115. Challenge the Politics in Your Workplace with Jeff Harry
Summary
Versions of the same narrative have cropped up everywhere lately: no one wants to work anymore! Don’t be fooled; behind the headline lies the story of what may be the largest migration of workers out of corporate America in history.
Whether you’re reluctantly headed back into the office after 15+ months of working from home or giving serious thought to calling it quits, there’s no denying that something has shifted in our collective attitude about “work.” The question is, what’s the next step on this path toward building a more holistic, empathetic workplace for all?
Erica and India invite Jeff Harry to share his ideas around the bold new future of work. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that when we know our worth, we can exact pressure on the corporate status quo and create lasting change.
In this discussion:
Code-switching and its effects on Black and Brown workers
How corporate shaming and gaslighting feed claims of worker laziness
What does “professionalism” look like going forward?
The toxicity inherent to old-guard corporate culture
The racist origins of corporate productivity metrics
The power of visibility
Shifting workplace dynamics in favor of labor
How to challenge the corporate structure
Keep The Dialogue Going
Possibilities unfold when we challenge the status quo. Power evolves when we engage in conversations with folks whose perspectives differ from our own. We call this “community.” Embrace what’s possible by joining us at pauseontheplay.com/community.
Article
Conversations around work hit differently amid a global health crisis. Modest campaigns to broaden work-from-home options and shrink the 40-hour workweek before COVID19 have since gained significant support in the last 16 months, with more people demanding innovative, humane work options for all.
So, how do we get from our current reality to a better future? Erica and India invited Jeff Harry to discuss the routes we can take now to work, reimagined.
Meet Jeff Harry
Jeff has spent his career combining positive psychology and play to help teams and organizations navigate difficult conversations, address their biggest challenges, and embrace a play-oriented approach to work. His Instagram and TikTok feeds are showcases for his trademark quick wit. Jeff leads the social media charge in calling bullshit (in the most hilarious way) on big-business gaslighting and current efforts to shame labor back into the literal and figurative confines of corporate boxes. His experience working with Fortune 100 companies demonstrates what’s possible when employers large and small expand their views on professionalism and productivity–and the dangers that will befall them if they don’t.
The child of a Filipino mother and Barbadian father, Jeff grew up in what he calls a hella white suburb of Chicago. It was there that he realized he had no desire to fit in with his “cool” peers. “It was so exhausting to be cool,” he says, especially for a Brown boy who that others couldn’t neatly label. “People just didn't understand who I was,” he explains. So, he spent his time in his basement, creating safe spaces for folks who didn’t fit into narrowly defined social structures. “What's ironic is that is actually what I do now.”
Jeff briefly worked in the toy industry until he realized that the environment was rotten with corporate toxicity. Instead of upholding another crumbling system, he created one of the largest Lego-inspired STEM organizations in the world, motivated by the principles of inclusion and experimentation.
As the organization grew, Jeff’s talents began attracting the attention of giants like Facebook and Google. He spent a decade leading team-building events for multiple Fortune 100 companies but, as he explains, “the whole time–and this is where the bullshit comes in–the whole time, these are considered the top companies, they would claim that they were being disruptive, they're taking risks, and they're creating an authentic place for people to hang out. And they weren't doing any of that.”
That realization prompted Jeff to leave his STEM project behind to create a new endeavor: Rediscover Your Play, an organization committed to building psychologically safe workspaces “where people could actually be themselves, where they could actually really do the work that they were meant to do. And not just, you know, code-switch all the time.”
Code-Switching, Corporate Gaslighting, & Employee Shaming
Punishing productivity metrics and code-switching are all long overdue for retirement. These dodgy office politics dictate every decision, every interaction at work, and the maneuvering is especially burdensome on Black and Brown employees who are forced to resort to code-switching just to get through each day.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term code-switching, there’s plenty of discourse available on the topic - go do some research! To get POTP audiences started, Erica offers her clear, concise definition. “It’s you having to essentially assume the easiest, most palatable version of yourself to get through a situation. And it sucks. And for a lot of us, I think that you don't even recognize that it's a thing anymore because it can become survival sometimes.”
Reimagining office environments without the constant need to code-switch requires workers to disentangle themselves from traumatic conditioning. “Even once you choose that you don't have to, you know, be in the corporate environment anymore,” Erica points out, “it's still a deprogramming to no longer operate in that paradigm anymore.”
Some companies have decided to double down on narratives that shame employees for their work-from-home choices and gaslighting tactics. Jeff refers to an example made by Dan Price, founder of Gravity Payments, who called out American Airlines for their response to canceling hundreds of flights. When asked why they’d resorted to the cancellations, AA said they based their decision on a labor shortage, and turbulence. The explanation didn’t sit well with Price so he reviewed the company’s data. He found that AA had received billions in bailout dollars last year and promptly cut 19,000 jobs. “There's so many companies that furloughed or laid people off and then are now, like, ‘Where is everybody? Everyone's lazy! No one wants to come back to work!’ And, it's like, dude, you created this! And now you're trying to tell us we're the problem? This is happening so much. And that's why I just feel like I need to call it out.”
Jeff argues that the next few years will most likely see the largest migration of workers out of corporate America since the Great Depression. Only this time around many workers will leave by their own choice rather than complete economic collapse. “I don't think a lot of industries are prepared for how badly so many people want to leave.”
He equates the conditions surrounding this impending mass exodus to those that motivated tennis star Naomi Osaka’s recent decision to pull out of one of the sport’s biggest tournaments. “When she left The French Open, she walked away from millions of dollars for her mental health.” He says that Naomi represents a whole generation of people who are prioritizing their well-being over money. “Gen Z-ers are almost leading the way and guiding Millennials and Gen X-ers and everyone else to be, like, “Well, I'm not going to take that; I'm just going to walk away and find another job.”
Employers woefully underestimate the momentum this new labor movement is gaining. Jeff refers to April’s job numbers as an example. In that report, 4 million people had quit their jobs without having another job lined up. “So, the signs are there. The canaries in the coal mine are there, and companies are just pretending, like, let's get back to normal.”
When we think about the future of corporate employment and what professionalism looks like going forward, it's clear that what was once deemed “acceptable” or “appropriate” is not coming back–and no one’s less nostalgic for those good ol’ days than Erica. Still, she wonders what format will take shape in its place.
Jeff has given the new structure a lot of thought. “What I believe is going to happen is that there's going to be a divergence, right? Like, companies are at a crossroads,” he says. Some will choose to go the way of Amazon–think 150% turnover (with some employees quitting within their first few days) exploitive practices and inhumane treatment; in essence, a form of modern-day slavery. Those companies will either die or limp towards irrelevance.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are companies like Zappos and Gravity Payments, a company that, back in 2016, began paying its staff a minimum salary of $70,000 a year. Gravity’s founder was mocked for that decision and told he’d go broke. “Instead, his profits soared during the pandemic,” says Jeff. “Many people were willing to take pay cuts. He took a massive pay cut so that they all could keep it going. And now they're all thriving again, and he's really challenging the status quo.”
As offices around the country emerge from 16 months of work-from-home, Dan Price continues to challenge corporate norms. Gravity polled staffers to see how they wanted to approach “officing” in the future. 60% said they wished to maintain work-from-home status. Others wanted to pursue a hybrid approach. Dan decided to let his staffers choose the right option for them, allowing labor to create their ideal work environment. “This is not hard,” Jeff says of that example, “but companies are making it seem so complicated.”
“It's interesting because I've seen a similar thing happening in the beauty industry,” India says. The inhuman treatment (including no bathroom or lunch breaks in service to ridiculous 24-hour sales goals) of talented staffers at multi-day events mirrors the shadiest aspects of corporate productivity culture.
“Unfortunately, this is where I think people don't always recognize that this type of corporate toxicity, you don't have to work in the corporate office for this to be a thing,” Erica says. “Part of it is the corporate culture that those of us that are working have to navigate. But it's also reminding people to not uphold it as the clients as well because that's the other side.
Pushing Back Against Business As Usual
“It's fascinating because there's this great reassessment that happened during the pandemic where all of a sudden, all of these employees and workers saw many of the true colors of their companies firsthand,” Jeff says.
“Even when bailout money came, that money didn't end up in their pockets, you know? It went back to investors, or corporations bought back their stock.” Now, those same companies are wondering aloud why no one wants to come back to work for them. When faced with the actual answers, management blames employee laziness. “There's no shared humanity. And, really, that's where I believe we need to be going; if there's not shared humanity, empathy, and care, and a certain level of emotional EQ that is actually happening from leaders, you're done, in my opinion. I really believe you're done as an organization.”
Claims that someone would instead collect unemployment than work are the entry point for a larger conversation–none of which is based on laziness. “What about your culture might've made them not want to come back here,” India asks. “Do they really feel like they belong here?” And, “if unemployment is still more attractive than your minimum wage, which is way too low, you’ve got a problem!”
Jeff agrees. “The fact that the corporate pyramid is built on such a fragile house of cards that $600 a week is going to destroy industries. Is that how bad it is?” The answer appears to be yes.
While no one’s arguing that there may be cases in which someone chooses unemployment over work, Erica notes that “there are a lot of people working jobs that are not safe or conducive environments to be in, but what are they going to do? Because nobody's listening to them. Nobody is going to take any of their feedback, let alone actually do anything with it. So when people are like, ‘Oh, everybody's lazy! Nobody wants to work!’, there is this point where you have to say, is that really the case?”
Management, which so recently heaped praise on essential employees for their service during the pandemic, shows no remorse now for vilifying these same workers as slackers. Some folks work in those spaces even though they continue to be mistreated. They want to share their feedback but don’t know how to get their voices heard. Jeff offers some guidance. “I don't want to say it this way, but I'll say it just because I don't have better words yet, but do you know your worth?” he asks. “Do you know how valid and valuable you are outside of this company?”
Labor’s Time To Shine
Knowing your value is the first step. If you cannot change jobs, then the second step is figuring out how to change the situation. “What can we do as a strategy within the team?” Jeff asks. Like anything else, he says, if enough of the team puts management on notice for their inequitable structures, the company will have to address the situation or face high turnover–and turnover is expensive.
Jeff further stresses the power inherent to organizing, even as widespread union-busting continues. He references Desiree Adaway’s Whiteness At Work workshop in which she connected today’s productivity metrics to slavery and the measurements used to assess a plantation’s output. “And, it's like are we still measuring ourselves in that robotic way? And is that how we want to go going forward?” Jeff says. “Because if that is how we're going to be doing it, then you're going to have a lot more people leaving the corporate world because they aren't robots; they aren't slaves. They don't want to be exploited. And that's how they feel right now. They feel as if they're being taken advantage of all of the time.”
Erica notes that so many people don’t know how to language those same feelings; they just know that the current corporate structure doesn’t work, and they don’t want to participate in that system any longer.
“Well, 40% of people are thinking about getting new jobs,” says Jeff, adding that something like 60% overall doesn’t want to come back to the workplace, “but specifically, people of color it's higher...and then that’s not even counting the commute, right?” When you consider that an average commute translates into one, two, or more hours of travel a day, you realize that workers have essentially agreed what amounts to 8+ years of unpaid labor over a lifetime! “And, now that we've been working at home, we're like, ‘Why did I agree to such a horrible partnership? This is not even a partnership; I feel exploited right now!’”
For clues into a company’s future, start with an employer’s commitment to observing Juneteenth as a paid holiday or their explorations into a four-day workweek. Jeff says, “The more stuff that you're willing to actually try out while all of the antiquated companies are still trying to relive the 1950s... they're just going to be obsolete. They might still be around, but people won't care.”
Wins For The Future Of Work
Remember that corporate house of cards Jeff mentioned earlier? “There are some people that are forgetting and possibly just beginning to wake up to what it is that they hold,” says Erica, “but there's a lot of us that are like, wait, so you actually need me, which means I have more power than what I think I do. And it's really about how I'm going to wield that.”
What can allies accomplish? Start challenging the power structure. When Apple employees were notified that they’d have to return to the office post-pandemic, they wrote a letter to Tim Cook. They laid out the terms of their counteroffer. “I think we have to realize there's power in numbers and there's power also in speaking up because when you also speak up, you're giving bravery and permission for other people to speak up as well,” says Jeff. “Toxicity survives in silence, right?”
The more employees can expose lousy culture, the less likely they are to tolerate poor policy and behavior going forward. That's why allies are so important; safety comes from everyone showing up and asking management the same questions rather than a lone wolf making all the noise only to get fired. “Wield that power like She-Ra, man! Let's go!” Jeff says, “because what's the alternative, right? The alternative is we just sit back and we just, like, hate our jobs for the rest of our lives.”
As the conversation closes, Jeff offers a final thought: “If the pandemic taught us anything, if you know, 500,000 people dying or 600,000 people now and 4 million worldwide dying doesn't communicate anything to you besides the fact that, like, we got one life, right? So why am I going to waste it? Why will I not challenge the status quo so that I leave this place better than it was when I first arrived?”
Quoted
Jeff Harry
“Toxicity survives in silence, right?”
“The corporate pyramid is built on such a fragile house of cards that $600 a week is going to destroy industries. Is that how bad it is?”
Erica Courdae
‘When people are like, ‘Oh, everybody's lazy! Nobody wants to work!’ there is this point where you have to say, is that really the case?”
India Jackson
“If unemployment is still more attractive than your minimum wage, which is way too low, you’ve got a problem!”
Guest Contact & Bio
Jeff Harry combines positive psychology and plays to help teams/organizations navigate difficult conversations and assist individuals in addressing their biggest challenges through embracing a play-oriented approach to work. For his work, Jeff was selected by BambooHR & Engagedly as one of the Top 100 HR Influencers of 2020 and has been featured in the NY Times, Mashable, Upworthy, & Shondaland.
Jeff has worked with Google, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, Adobe, the NFL, Amazon, and Facebook, helping their staff to infuse more play into the day-to-day.