Truth, Lies & Work

Episode 72 · 4 January 2024 · 35:00

Why 2024 Is a Pivotal Year, From Gen-Z to Social Mobility (Part 2 of 2)

Why 2024 Is a Pivotal Year, From Gen-Z to Social Mobility (Part 2 of 2)

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  1. Happy New Year and Christmas Catch-up

    interview#new-year#christmas#catch-up

  2. Recap of Part 1 Predictions and Introduction to Part 2

    intro#recap#predictions#introduction

  3. Prediction 4: Managers and Leaders Need to Step Up

    interview#leadership#management#managers

  4. Isabel on Leadership in 2024

    interview#leadership#2024#ft-journalist

  5. Ruth on Redefining What Leadership Means

    interview#leadership#redefining#octopus-money

  6. Professor Sir Cary Cooper on Looking East

    interview#leadership#east#cary-cooper

  7. Gen X Managers Repeating Bad Habits

    interview#gen-x#managers#bad-habits

  8. Prediction 5: Gen Z Are Coming

    interview#gen-z#workplace#future

  9. Prediction 6: Social Mobility and Diversity

    interview#social-mobility#diversity#inclusion

  10. Recap of All Predictions and Wrap-up

    interview#recap#predictions#wrap-up

Show notes

Why 2024 Is a Pivotal Year, From Gen-Z to Social Mobility (Part 2 of 2)

Truth, Lies & Work — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) are back with Part 2 of their bumper predictions special for 2024. Fresh from Part 1, they're diving into the final six predictions from their expert panel — including the future of management, the unstoppable rise of Gen Z, and why social mobility might be the diversity issue we've been missing.

Featuring insights from Isabel Berwick of the FT and "Working It" podcast, Mridula Pore from Peppy Health, Organisational Psychologist Professor Sir Cary Cooper, workplace health specialist Amy McKeown, Ruth Handcock, CEO of Octopus Money, and Martin Lindstrom, a New York Times bestselling author.

If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, go back and start there — this won't make sense without it!

🔮 The Six Predictions for 2024

1. The office vs remote vs on-site debate will continue — but the conversation is shifting.

2. Healthcare needs will become more niche and bespoke — one-size-fits-all wellbeing programmes are on the way out.

3. Financial wellbeing will ramp up — particularly around what we can actually do to support people through the cost-of-living crisis.

4. Managers and leaders need to step up their game — things are never going back to the way they were.

5. Gen Z are coming — and we need to be ready for them.

6. Diversity continues to matter, but there's a new kid on the block: social mobility.

🧠 Highlights from This Episode

The Manager Problem

Leanne's been saying it for years — managers should have stepped up in 2022, definitely in 2023. Professor Sir Cary Cooper agrees: a manager isn't just someone who says "here are our priorities." A manager should look at every individual in their team and ask, "What's wrong? What's going on?"

Leadership Is Changing

Ruth from Octopus Money suggests we need to redefine what leadership actually means. People don't look to leaders to direct them anymore — they look to leaders to inspire them. Leaders who give space and understand how a mission translates to someone's everyday work will win in 2024.

Look East for Answers

Professor Sir Cary Cooper points to Japan — where managers are trained in active listening and genuinely caring for their teams. It's a model that could transform how we approach management in the West.

Gen Z Are Coming (Really Coming)

We cannot afford to ignore Gen Z when planning our workforce. Ruth from Octopus Money says we need to be much more agile with our planning in 2024 — the talent cycle has shifted dramatically, and the old ways of hiring and retaining won't cut it.

Social Mobility: The Missing Diversity Issue

Ruth is passionate about this, and you should Google her and watch her on YouTube. Social mobility is about more than ticking boxes — it's about who gets a seat at the table in the first place. Academic Grace Lordan at the London School of Economics uses data and behavioural science to show why this matters more than ever.

💬 Final Thoughts

Leanne feels much more confident in this year's predictions than last year's. Al's putting money on them — though he admits he definitely would NOT have bet on last year's "wearable burnout" prediction. (Leanne still stands by it, by the way.)

2024... are you ready?!

🔗 Resources & Guest Links

Listen to more from Truth, Lies & Work:

All past episodes: truthliesandwork.com

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

If you've been affected by any of the themes in this episode, Mind's information and support pages are available at mind.org.uk/information-support. If you're feeling in distress or despair, including feelings of suicide, please consider calling Samaritans for free on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org.

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

Expand full transcript
Al ElliottThe 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 and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot 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.
?Nice.
Al ElliottCheck out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
?And I've talked to a lot of coaches who work with top CEOs and leaders, and they are a mess. But we don't hear that. And we hear a lot about sort of, you've gotta be vulnerable as a leader. I'm not entirely sure what that means in practice. It's a little bit of a guff word, but I think if we were able to be more honest about the need to be people as well as workers in the way that they are in Scandinavia, maybe the leaders wouldn't be modeling such bad behavior.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to the Truth, Lies, and Workplace Culture podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottWe are here to help you simplify the science, people, and create amazing workplace cultures. And may we say, listeners, friends, Happy New Year!
Al ElliottIs it New Year already?
Leanne ElliottIt's New Year. It's 2024.
Al ElliottWe're trying to pretend we're recording this in New Year when we're actually recording a little bit before.
Leanne ElliottHow was your Christmas, Al?
Al ElliottOh, it was, it was spectacular. My favourite bit was the present you bought. I didn't think I wanted a freshwater turtle, but you found one, you sent it to me, you gave it to me at Christmas.
?Yeah.
Al ElliottLast Christmas you gave me a tortoise. The very next day I gave it away. But this year, to save you from tears, you gave me a freshwater turtle, which I'm very pleased about. I'm not quite sure where the freshwater turtle came from. I'm a little bit distracted because Leanne's taken her cardigan off because we've just recorded 2 episodes back to back, and she said to me And she said to me, well, I've got to look different. And I'm like, well, I look exactly the same. I'm still wearing the same blue t-shirt you'll be seeing all the rest of them. So, so for the opposite of continuity, I'm going to— if you're on YouTube, you'll see I'm now wearing a yellow Post-it note, which shows that it's a different week. So that would— so we know it's complete. We definitely did not sit down and record these back to back. Absolutely not.
Leanne ElliottAbsolutely not. No, my Christmas was lovely. Thank you for asking.
Al ElliottSorry, how was your Christmas, lady?
Leanne ElliottIt was really good. Yeah, thank you. I really enjoyed all the jewelry that you bought me. It's very generous.
?Ah, balls.
Al ElliottI think I might need to get onto Amazon or go shopping tomorrow.
Leanne ElliottBut yes, anyway, if you are listening to this, Happy New Year. Hopefully we're still here and didn't have some horrible accident on our drive back to the UK.
Al ElliottCan you imagine? That'd be weird. We recorded this and then we would— I can't say dead, can I? That's gonna get us banned from YouTube.
Leanne ElliottYeah, trigger warning. Yeah. Um, yeah, no, but hopefully we're fine. Um, drop us a message on LinkedIn, Instagram, just make sure.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottUm, but yes, If you listened last week to our last episode of 2023, you would have heard part 1 of our predictions episode. If you're just joining it this episode, go back.
Al ElliottYou're a fool.
Leanne ElliottGo back. We like rule breakers, but not that type of rule breakers. This won't make sense to you.
Al ElliottYou've missed some really, really good ones in part 1. Uh, we have— we explained in part 1 that we made our own predictions this time last year. Um, there was about 8 predictions. Leanne made 4, I made 4. About 3 of Leanne's 4 came true, about 1 of my 4 came true. So we decided that, or I decided when I was putting this episode together, there's no point in, in, in us trying to, or me trying to make predictions. So we went and found some experts. So we have some experts. Leanne, do you want to quickly run through who we have on the pod today? It's the same people from last week, but just in case you need a reminder, here's our Graham to recap.
Leanne ElliottIt's our Graham with a quick reminder. If you know, you know. Our first guest, we are welcoming back Isabel Berrick. She is a Financial Times journalist and host of the Working It podcast. We also have Madhuri Pule, co-founder of Peppy Health, a startup revolutionising the healthcare sector for workplaces. Next up, we have the awesome, the man, the legend, Professor Sir Kerry Cooper. You know who he is. We also have Amy McCowan back on the show, a regular guest and friend.
?Hi.
Leanne Elliottand of course an expert in workplace health. We are also joined by Ruth Hancock, who is CEO of Octopus Money and an all-around amazing human. And finally, Martin Lindstrom, New York Times bestselling author of books such as Biology, Brandwashed, and Ministry of Common Sense. Last week we covered our first few predictions for 2024, and today we continue our list.
Al ElliottSo let's go and find out what we're going to find out this week. Let's go find out. What are we gonna find out? Well, we found out last week that we're gonna find out more about this.
Leanne ElliottAnd now we're gonna find out more about that. Yeah, let's find out.
Al ElliottSo let's get stuck in. Moving on to prediction number 4. If you're a regular listener, you will know Leanne's favourite word is managers. It's her favourite subject. Managers and leaders, our 4th prediction. We predict that you are gonna have to step up your game in 2024.
Leanne ElliottYes, yes, yes, yes, yes. You should have stepped up in 2023. You really should have stepped up in 2022. And actually, we think about it, the pandemic was a pretty good time to step up your leadership. But hey, here we are, 2024. If you train your managers— oh, if you just do one thing— if you train your managers, your business will thrive. Train your manager to have empathy and genuinely care about their teams, then you'll more than likely remove 80% of any problems in a workplace. That's why I'm so passionate about helping managers and leaders become amazing managers and leaders.
Al ElliottAnd you can tell how passionate she is because she was banging the table there, and you could probably hear it through the microphone.
?Sorry.
Al ElliottYeah, yeah, yeah. That's a nice editing nightmare for me. Thank you, Léanne. So Professor Sekari Cooper knows what a great manager looks like, and he suspects that about 60% of managers haven't really got the right skills yet.
?And if you're a good manager and you're walking the talk, then you're going to hear all sorts of rumors, You know, chat from employees about other employees. You know, Fred's a bit strange these days. He's not really part of the team. All of that. That's what you have to look for. But to do that, you have to be a socially sensitive person. You have to really be a manager. That's what a manager should be. A manager is not just somebody who says, Here's our priorities. Hit the bottom line. A manager should be somebody who just looks at everybody in the team individually. The good news about the pandemic was I think more managers then knew more about their subordinates and their direct reports than ever before because they, they had, first of all, they got worried because they weren't in an office. So I don't see them all the time during the lockdowns. So what did they do? Everybody was doing, or the organization told most managers, and most organizations said, do one-to-ones with your direct reports on Zoom. They told them that. Don't just have a business meeting and then forget the individual because you're not seeing them. Do one-to-ones, but make it less about work and just ask them how they're getting on. Now, a good line manager recognizes a change of behavior, and that's a line manager all the way from shop floor to top floor. This goes all the way up the system. Anybody who's in a managerial role.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Okay.
?So that person is more likely to be, to recognize symptoms in their subordinates and saying, putting armor on shoulder Al. I've noticed for the last few weeks, maybe month, maybe 2 months, you've been kind of withdrawing. Something's troubling you, isn't it? I just feel it. Is it? What's wrong? And because he's an open person, he or she is an open person, Al is more likely to respond and open up themselves because open people, open people who have these social skills are people who are prepared to admit their own vulnerabilities, which enables people they're working with to open up. That's the way you do it. So in the future, what we need is we need to recruit or promote line managers where there's parity between their people skills and their technical skills. They still need technical skills. You gotta be a teacher to understand in a managerial role as a head teacher to manage the rest of the teachers. You've got to be, you have got to understand marketing if you're a marketing director. You, but you know, but you, but you have to understand that, but you also have to have the people skills. Therefore, if you get the right people in, and here's the problem we have, Al, the problem we have is because we don't have enough of them. I mean, in the years I'm, I'm that old, which, which I can say, all the years I've worked in organizations, I would say, and I had a university spinoff company, University of Manchester spinoff company, Roberts Cooper. Our work was working with lots of big companies, organizations, hospitals, public, private sector bodies. Okay? I would say that if I was giving an estimate, I'd say if you looked at the managerial pool of most organizations, 40% of managers wherever they are in the hierarchy, have these skills naturally. You know, luckily they have the good people, social interpersonal skills. 40% are trainable. There is a problem that about 20% are untrainable. They shouldn't be in a managerial role. They just have a personality that makes it difficult for you to train them, right? The more we recognize that, so the problem we have in most organizations, in my view, Is we have to deal with the cohort we currently have, the 40-40-20. 40 is fine. No training needed. 40, training. 20, find another role for them, but take them away from people, whatever you do. They technically may be very competent. That's fine, but don't give them a managerial role. Find a vehicle to put them into a part of the organization where You can benefit from their technical skills, but get them away from human beings.
Leanne ElliottIsabel, our Financial Times journalist and podcast host, completely agrees.
?You know, right at the top in this country, you know, CEOs are appointed who have no experience at all in their sector. During the pandemic, all sorts of people were appointed to NHS task forces who were not experienced. I find this extraordinary. I think it's because Management and leadership have never really been core to what we think of in British business, and it affects productivity. And it's particularly bad in small businesses. And I think there are lots of organisations trying to tackle this, but there are all sorts of issues that make us as Brits particularly prone to these problems. And also, I mean, part of the thing about being British is it's great. We don't take ourselves particularly seriously. It's funny. But there does come a time when you really do have to say, you know, I'm not just going to bish bash bosh this management thing out. I do need a little bit of training, qualifications, you know, care.
Al ElliottRuth from Octopus Money goes one step further, and she suggests that we need to redefine what being a leader actually is.
?I don't think people look to leaders to direct them anymore. I think people look to leaders to inspire them. And I think that's a gigantic opportunity, and it builds on all those trends that we've all talked about for years, which is how do you empower people, how do you create a mission for your organization, how do you communicate effectively with them. But I think we've really, really hit a tipping point where I think leaders that direct and control will create organizations that people are less likely to want to work in. And leaders that inspire and give space and understand that power of how a mission can translate to someone working incredibly hard to deliver something they feel passionate about, the power of that, I think, will become clearer and clearer. So I think we might see that talent flocks not necessarily to the latest definition of hybrid versus in-office working, which will continue to be a conversation, it will flock to what's the culture and leadership of the organization, and do I feel like I can do my best work there?
Al ElliottAnd Professor Sakeri Cooper suggests that maybe the answer lies in us looking east.
?You know why the Japanese have been very successful for so many years? Because manager's role is very different from what we have in the West. By the way, I don't think we can shift to a Japanese model, but I've worked in Japan a couple times. A manager's role is to talk to their employees about a problem and get them to solve the problem, take the solution to that problem up to the next level. It's not the manager to sort it. What we do is we have meetings at which we act like the employees are solving the problem, but actually the manager has already come up with a solution, just wants validation of that solution. And probably the majority of them don't even listen to the alternative options open to them. Some do, and those are the ones who are socially skilled would do, but many of them do not, and they just take it up at the next level. In Japan, the role is quite a different role. I'm not saying we should do that, but I do think we should listen to employees and try to get them to help us. They may come up with really interesting solutions.
Leanne ElliottAnd as the Gen X take over management positions, Isabel worries there is a risk that they are repeating the bad habits that their boomer mentors might have had.
?It's built into everybody's life that you have, you know, you can leave work at a reasonable time. CEOs leave work at a reasonable time. And I think part of the problem here is it's modelled from the top. CEOs and senior management model the long-hours culture. You know, they may be suffering very badly themselves with mental health issues. And I've seen a lot of surveys that suggest that's true. And I've talked to a lot of coaches who work with top CEOs and leaders, and they are a mess. But we don't hear that. And we hear a lot about sort of, you've gotta be vulnerable as a leader. I'm not entirely sure what that means in practice. It's a little bit of a guff word. But I think if we were able to be more honest about the need to be people, as well as workers in the way that they are in Scandinavia, maybe the leaders wouldn't be modelling such bad behaviour.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one 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.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)And 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking.
Al ElliottAnd you're not gonna say 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.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Uh, 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 behavioural 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 will be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can balsamic vinegar make beer taste better?
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)It can.
Leanne ElliottAnd are we all just status-seeking monkeys?
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)I am.
Al ElliottGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in.
Leanne ElliottTalking of Gen Z.
Al ElliottYep. Our next prediction is around Gen Z. But let's just summarise where we're at so far. So, so far our predictions are: number 1, flexible work will still divide the business world. Number 2, employees will demand a more equitable healthcare plan. Easy for me to say. Number 3, financial healthcare is going to be even more important in 2024. And number 4, managers and leaders need to up their game. Our 5th prediction is not really a prediction, it's actually just more a reminder.
Leanne ElliottYes, sit, sit, sit down, listen to this. If you're doing something else while you're listening to this podcast, just stop for a minute and Okay, take this in. Within the next 5 years, Gen Z will make up over a third of all people of working age. Let that sit for a minute.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottWe cannot afford to ignore them. We can't afford them— we can't afford to ignore them when we're planning our workplace for the future. However, a fair number of perhaps older people in the workplace seem to think that this generation are lazy. Isabel explains they have misunderstood this entirely.
?Oh no, not at all. They're not lazy. They are picky. And that's very different. I think when you see Gen Z coming into the workforce, what they want is connection and they want trust. And I can see it in people I know myself. And I think those are great things. The issue is that it clashes with existing work culture. So the challenge of the next 5 years will be for millennial managers, Gen X managers, some boomer managers to say, who's coming in and how do I adapt? And that's a hard thing to think because actually, I'm in charge, why should I adapt? But I think the issue that a lot of managers have with Gen Z is that they are terrified. They're terrified of being canceled. They are terrified of saying the wrong thing. And if you just flip that around and think, well, what Gen Z want is to be able to trust you, is to be able to think that you have integrity and that you are going to help them in their career. You know, I think it's a much easier way to look at it, and it's much less fearful.
Al ElliottRuth from Octopus Money says that we need to be much more agile with our planning in 2024.
?So I think we've come through an interesting sort of talent cycle over the last year, where we went from probably this time last year, where I think people were moving jobs more than I've seen in maybe the last 10 years of my career, and then it feels as if in 12 months we've come to a stage where people aren't moving around much at all right now, and I think we'll see that normalize a little bit, but I think it means that having swung from a really hot talent market to a much less hot talent market, I think really the theme, I think, for people functions will be agility. Things are changing much more quickly than I saw them change over the last 5 or 6 years where we had a relatively benign economic environment, and I think people functions can often work on annual timescales of, I'm going to plan my benefits, I'm going to think about what my interventions are this year. I would argue you've got to be more agile than that. I would argue you've got to be planning on a quarterly basis, you've got to be thinking much more regularly, what is really going to work as the world around me changes quite quickly, and how can I engage people given that The context has probably changed from when I last thought about this 2 or 3 months ago. So, if it's one thing, I think that's what I'd focus on. It's shorten your planning cycle, be more agile, be prepared to change as quickly as the world is.
Leanne ElliottMartin Lindstrom, the author of multiple bestselling books and one of my personal favorites, The Ministry of Common Sense, explains it perfectly.
?Yeah. Well, it sounds fluffy, and I didn't believe in purpose until I I think 10 years ago. And I think the reason why I didn't believe in purpose was because quite often we would have a vision statement in the reception hanging up there, a bit of dust on top of it. Or we would look at the annual report, it would start with some vision or some purpose statement, and it would ring hollow. You would feel it would be sort of a, piece of makeup put on top of something like veneer. But what happens is that Generation Z are looking at their parents now, and their parents are my age. And they will look at the gray hair, they'll look at how it's a worn-down, worn-out generation which have been working their whole life, striving towards getting a higher title, more power, earning more money. And they would have looked at their degree of depression and anxiety. And they would have said to themselves, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be like my dad or my mom or my parents. And that's where we see this Generation Z now. They are increasingly saying to themselves, I want to go against that. In fact, I don't want to collect assets like they did. The more I collect, the more happy I am, meaning consumption. I want to collect memories and experiences instead. I want to rent things. If companies do not take that into account and they place you or anyone of Generation Z in front of a screen, and now they have to hammer away 8 to 10 hours where 65% is bureaucracy, you can be pretty sure the loyalty is basically zero and the new employer out there is just a link away. So what I think is really important for organizations is to build a purpose into it, which is fundamentally true. And which resonates with this generation. And if you can do that, if you go to work and you're not just doing it because you're earning money, but you're doing it because you change the world a little bit, you change people's happiness level a little bit, you make people more happy or more content, then I think you will attract a lot of people. And you better get going with this because this is just the beginning. I fundamentally believe that companies in the future cannot survive if they're not supporting the environment, if they're not supporting equality, if they're not having a purpose, if those factors are not ticked, they would be all dinosaurs just fading away slowly.
Al ElliottSo our 5th prediction is a reminder Gen Z are literally the future of our workplace. What's number 6, Leigh?
Leanne ElliottWhen I was researching Ruth before our chat, I noticed that she talked a lot about social mobility and the impact this has on diversity. And the more I looked into this and thought about the implications of the cost of living crisis, I realized this is something we're just not talking about enough. So I asked Ruth to explain what it is and why it's being overlooked.
?Yeah, I— for those who don't, um, who aren't very familiar with social mobility, it's really the extent to which your background, the family you grew up in, impacts your long-term prospects. So one way that workplaces increasingly measuring social mobility is asking employees what was the occupation of the main earner in their household when they were 14. They use that as a measure of, did you grow up in a professional home where your parents were perhaps slightly higher earners, where you had access to different opportunities, you may have been privately educated, or was your background different from that? Did your main earner earner, not have a professional role, your household income may have been lower, and what we're tracking is the extent to which people change their outcomes. So the extent to which, if you grew up in a household where you maybe didn't have much money, the extent to which you're able to change that over the course of your career. The reason I think it's so important is because we are, as a nation, in a worse position on social mobility than we have been for 50 years. This is getting way, way worse rather than better, and there are lots of economic reasons for that, but one of the main ones is that we aren't seeing a huge amount of economic growth, so really the main way that many people accumulate wealth is from their parents, and as long as the main way that you accumulate wealth is from your parents, that means that the situation you grew up in determines your life more than it would otherwise. I think this is a massive issue for many, many reasons. It's the very basis for me of whether we live in a fair society or not, is whether you can create your own opportunities. But I think it's important for employers for a couple of reasons. We've talked a lot about ESG over the past 10 years, and I think we've focused in on environmental, on climate very closely. When I talk to people who run listed businesses as an example, they're getting far more questions now about how does your business have a positive impact on society, so that S in ESG, and I think that will continue to be a theme and social mobility is a big part of that. I think it's a real problem when you look across the diversity of senior leadership teams, so if you believe, as I do, that you're going to build a better, more valuable organisation if you have a diverse leadership team, Social background is probably the sort of hidden diversity characteristic that you haven't looked at yet. But in financial services, where I work, depending on what stats you read, about 89% of C-level executives were privately educated, against 6% of the population that are. Now, that is staggering. How can we say we're creating products and services that work for everyone if the background of people leading those organizations is so narrow? So most people aren't measuring it, most people aren't putting in place positive interventions to try and change it, and I would love to see that change. I think it's a huge theme that will grow and grow over the coming years.
Al ElliottClearly Ruth is very passionate about this, and I would encourage you to go and Google her, look on YouTube, find out the interviews she's done around social mobility. She did a, I believe it was a webinar about a month ago, which was all about this. She, she just knows it. And also what's interesting is it'd be something we are going to be talking about over the next 5 or 10 years. She's definitely a pioneer in this subject. We have talked about diversity quite a lot on the podcast and how important it is. We also have told you that we're not experts. We've got— we've brought in experts for you in all the episodes that Leanne mentioned, and look in the show notes because we'll link to those as well. They're far more qualified to talk about equity and diversity than we are. But one thing that both they and us have noticed is that some companies just use it as a little bit of a buzzword.
?There's an academic called Grace Lordon at the London School of Economics who uses data and behavioural science to show what works in terms of building inclusive workplaces. You know, I think we've all been on training courses where we're all in Zoom breakout rooms and we all have lots of lovely words about diversity. But Grace and her team at LSE are looking at what works, how long-term change can be effected, and what stands in its way. I mean, I don't think there's any other way to go forward.
Leanne ElliottYes, diversity and equity is so important, and when you add the problem that leadership still skews towards men, it's even more important to ensure your team is made up of people from lots of different backgrounds. Ruth from Octopus Money explains this beautifully.
?You know, I hope we're on an improving trajectory, and I think that diversity is one of those things where you can hit a tipping point. So we all know that— someone said this to me in a brilliant phrase— if you can't see, you can't be. We know the importance of role models, so the more you see people like you in leadership, the more you think that's something you can achieve, and the more it's something you strive for. So logic says you hit a tipping point that when there are enough women in leadership, more women believe they can get there. And given that we've made some good strides in improving gender diversity in leadership— clearly not enough, but we've made some good strides— you hope that that will become reinforcing and that more people, more women, more people from minority backgrounds will see people like them, and that doesn't mean you're from the same community or you're from the same gender necessarily, but someone you can identify with, which you're way more likely to see in a diverse leadership team than in a less diverse one, will make you believe. And I think individuals who have come through that also develop a much greater sense of responsibility to mentor people who they see perhaps experiencing some of the barriers they did. So that reinforce itself, and I hope we'll see a continued improvement. But we all know we've, we've got an awfully long way to go, and it's still moving relatively slowly.
Al ElliottSo these are our 6 predictions from our expert panel in 20— for 2024. Leigh, do you want to go first?
Leanne ElliottYes, 2024, the office versus remote versus on-site debate will continue.
Al ElliottAnd number 2 is that the healthcare needs are going to make a much more niche and bespoke in 2024 for the workplace.
Leanne ElliottNumber 3, financial wellbeing will really ramp up in terms of conversation, and particularly what we can do to improve the financial health of our workforce.
Al ElliottNumber 4 is that managers and leaders, we need to step up our game in 2024. Things are never going to be the same again.
Leanne ElliottNumber 5, never mind holidays coming, Gen Z are coming, friends. We need to be ready.
Al ElliottAnd number 6, diversity continues to be important, But there's a new aspect, social mobility, which you need to know a little bit about. Leigh, I feel like we've covered those, the 6. I have a feeling you might have a little bonus, number 7 perhaps?
Leanne ElliottYeah, and it— I think it underpins all of the above really, so it's not really a prediction and more of an observation. If you could only improve one thing in your workplace in 2024, I'd suggest it is empathy. Managers are better when they are empathetic. Teams will work better when, when members show empathy towards each other. Customers are happy when we're more empathetic to their needs. The whole remote working argument would lose so much steam if we also showed a bit more empathy towards our fellow team members. Here's Martin Lindström to sum it all up.
?Well, it is a problem for multiple reasons, and one of them is when you remember the correlation between empathy and common sense. We live in a world where we don't look each other in the eyes as much as we did in the past, whether I'm on the phone, so you don't see people on the street, or right now, I don't see you in the eyes and you don't see me in the eyes, really. I'm looking at a lens. So we're losing eye contact, and eye contact in meetings is a buffer. So when you sit in a meeting and you're 10 people and you come up with a crazy idea, There's no way you can gather the feeling of if people like it or not if it's in a Teams meeting. If you just pause for 5 seconds, the first thing people will say is, you're on mute, unmute. So we can't even think, we can't even reflect. People which are introvert can't even attend because they wouldn't be like a machine gun talking, right? So empathy is slowly declining and we've never seen such a big decline as we saw during COVID-19. But even before, you would've noticed that one experiment, done over 10 years showed a decline among Generation Z of 65%. And so empathy, the ability to feel with other people, is disappearing. We build walls. We survive and thrive in small bubbles, which are self-fulfilling prophecies. So that directly correlates with me working in large organizations where I basically do not have an interest in helping other people when it comes to empathy. I dig down in my little silo, I do my work, I do it with producing a lot of PowerPoints and a lot of bureaucracy, and then I move on. There is no feeling of, I had to help that person, or let's stick together, let's create teamwork, because you can hardly do it in a digital format. So yes, it is in a fast decline, and it probably will continue being in a decline for, for, for many years to come, I would say.
Al ElliottWell, there you have it, those 8 Sorry, 7 predictions, 6 and a bonus. Um, and we will, we'll probably revisit those at some point in the year and we'll tell you how accurate we were. Um, if you, if we don't hear another follow-up episode about this, we never mention this again, none of them were right. But let's be fair, they weren't our predictions, they were experts' predictions.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I feel much more confident in this year's predictions than last year's predictions.
Al ElliottYeah, I put money on this year's. I definitely would not have put money on last year's. Wearable burnout predictor was mine in the air.
Leanne ElliottStill a good idea. And I, and I stand by my point that you're ahead of your time, and if it was used for good, then we would have seen it. Um, but anyway, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, why have you not come back and listened to the other episodes?
?What's wrong with you?
Leanne ElliottYou're crazy.
Al ElliottThis New Year's gone to your head.
Leanne ElliottSo yes, Happy New Year, happy 2024. We hope you're feeling rested and recharged and ready for another 12 months and all that it will bring. We will be here with you every week, every step of the way, talking about everything psychology and work.
Al ElliottAbsolutely. So over the next 51 episodes, which will take you through to next year, then we will help you to create amazing workplace cultures and simplify the science of people. That's what my lovely wife and co-host is here for. If you've got a question, get in touch. Links are in the, in the show notes. You know how to find us, or even our email. I bet you don't look, but our email's in the show notes, so you can actually email Leanne directly and go, hey, what do I do about this?
Leanne ElliottMore than that, there's more than that, Al. There's actually a link to book a call directly with both of us.
Al ElliottDon't do that.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)I don't—
Al Elliottdon't book a call with me. I don't know anything. Book a call with her.
Leanne ElliottBook a call, unless you're trying to sell me something, unless it's good, but I'll be the judge of that.
Al ElliottYes, you've been told. Have a phenomenal remainder of the first week in January, and we'll see you next week with— I can't remember what we've got on next week, but if I remember in time, then I will record it and edit it and put it in the actual edit.
Leanne ElliottIt's something exciting.
Al ElliottIt is. Right, we will see you very, very soon.
?Bye. Bye-bye.
Al ElliottNumber 2, the bespoke health place workplace and thingy. There's another outtake. Well done, Al.
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