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New Week, New Headlines: Project 2025's Impacts to Workers & There's a Happiness Gap at Work
Topic #1: Project 2025's Impacts to Workers: unpacks the conservative Project 2025 agenda and its potential ramifications for the Department of Labor and US workers. We tackle the intricate implications of a conservative policy proposal aimed at bolstering American workers and families. This segment raises thought-provoking questions about deregulation, union power, and the elimination of DEI mandates. We highlight specific changes like modifications to overtime pay and the contentious proposal to link time-and-a-half pay to working on the Sabbath, scrutinizing how these shifts could transform the American workplace.
Topic #2: There's a Happiness Gap at Work: Mel's talking about the happiness gap and what we can do about it, given Fast Company's article, "There's a Happiness Gap at Work, Here's What We Learned From Leaders in Finland and Denmark - the Happiest Countries in the World". Purpose and trust emerge as central themes in our discussion on workplace dynamics. With a McKinsey report revealing that 70% of employees find their jobs define their sense of purpose, we address the growing gap between executives and frontline workers. Practical tips for leaders to foster purpose and trust are shared, from initiating meaningful dialogues about workplace purpose to ensuring equitable access to high-profile projects.
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
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God, what a buzzkill conversation. Oh, I know.
Speaker 2:I know Nice Francesca Jeez.
Speaker 1:It's August Mel.
Speaker 2:It is August and I feel like, man, the summer's flown by and I haven't done shit. I mean I've done shit, but like, I mean like go to the beach starting at 7 am With a good book and a little stereo and like a solid Italian sub.
Speaker 1:Do you call them subs or hoagies? In Pennsylvania we used to call them hoagies. What's Connecticut?
Speaker 2:A sub Sub, not a hoagies in Pennsylvania we used to call them hoagies. What's Connecticut? A sub sub, not?
Speaker 1:a hoagie, yeah, or grinder. I don't know if you haven't had your pinnacle summer moment. Whatever that for you, you have to have it now, like in the next week. I'm giving everyone a deadline, mel, and next time we be, yes, it's a grinder in, I mean not, you know, when you're just sitting, you're like eating watermelon just staring at the waves.
Speaker 2:That's what I need. That's what. I need in my life. How about you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know where the hell this summer has been. All of a sudden I was like how the fuck is it August? How the fuck is it August?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I saw this meme that was like January, february, march, april, may, june, july, august, like that's exactly how this feels.
Speaker 1:Pretty much. Well, this summer we've been doing a lot on Fishbowl, talking about the seven deadly work sins, but what we stopped doing was new week, new headlines, and you and I have been itching to get back into talking about the news.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've had a ton of personal sidebar conversations. We got to get back, we got to talk about this, we got to talk about this.
Speaker 1:So we are back with new week, new headlines. Mel, what are you talking about today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm talking about a Fast Company article that came out called there's a Happiness Gap at Work no kidding. And here's what we learned from leaders in Finland and Denmark the happiest countries in the world. Ooh, I like it. We just want to be supportive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or happier, I should say.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am talking about Project 2025. And if this policy gets enacted, what happens to workers? Ooh bummer.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:By the way, we did not know what we were going to talk about. So the fact that you're talking about happiness, I'm like we're all going to die.
Speaker 2:To be fair, I'm talking about the happiness gap, because there's a big one. So, I guess we're both a little bummer but I do have some tips to provide.
Speaker 1:All right, Get us out of the pit of despair, let's do it US. We're in a presidential election season and it's largely been regarded that the Republican agenda is the conservative agenda, and one of the things that has taken place over the last several years is something called Project 2025. That has taken place over the last several years is something Project 2025. It's written by the Heritage Foundation and it's a conservative agenda about what the Republican Party wants to do from day one once they get into office. This thing is 900 pages, 30 plus chapters, and what they're really doing here is talking about wanting to restructure the executive branch agenda. They want to reduce federal regulations and they want to implement conservative policies and a whole bunch of things like defense, economy, social welfare and work, and so I thought, all right. Francesca Light read.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're a total mess. Don't say you weren't doing anything for your summer reading list.
Speaker 1:No, you know, I popped open this bad boy, but here's what I wanted to know primarily. I didn't read all of it because I don't want to read 900 pages of conservative agenda, but what I did do is look at what do they plan to do with the Department of Labor that largely regulates work experiences and work environments in the United States. So I read the Department of Labor, chapter 18, pages 581 through 617. And what I want to do is pluck out for everyone six things that made me go, because they're largely different than where we are today. I would love to hear what you think about them, want everyone else to know about them.
Speaker 1:But before I do, if you'll indulge me, I'd love to read the opening chapter of this. It is three sentences long, so please put on your long form hat, but this gives you the ethos as to what these policy changes would be. May I read it, mel, go for it. Okay, here we go. At the heart of the conservative promise is the resolve to reclaim the role of each American worker as the protagonist in his or her own life, to restore the family as the centerpiece of American life. That promise is twofold Give workers support they need for rewarding well-paying and self-driven careers and restore the quote-unquote family-supporting job as the centerpiece of the American economy. The Judeo-Christian tradition stretching back to Genesis has always recognized fruitful work as integral to human dignity, as service to God, neighbor and family, and Americans have long been known for their work ethic Continues after that, but that, I think, is going to give you a sense of where they're going to go with the policy Mel. Any immediate reactions to that?
Speaker 2:Yes, there's a lot of words, a lot of words, not a lot of substance. In that, I also am a little concerned around bringing religion into policy. Yeah, so curious to see what they have to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is always interesting to me when we have a separation of church and state constitutionally in the Bill of Rights. That's a big thing, and yet we keep talking about God and Christianity all over the place, like you're either pro-business or you're pro-religion. I don't understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just I'm curious why that's even a part of the conversation Doesn't need to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd much rather it be clean, like listen, we're pro-business, pro-business for everything, right.
Speaker 2:Also, I feel like a lot of the words that they're using have too much room for different interpretations, like fruitful work. What does that mean? How are they defining fruitful work? How are they defining family?
Speaker 1:It's interesting. Yeah, it definitely gives a little like a handmaid's tale to me. It gives a little handmaid's tale, a lot of. I don't know if it's a little, it's giving handmaid's tale. Okay, so here are the six things that I plucked out. And here's the reason why I plucked these out, friends, is because when you look at policy, it's really important to look at what is the policy that the federal government, state government, puts into place, because your HR organization, first and foremost, their job is to make sure that their company is legal beagle as it relates to labor policy. So if these things go through, that means that your HR team is going to start flipping your company to do this. Just FYI, if you're wondering why I'm looking at the Department of Labor, it's because these are the laws that HR teams need to put in place.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Okay. So here's number one big deregulation initiatives. So we're going to do things like reduce regulations, eliminating or scaling back various labor regulations considered burdensome to business that's quote unquote such as things like OSHA standards, which are making sure that you know companies and factories are safe for workers and not chopping our jobs and we draw our regulations Kind of fascinating. Right Two is union influence. So we're going to limit union power, reducing the influence of unions in the workplace, including revising rules around union elections and collective bargaining. There's a pretty massive uptick in unions right now and a lot of that is because people are wanting safer work environments, more fair pay. Look at what's going on with the flight attendants right now. Flight attendants have not received a raise in like eight, nine years. I know flight attendants that in their first year of being a flight attendant they had to be on food stamps because they're not getting paid enough. They don't even get paid for boarding time. Delta is the only airline that pays for boarding time.
Speaker 2:Right, it's not required. It's criminal that that's not required. That's insane. They're working.
Speaker 1:They're working, yeah, yeah, a thousand percent, right. So they are working, they are required to be there, but they're not getting paid for it. Unions go in there and hopefully try to make sure that they get fair wages, they get paid, that they can, I don't know, afford to eat. What this is saying is that, no, we're going to scale back their ability to do that. Number three is that we're going to start to repeal any mandated diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Speaker 1:So this is eliminating DEI initiatives within the federal workforce, so that gets completely scrapped, and then repeal requirements for DEI training programs and initiatives, with their big argument here these programs are not based on merit, they're burdensome to business and we need to be merit-based in any kind of policy, any kind of hiring decisions, which is kind of fascinating. These programs are largely being put into place to make sure that we have a fair ground level for everybody. That's what they're trying to do, because without them it doesn't happen. Correct, it doesn't happen. And before workforce development, one of the things that they want to do is start to emphasize the private sector involvement of apprenticeship programs and take out any kind of federal support of those programs. So we're going to take out the federal budget for it and incentivize private companies to do that.
Speaker 2:I mean private companies could go right ahead and do that now.
Speaker 1:They absolutely could, and there are private companies that are doing it.
Speaker 2:And the government already offers some incentive for that, and there's a lot of structure around that. So that's what are they changing Exactly?
Speaker 1:Yeah, number five this is what they're calling pro-family, refocusing labor regulation on the good of the family. This is part of revising labor standard rules around overtime pay and minimum wage. What they want to do is make it more flexible and less restrictive for business. Two examples of this that I plucked out, that I was like, if you're a leader, if you're a worker, if you are somebody that runs a business, these again would be things that make me go. One is that they want to require that workers be paid time and a half for hours worked on the sabbath how about just paying workers time and a half when they work over 40 hours per week?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, Tying it to religion again. I think it's just. That's a dangerous precedent and you're incentivizing religion.
Speaker 1:Or are you pro-Christianity, judeo-christian Right? Because this move is not really pro-business at all. Absolutely not. This is pushing Sunday church Mm-hmm Right. The other one that I thought was really, really interesting was that they want to make overtime experiments more flexible. Employers and employees should be able to set a two or four week period over which to calculate overtime. Hear me out on this one. Right now, overtime is calculated that any hours worked over 40, you're going to get time and a half if you meet a certain economic threshold and if you're hourly right, which is great. I'm all for it. And because Mel and I I know we've talked about this like livable wage, not a minimum wage, but a livable wage. So time and a half, all for it, any hours during a week over 40. What this is basically saying is at the most extreme here. In this example, your employee could say we need you to work 160 hours without getting any overtime. Yeah, no, because they're resetting the threshold.
Speaker 2:Going back to their original mission statement that you started with. How is this actually supporting any worker here versus business owners?
Speaker 1:They are saying that this would give workers greater flexibility to work more hours in one week if they wanted to. Most workers want to do this. No, they don't the last one on here, just to keep in mind too, because this is actually massive impacts for any kind of visa requirements too. But they're going to want to pull back and almost completely phase out H-2A and H-2B visas, and so that's basically folks that come to this country to work on an H-2A visa that's largely agricultural. By the way, 222,000 people last year worked on that kind of visa.
Speaker 1:They're massive implications to our economy if we phase that out. And the other is H-2B, which is non-agricultural, seasonal work. We want to phase both. Phase that out. And the other is H2B, which is non-agricultural, seasonal work. We want to phase both of these out. And most economists will say that this is going to really affect things like prices and GDP growth and everything else, because, at the end of the day, immigration and having workers come from all different places actually makes our economies duper, duper strong, even in corporate America. Right, interesting Again are you pro-business? Are you pro-American? I don't understand why None of these really align with the other.
Speaker 2:No, what's happening?
Speaker 1:No, I'd encourage everybody to go out and read this for themselves. Look at what they want to do with deregulation, with DEI, with things like labor standards as well. It will pretty dramatically change your workers' protections and, quite honestly, it'll make the workplace feel a lot more like Hobby Lobby. What a buzzkill conversation. Oh, I know.
Speaker 2:I know Nice Francesca Jeez. Well, I would say my topic's not much better, but it does end, I think, on a positive note, with some actions that could going back to thriving business and thriving people together in harmony.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm gonna talk about, all right? So, as I mentioned, fast Company had an article called there's a Happiness Gap at Work. Here's what we learned from leaders in Finland and Denmark the happiest countries in the world, written by Tiffany Danko and Susan Vrahman, and I'll link to this article in the show notes. Francesca, you and I have read this in the past the World's happiness report, right? So for the first time in history of the world's happiness report, the US dropped below the happiest 20 countries. I mean, come on, we got project 2025. Surprise, surprise. I wonder why that? Jesus, all right. So look, one of the things that came out of this article is that 70% of employees say that their jobs directly define their sense of purpose. Now, francesca, you and I talk about this a lot like self-worth tied to your work, right, and the heaviness of that.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go talk in therapy for that. What are you talking?
Speaker 2:about, aren't we all? We're always working on this and the dangers right of how that is, but it makes sense. You spend the majority of your waking hours at work, so of course you're going to look for purpose within how you're spending your time. Why? Because time is the one commodity you can never get back. You can make a ton of money, you can lose a lot of money, you can always make more money, but time once it's gone, it's gone. It's gone, right, yeah. So again, 70% of employees say their jobs define their sense of purpose, and that was according to a McKinsey report on people in org performance. What does that mean? It matters, and leaders play an important role in supporting their people and finding meaning and purpose in their work.
Speaker 2:What the McKinsey report gets right here is that purpose, not just another corporate initiative. You can't mandate this and we've experienced that, right, francesca? When an org's tried to mandate purpose or meaning or well-being, it never works out right. It's got to be baked into your culture. It's got to be baked into your systems, your policies, your core values, and what that means for each business is different. We're not saying this is like spread like peanut butter. Everyone does the same thing aligns with your core values as a business. And there's a great visual in the McKinsey report and I'll link to that too in the show notes which shows the relationship between an individual's purpose and their work. They noted 85% of executives and upper management said they're living their purpose at work, but only 15% of frontline managers and frontline employees agreed that's a huge gap.
Speaker 1:I mean not surprising, it's a huge, huge gap. And I also think once you get at a certain level A, you're getting paid really freaking well mostly. So you feel like, honestly, it's almost like when people become famous and they're like oh, I was meant to be like this. Oh, this is absolutely. This is for me, right. I can understand how you might be equating status income with purpose potentially and conflating that. I also think, quite honestly, it sucks to be on the front lines these days. It is one of the hardest fucking jobs to be a frontline manager these days, period.
Speaker 2:It sucks, right. You're bookended between cultures, generations, the weight of the world, and you have one of the most important jobs caring for people, yeah, while also meeting business goals. That is one of the toughest jobs out there. Scarier stat that they had in here Okay, so that 15% of frontline managers and employees agreed that they're living their purpose at work, but nearly half of employees actually disagreed with that statement.
Speaker 1:That's bad, that's really bad, that's really bad.
Speaker 2:Right, there's also a huge trust gap happening. I covered this last week in a little green screen, but Gartner's leadership vision 2024 report, which covers all of the top things that CHROs are thinking about. One of the things is this unsettled employee-employer relationship, and there were four things really impacting that. But the thing that stood out to me the most was the trust gap 63% of employers trust their employees, while only 53% of employees trust their employer, and this gap is continuing to widen. Purpose at work and trust are the two biggest indicators of happiness.
Speaker 1:I mean think about the last year, though primarily in the United States, for example, right, we have had a rash of layoffs from every size company in every single industry, for the most part maybe besides healthcare, right and that alone, I think, has eroded massive trust. Just that action, the way organizations have potentially even handled the aftermath as well. I understand why we're on a decline from that. But I also think organizations probably don't do a very good job of even without the layoffs, which I think would exacerbate the shit out of this. I don't think they do a very good job of fostering purpose or trust. I think they kind of. I'm sure some orgs do, but I think most orgs don't really know how to do this.
Speaker 2:They don't know how to do it or they just rely. They don't give leaders within the org, so those frontline managers, for example, the tools, the resources for how to build these microcultures that align with the larger culture. There's not a lot there. Purpose and trust core to an individual's happiness. According to that Fast Company article, trust is an essential element that contributes to happiness. The impacts of those who are less satisfied with their purpose at work and lack of trust reported lower than average work and life outcomes, including things like reduced feelings of energy and life satisfaction, lower health rates and lower resilience overall, because they're just kind of numb right. Trust is noted as being a key driver of shared prosperity and cohesive societies, and the article notes trust is perhaps the most vital form of capital that leaders have today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I believe that you know. Somebody asked me the other day what was my best work experience and, reflecting back on it, what made it the best work experience is because I believed that my leader had my back. I trusted that I was in a safe environment. I trusted her and I trusted that she had my back. And that let me focus on the work and not fear, not wonder what did that mean, where did that go? And all the rumination you go through. I believe that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing Lack of purpose and trust translate to worse outcomes for business overall. But there are steps as an org that you can take to prioritize this as part of your culture, especially when it comes down to behaviors of leaders and systems that support that. Then they'll begin to reap benefits. Harvard Business School they did research called the power of trust. Companies in the top quartile of trust achieved 20% higher market capitalization growth on average.
Speaker 1:I'll take it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, look, there's tons of research out there to show if you treat your people right, guess what it's good for business. I don't know how many times we got to say it.
Speaker 1:Well, and you and I. You and I are. You know we're talking to people all this time, and one of the things I find fascinating about this is we know the speed of business, the complexity of business is getting faster and harder, and so every leader in every organization. I need my people to be more resilient. Well, if you need that, then what I'm hearing you say is that then you need to be cultivating trust.
Speaker 2:Purpose within your organization. So what they, the authors of this article, met with business, academic and government leaders in Finland and Denmark, the two top happiest countries in the world about how enacted values impact workplace happiness, and there were two big takeaways here, Hmm. One, those leaders walk the talk and two, they lead through transparency, equity and candor.
Speaker 1:It's too bad that SHRM just got rid of equity. Go ahead, don't get me started.
Speaker 2:Stupid. Transparency for both of these countries begins at the tippity top, For example, Finland. Once their president is sworn in, they resign from their political party to show that they represent the entire country, removing any allegiance to one group, which ultimately removes distrustful feelings like skepticism of hidden agendas.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine like a Republican or a Democrat gets into office and then they just totally?
Speaker 2:wish. It's like a dream, right yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like why not? Yeah, you know, you hear, well, I'm the president for everybody.
Speaker 2:You're committing at that point to show I am here for everyone and I'm going to meet in the middle. I'm going to find common ground, what works, what works for most right? Denmark has the lowest perception of corruption in the public sector. Overall, they noted, both countries demonstrate what they call the Nordic leadership model of high trust, low corruption, like completely ripping the corrupt. Anything that can lead to corruption, rip it out immediately and they prioritize treating everyone with dignity and care, and that from the government level ripples down through organizations within both of these countries. They highlighted the company Aon, where the emphasis is on someone before something.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that, that's one of their core values and it's rippled throughout the organization. Right, I'm like that should really be the slogan for everybody Just being a good human being? And at Lego, all employees have a flex security model for their health and wellbeing and global play days that reinforce the company's core values, which are fun, imagination and creativity. The common denominator that they found across government and each of these companies is they enacted their corporate core values while also emphasizing trust, transparency and support of workers at all levels.
Speaker 1:Yeah, huge right. Who is co-founder for OpenOrg and he's leading. He and his team are leading the way on thinking about how do you really create transparent, trustful organizations, and one of the things that strikes me in what you just said, and what he said as well, is that you don't need to be everything to everybody and share everything, but what you need to be is representative of who you say you are and make sure that that ripples down. Like if you say you're about play and fun and care, then I need to see that rippled throughout the way your leaders perform, the way that you show up in your policies organizationally, yada, yada, yada. Right, that's all this is, but we don't do this, as a lot of times, organizations don't do.
Speaker 2:Right. It's going back to those two things they're walking the talk right and they're building trust and transparency and candor. And so I'm gonna cover candor, because the other element here was around continuous and constructive feedback as a two-way street, which really encourages psychological safety and the ability for everybody to let their guard down to improve a product or a process, and together. So it isn't just a directive coming from the top, it's we're in this together and look if your org isn't doing this, because, as we all know, sometimes you can't wait for your org to walk the talk. You can't wait for your org to support this at a higher level. So, as a leader, there are things that you can start to embed within your team today, in those day-to-day systems and processes, to ensure you're building this microculture that does support trust, transparency and the value of the voice of your people. So I have four tips that you can take today and just kind of run with right One start a regular dialogue with your team, providing that space to reflect on what's valued, space to provide straightforward feedback, without judgment, a safe place for people to say, hey, I think that kind of sucks and they're not going to get reprimanded for that. That matters. So start that dialogue with your team. It can't just be you saying this is great. What do they think? Do they believe that and if not, why and how can it be better? Number two is share your own purpose with your team. What brings you purpose in the workplace? What do you value and ask others about what brings them purpose? Work to help them achieve it, but tell them how they're helping you achieve your purpose as well. People want to hear that they're contributing to your growth and purpose as well. So think about that as, again, it's a two-way street Role model the vulnerability as a leader, creating psychological safety for others.
Speaker 2:Francesca, you and I talk about this all the time. When layoffs happens, don't use the canned messaging from your organization. Necessarily, sure, legally, you don't want to go so far off script and blah, blah, blah, but acknowledge you don't like this, I don't like this either. Be vulnerable, be a human being to your people. And then, last but not least, providing equitable access to high profile work. This is a huge one. A recent HBR article noted not having access to high profile work. Work that gets you promoted, work that gets you visibility, is one of the key reasons people leave an organization, and attrition is expensive folks.
Speaker 1:I've been guilty of this and I've also been on teams where you're like what the frick right? Which is? How did you get that, or it's going to the same person all the time or the same people, because as a leader, you know they can get shit done. And what I would argue with what you're saying is sometimes that's conscious, sometimes that's subconscious, but your job as a leader is to make sure that you're spreading the wealth on those things, and every time I've done that, by the way, I have been pleasantly surprised, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Like I, I think about this all the time. You've seen it, you've experienced it, and I've done it as a leader too, unintentionally right. The HBR article noted two things that I thought were really helpful here. One making sure there is equal distribution of office housework. So what do I mean by that? All the administrative bullshit that you just tack on to random people? Are you dumping it on one person to take notes in meetings? Are you deferring to women?
Speaker 2:Are you deferring to people of color? Who are you deferring to to do the housework tasks of the team? Pay attention and are you taking on? As a leader? You should be taking on the housework too. Equal distribution of the housework. And then number two was starting to track allocation of career enhancing work versus non-promotable assignments over. They noted over a six month period. I think you can do that in 30 days. I think you can do that in 60 days. Track it, test it, don't change anything for 30 days, just assign like you normally would when this stuff comes up, and at the end take a look back and see where your gaps are, where your biases are, where you need to make a change. And I think, francesca, to your point, asking yourself the question who have I not tapped into and why? And might they be good for this?
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, so those are four things, as a leader, you can start to do today to start to build purpose and trust in the workplace, which ultimately is going to increase happiness, which ultimately is going to help the bottom line of the business. So interesting stuff.
Speaker 1:They're pretty pro-family over there too, Don't they give people a year mom's maternal and paternity leave? They do.
Speaker 2:They do. They have some really nice family leave policies which supports that major life event for both parents. So that you can succeed.
Speaker 1:Sounds like it's very pro-family, very pro-family. I see what you're doing there Going full circle, little Seinfeld effect. All right, love it, love to see it. Thanks so much for joining us today. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriendscom. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends. Thanks, Brad.