Hot-desking means people don’t have a familiar, stable location in the office. 24/7 operation requires people to be available at all times of the day or night.

Despite all the changes employees consistently say they need and want the same things. In common across all generational cohorts — Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z — two fundamentals are consistent in the top three attributes employees expect from an organisation. The want ethical leadership and an organisation that cares about their employees’ well-being.

What employees are saying when they endorse ethics and well-being is twofold; they want to feel psychological safety at work, and they want to belong to a collective endeavour that they respect and believe in.

Employers often lose sight of how to embody these ideals. Instead they focus on a bewildering array of initiatives; mission and value statements on posters throughout the campus, away days, yoga classes, mindfulness sessions, reward programmes, perks, and any number of latest and greatest ideas that the HR team have alighted upon.

Psychological safety and belonging emerge from a culture that fundamentally respects, listens, rewards and challenges employees.

When the culture is good employees talk about the company using “we” rather than “they”. That sense of safety and belonging goes a long way to ease the constant pressure and change.

In the maelstrom of day-to-day activity, as the demands of technological change outpace workplace practices and policies, it is easy to get distracted. If a company wants to help their employees, they need to consider everything they are doing by asking the question “How does this contribute to psychological safety and belonging?”

The things a company needs to do the ease the pressures on employees are not rocket science. They are based on the fundamentals of human relating:

Listen to employees and communicate clearly

Companies must listen to their employees and show this by acting on the feedback. Communication creates connection and connection creates belonging and psychological safety. In today’s fast-paced world, sending a staff survey at the end of the year, taking three months to analyse the data, and then actioning a small number of items with great fanfare, is not going to suffice.

The best companies will become more sophisticated about monitoring the pulse of employee sentiment and issues. Online surveys and dashboards facilitate short, sharp, rolling questionnaires that gauge the cultural temperature every month or two. Keep the question “How can we do better?” to the fore. Issues will surface quickly, and visible, active responses will create a sense of connection throughout the company.

Create opportunities for growth

Make career paths clear and offer employees the opportunity to work towards new goals. A 2019 survey showed that 92pc of employees think having access to professional development is important, second only to compensation. Employees need to feel challenged but supported at the same time. Training must offer something that is useful on a day-to-day basis in a person’s job, or else it must contribute clearly to career development. Tick-box training exercises are demotivating and reduce engagement.

Create a culture of appreciation

When employees feel their peers and managers respect them, efficiency and outcomes improve. Employee recognition schemes must be authentic. Too often they fall flat because they are seen as top-down, and as only rewarding the elite, or else seen as an empty gesture that fails to appreciate the individuality and particular contribution of the employee. Get creative, but remember the goal is to recognise individuals, not to have a slick rewards initiative. Consider peer-to-peer recognition and remember that management recognition can be ad hoc as well as formal.

Respect boundaries

Psychological safety depends on knowing that our boundaries will be respected. In our 24/7 always-on world employees must be allowed to say no, to switch off, and take a break from work.  Employers who adopt a culture of respecting employee’s boundaries will have happy employees who are willing, when required, to take on extra challenges. As technology becomes ever more pervasive respect for boundaries will grow in importance.

Focus on leadership

Google Ireland has performed very impressively in the Sunday Independent/Statista list, taking top spot. Elsewhere, though, the company has been slipping. Up until 2019 Google was consistently ranked in the top 10 in global surveys of ‘best places to work’. But in the last two years it has dropped significantly, particularly in the US. Its day-to-day work practices have not changed. The difference is in their employees’ perception of the leadership. An internal poll showed that employees were concerned about the senior management team’s ability to successfully lead the company into the future.

Humans feel psychologically safe when they believe their leaders are on top of the situation. A leader doesn’t have to have all the answers, but a leader must inspire confidence in their employees, while also retaining approachability and trustworthiness. This extends down the chain of command. A US study showed that for 93pc of employees, trust in their direct boss was essential to staying satisfied at work. 50pc of employees said that they would turn down a 10pc pay increase to stay with a great boss.

Be clear about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

As Gen Z enters the workplace in greater numbers, companies must concentrate on DEI. Gen X and Baby Boomers prioritise financial stability and Millennials want to see open and transparent leadership. Gen Z want to know that organisations are diverse and inclusive of all people. For this generation, lip service to DEI will not be good enough; it must be a core pillar in the company culture. In Irish companies where the leadership tends to be quite homogeneous, a thoughtful focus on DEI is required.

Iseult White is a management consultant, executive coach and psychotherapist