The modern workplace is in crisis. Last year, more than 2.82 million Britons were out of work with long-term sickness, a number that’s gone up by a staggering 41 per cent over the past three years. Working from home, sicknote culture, Gen Zs “quiet quitting” and approval-seeking millennials caught in the middle of it all: the theatre of workplace dynamics is where the drama of our upbringing, relationships, hopes, fears and generation wars all play out.
While we’re used to the cries of staff calling out toxic workplaces and horrible bosses – over one in three people who quit their job blames bad management – we don’t hear the other side of the story. As a millennial manager, working in the third sector, I remember being shaken to my people-pleasing core when a staff member made a complaint about me. How could I – warm, supportive, an actual hand-holding angel – have possibly offended this lovely woman? How did our wires get so badly crossed?
