HR is asleep and people are burning

Did we blow it? New survey points to yes.

Happy Wednesday,

I got a bit agitated with this one. But decided to keep that.

I'm always writing these intros after I've written or dictated the piece (today is writing because we have summer vacation in Sweden and I'm putting my kids to sleep at the same time), and as I wrote this, I felt more and more frustrated.
We knew this, we knew. We know this, we do.
Yet. Here we are, and it's such a failure.
(But more on that later… agitated again!)

But first, thank you to all 100+ people who have given input to the survey I emailed about yesterday. Helps me a lot to shape what to write about here!
Still open for answers, of course.

Also! Next week I'll do a webinar with the CEO, Jeet, from Kinfolk. It's free and given the discussions Jeet and I have been having leading up to this, it's going to be a great one…

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I'm a big fan of Lenny Rachitsky and his newsletter. (To such an extent that we gave everyone who spoke at AI Day last year a year's worth of subscription to his newsletter as the speaking gift.

Last year, Lenny and Noam Segal ran an interesting study about tech people's relationship with AI, and they are duplicating that again. It's well worth a read, and I don't mind you jumping over to the Substack to read it before you jump back here. Over 5300 people participated, so the data is very solid.

Why this is important? Because I think this is our canary in the coal mine.

The people working in tech are at the forefront of what's to come for the rest of us, and the survey paints quite a grim picture.
Burnout numbers are up. Job optimism is down.

55.7% rate themselves as “moderately”, “very,” or “completely” burned out.

Is it in smaller companies that apply a 996 system, one might wonder then? Maybe, but not solely. Burnout climbs by company size. And who usually has the biggest HR orgs? Larger organizations.

This is such a failure on our end.
By us, I mean HR.

And as mentioned above, these are the canaries in the coal mine. This is what's likely in store for us all. Sure, I've chosen the darkest figures from the survey. There are good things in there as well; productivity is up, people are shipping stuff and have discovered new amazing capabilities.

But at what cost?

Shouldn't we, HR, be the protectors of this? Shouldn't we make sure that we have long-term sustainable organizations? Shouldn't we safeguard that people feel safe and supported?

And here we are.

The most prevalent fear in the survey is not being replaced by AI; it's being overworked.

This is what happens when you fall asleep at the wheel, when you let AI be this ambiguous project that is run without a clear mandate, without clear objectives, without thinking things through from a human, organizational perspective.

From the get-go, I've been saying that we, HR, matter in this. That we need to rise to the occasion because this is impactful technology. And I'm a bit frustrated that we don't take this more seriously.

Because what's the one thing that combats all of the above?

Your manager matters more than almost anything. A great manager is associated with about 65% higher job enjoyment and far less burnout. If you have one, protect that relationship. If you don't, getting closer to a better one may be the highest-leverage career move available to you.

No one should be surprised by that. So why haven't we doubled down on this?
We should be on top of this, but we clearly aren't (even if you shouldn't draw too big conclusions from one survey alone).

I think we can shift the trend here, and we can also let them be the canaries in the coal mine, meaning that for occupations beyond tech, we might be able to not let it reach as high levels as tech.

We just need to make the effort; we need to understand that our jobs are no longer purely centered around people. We need to understand tech; we need to understand how it impacts people, and we need to do it fast.

Read all tips on Lenny’s page for what to do if you are an employer and do them.
And when you double down on leadership, make sure you choose a vendor that knows about AI. Not only “oh we’ve tried Copilot”.

Your leadership vendor must have deep, thorough knowledge of AI and what you can and cannot do with it, because this is the tech impacting your people.

I can not stress this enough.
Choose your vendor carefully, and I’ll be happy to give second opinions for free if you need any. Just shoot me an email.

Puh. Got a bit agitated here, but I’m mainly just saddened by this; we should and can do better. We need to.