much higher levels. So it's probably going to require you to be a mentor, a coach, both things great leaders are and should be anyway. And it's going to have to take a little, a pinch of, of good faith on your part to expect this person might make some mistakes in the first few months of their employment. But having these kind of regular check-in points, regular feedback sessions, and this mentorship relationship. I guess the only thing you might want to consider if they have been out of work for a while is, do they have money available for things like work clothes and their first month's bus fare? If they're working with a welfare-to-work provider, chances are they'll be able to help. There are also lots of good organisations out there. I think it was Dress to Impress, the one one that we used to partner with. So there are organisations out there. They might need a little advance. They might need a little bit of help with that first month until they get paid. They're probably the practical things. Yeah, rambling answer.
Al ElliottNo, I think a lovely answer. And I think it's worth listening to Leanne on this because you work with people exactly like this. And in fact, I think that I employed a couple of them and It was a little— Leanne had to coach me through the first few weeks just to— I remember one guy, second day I think it was, and I was showing him how to use a piece of software and was like, right, okay, so now you need to type into this. And as I'm talking, he's turned around, opened a packet of Twiglets and went, do you want a Twiglet? And I'm like, I'm literally showing you how to do something quite important here.
Leanne ElliottYeah, there's all these things that are just like kind of the etiquette, almost workplace etiquette isn't Isn't necessarily there. And I think as well, it's sometimes that people who've been out of work for a long time, there's gonna be other areas of their life that would've, would've been impacted too, which is why the kind of programmes that we worked on would solve all these things first. Then when they went into jobs, they're in the most stable position possible, whether it be finances, whether it be something to do with their kids, whether it be their physical health, their mental health.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottUm, but then sometimes they just, people just sometimes just slip back. I remember we worked with this incredible Incredible young man. I think he must have been about 19 or 20, came from a very troubled background and didn't have a very supportive family around him. They, you know, he was very much judged for wanting to get a job. Who do you think you are type mindset. And he, um, he was in a job with Tesco and he was doing really well for like 3 weeks. Like the manager was phoning me going, oh my God, he's amazing. I can't believe we found him. We're so pleased. And then like the beginning of his 4th week, we got a call saying from the manager saying, I've had to let him go.
Al ElliottWow.
Leanne ElliottWe were like, what?
Al ElliottWhy?
Leanne ElliottWe thought you were doing so well. He's like, yeah, he told me to fuck off this morning because I told him he was late. And I was like, oh yeah, it probably wasn't about you. Probably something that's happened at home. So we managed to fix it anyway. He did go back. But it's things like that, like your twiglets, like an outburst of anger that is going to happen, particularly if they've been unemployed for a while. There's likely to be other things happening in their life that might just trigger them on certain days.
Al ElliottYeah. Absolutely. Okay, so if you do have a question for the Workplace Surgery, just make sure you send it in the next week or so, because over August, I'm not sure we'll be doing them over August.
Leanne ElliottNo, we won't be. It'll be our last, our last This Week in Work next Tuesday, won't it?
Al ElliottOh yes, it will, it will. So I said probably don't bother actually. No, send them in.
Leanne ElliottNo, you can do if you've got a pressing question.
Al ElliottYes, and we can also use them after in September. Talking of future, this Thursday we're joined by Former Chief People Officer Tom Emery, who explains exactly why most HR leaders never get a real seat at the table. And he also tells us exactly how to change that. This isn't some fancy talking consultant who's read a couple of books. Tom has been there. He's done it with lots of household names, including HSBC and many, many others. So he really knows what he's talking about. It's gonna be a good one. Lee, anything to add before we, uh, before we go?
Leanne ElliottJust the usual. Head over to LinkedIn, follow us there. That's where the conversation continues. Do feel free to send me any news stories you see or posts or research. I do appreciate it. It makes my job a lot easier if I've got a bank of things to just pull out when we talk about these things. Continue to leave your comments, your reviews. We do appreciate it. Um, and to the lovely person that left a review about the theme tune music, we hear you. We're testing it. Tell us, tell us everyone else listening, should we keep it or should we drop it in the news roundup? We We will listen to you.
Al ElliottWe will. Unless she was talking about the, uh, the beginning. Oh my goodness. We've got 2 variables to test. Right. I will go and think about that now. We will speak to you soon.
Leanne ElliottBye.
Al ElliottBye-bye.