Secretly Happy: Why AI Won't Give You a Four-Hour Week

[00:00:05] Welcome to Frequency, I'm Chuck Gose. And I'm Jenni Field. Frequency is your go-to for real talk about comms, culture and employee experience, beyond the buzzwords and straight to what matters. And this week we're talking about why AI won't lead to a four-hour workweek, an internal comms satisfaction survey that's been around for around 10 years, some new culture research from Bink, and why a Zen pic is causing weird work conversations.

[00:00:32] Before we get into that, Jenni, I want to talk about some nerdy labor stuff that I saw that just got announced. So if you're listening to this on the Monday of the week, it was just the Friday before, that the U.S. announced a total number of job losses to the economy of 23,000 jobs lost. That then factors into a revision of previous months that have now found another hundred plus thousands. Wow.

[00:01:02] Jobs lost. Which really just shows, I mean, anybody who I'd say is probably in the job market actively looking is probably like, yeah, no kidding. We see that every single day. But I was curious if that similar type things are happening in the U.K. So interestingly, I was having lunch today with a recruiter, a chap called Andrew Holland, who runs comms leaders. And we were talking a little bit about the market and he was saying it's actually moving in the right direction. That's in just our little comms bubble.

[00:01:32] But he was seeing quite a big shift in that, I think, in the last year. I haven't had a look at the stats recently in terms of the job market here, because there's just been a lot of talk about the unemployed people coming out of work. That's population. There's still a lot of talk about that over here. Young people not getting into work, young people not getting jobs. There's also a lot of talk over here about the sort of middle aged female worker not being able to get work.

[00:01:57] But I haven't looked at the stats to know whether there's anything significant across the board. It just seems to be certain pockets of demographics that are struggling over here. Yeah. The other number they shared, which is a number I was not really familiar with, which is this term labor force participation rate. And typically the U.S. was around like a good number is like mid 63 percent somewhere. Apparently that was right pre pandemic.

[00:02:24] And then the number obviously collapsed in during the pandemic was now at sixty one point four percent. Meaning that is the of the available labor force. That is what people the percentage of people that are actively working. That is now dropping down to about just a little bit post just a little bit like right after the pandemic. Not that low, but it's trending that direction. That is how rough it is as we are not trending back towards the pandemic levels.

[00:02:54] And then people like the point of though they're like, oh, but the unemployment rate also declined, which those numbers you would think wouldn't work together. But all that's pointing out is the unemployment rate that decline because people just stop looking. So they're not actively in the unemployment system. They're not submitting information. They're not saying they're looking for jobs. So it's it's not great here. And I know that anyone in that job market would would echo that. And they're like, yes, we are experiencing that.

[00:03:24] But but I don't know that people realize the numbers of this and truly what a bad spot the U.S. economy is, despite what the administration keeps trying to tell you from a true employment standpoint. It's just not good. It seemed like most mainstream economies are somewhere in those mid 60s. Like I looked at the UK was around sixty to sixty three percent. OK, so you might think, oh, that's not a big deal. It's one one percent. Well, one percent is millions of people. Yeah.

[00:03:53] It's millions of people that are now not participating in the workforce. I just thought those numbers were quite sobering to see those come out. Yeah. Well, and it also links us nicely to the first story we're talking about today, which is that four hour work weeks won't happen. So even if you do get back to work there, the joy that we thought was coming of four hour work weeks apparently aren't coming. And that's according to Sam Altman, because he's saying that people are competitive.

[00:04:17] He was speaking on Time Wars is relentless podcast where he argued that A.I. won't deliver the long promised four hour work week, even as it dramatically boosts productivity. His reasoning isn't about technology. It's psychological. So Altman argues that rising expectations and competition will keep people working, even as A.I. becomes cheaper and more available. He framed it as a status game rather than a labor problem.

[00:04:40] He said people are very focused on how they're doing relative to other people rather than banking productivity gains as leisure. He said that as people become more productive, they will also become more competitive and want to work more. Now, notably, this contrasts with Elon Musk's prediction that advanced A.I. could make jobs optional and money less important. Of course, he'd feel that as a billionaire. So there was a real split there among some of those A.I. leaders on what abundance actually does to work.

[00:05:10] Altman's closing line was I think we're all going to be much busier than we thought we were supposed to be in a post super intelligence world. We're still going to complain about it, but secretly we're going to be happy. Now, Chuck, Altman's framing puts the blame for longer hours on human nature. So our competitiveness, our relative status stuff, all those things, rather than the employer decisions or economic structures. Do you buy that?

[00:05:36] Because it could it just be a convenient story for, you know, the CEO of an A.I. business that shifts responsibility away from companies? Or is it true? Is it actually a human nature problem? This might be, Jenni, the very definition of the word delusional. None of this makes any sense. It just shows how out of touch all of these people are. Sam, Elon, all of them.

[00:06:05] We're struggling with people saying you have to go into the office five days a week and now Sam somehow thinks companies are going to subscribe to a four hour work week. Are you kidding me? It just. I don't want to give this any oxygen like it just doesn't make sense. And then he's putting that blame on people. And I love this part about like even if people complain, just so you know, secretly, it's going to be a secret. It's going to be a secret. You're going to be happy about it.

[00:06:35] Like you, you better be happy about it. It just doesn't. It doesn't make any sense. And when you look at all the data, you can whether you believe in what the organization SHRM is doing or not. They've got their own problems out there. They found some data out there that says that AI is saving employees around six hours a week.

[00:06:56] So we're not even coming close to a four hour work week, but they have found that in those six hours saved, four hours is spent fixing the work that was done. So it's really just a net of two hours, which again, are we really measuring that? This is just it's delusional. So I just want people listening to this. Just don't believe it. Don't believe it. There's a I guess an AI influencer who I see sometimes I think she goes by cat GPT.

[00:07:26] I think is her name. She does this really good thing, which is that you have to have your own experience. Do not listen to the marketing. Do not listen to the PR. You have to define what your own experience is using AI. And this is a further testament to why that is so, so true. Yeah, I am. I like you. I really enjoyed that. You're going to complain about it, but secretly you're going to be happy. It's like what a way to make people work to the death. Just felt really uncomfortable.

[00:07:51] But I also I also do think there is something in this in terms of setting it up for people to feel like here's what you thought you could have. But actually you won't because actually that's not really what you want. So you're going to be having this. Because you know what? It's your fault. Yeah. It's your fault. That's the point. And that's the thing is like you'll make you're setting people up almost to then be like, oh, well, I've created this actually because I'm I want to be busy. I want it just it felt really strange. And to your point, I don't think anyone's expecting there to be a four hour work week.

[00:08:21] I think the trials of the four day week have gone quite well in places, but you have to completely reimagine your organization and structure to do that rather than just try and squeeze everything into four days. Yeah, just I just thought I just thought it was a, you know, don't complain about it because you're really really happy. I think I think what is that Jenny? I'm just secretly happy about this. I think that's what it is. You are. I think that's exactly what it is. I want to take us over now to a bit of an academic piece. So this is a piece I saw on LinkedIn.

[00:08:51] It was shared by Anna Kallik-Vertsch, I hope I've said that right, who shared it on LinkedIn about an internal communication satisfaction questionnaire. Now, Anna is an academic. She works with her colleague Nina Poloski-Vertschuk, and they have been talking about this satisfaction questionnaire. It's called the Internal Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire, ICSQ.

[00:09:14] And in her LinkedIn post, she said this has been around for over a decade, which is what caught my attention because I thought I am not familiar with this. So they published a paper about how they're taking the original questionnaire and making it short form. So I had a read of that paper, which I'm not going to read all of it out now, because that would probably be quite dull for you to listen to. But there were some interesting parts of it, including what this short form satisfaction questionnaire is about.

[00:09:41] And the reason I wanted to bring it here was because I think this provides a really good basis for anyone looking at doing audits around their internal communication or their organizational communication at the moment. One of the things that stood out for me was a quote in the paper where they say that a key limitation of existing internal communication instruments is the absence of a shared conceptual framework.

[00:10:05] Many measures are grounded in differing assumptions about whether internal communication should be understood as a process, a relationship, a structural condition or an evaluative outcome. Now, this has stayed in my brain since I read the paper in terms of how do we think about internal communications in the organization. They also call out the fact that communication satisfaction is one of few internal communication domains that has been studied consistently and measured systematically.

[00:10:32] So focusing on internal communication satisfaction, I think, is probably more important than focusing on the internal communication function and the outputs. Now, the ICSQ was originally designed as a 32 item questionnaire, covers eight different dimensions that looks at things like feedback, communication with your immediate superiors and colleagues. It talks about communication climate, talks about communication in meetings.

[00:10:58] They've basically taken that and made it 13 questions. And we'll share these a bit wider on LinkedIn so that people can see them. But the questions that they're asking are things like how much communication within the organization helps me feel I am an important part of the organization or how much it helps me to identify with the organization or how much the communication promotes organizational values.

[00:11:25] So they're much bigger topics rather than just how often do you read or access the Internet or how often do you turn up to a town hall? So I like this. I think it's very simple. It's 13 questions. It covers a lot of breadth. So my question for you, Chuck, is kind of overall thoughts on this as whether this is useful to adapt. And also, this is from Europe. So I don't know whether there's anything similar in the US or whether this would work in the US market.

[00:11:52] Well, let's go to the second one first because I did my research on this one all the way back in 1977. The communication satisfaction questionnaire was developed at the University of Kansas. So something like this existed now almost 50 years ago here in the US. What happened was that then evolved into or replaced by ENPS. So you can debate whether or not which is more valuable.

[00:12:22] So something like here did exist. I had never heard of it. I'm guessing a lot of others also have not heard of it, but it then switched into ENPS. I think anytime you can get engaged on what you're doing, that's a that's a good thing. The danger or risk, I think, is around satisfaction. Satisfaction doesn't point to impact.

[00:12:50] Satisfaction doesn't point to making a difference. And so you could have an organization that's completely satisfied with your internal comms and yet failing as a business. And so I don't know that those are as well aligned. I also think anytime when you ask a question, how much? That's going to be different. Jenni, when you and I go out to eat, how much we eat, how much we get on our plates?

[00:13:17] It might be the same, but I might need a bit more than you do. Yes. So the how much part is so subjective. I don't know the information. How are people doing this on a numerical scale? Like one? Yeah, it's one to seven, I think. So like does that that's the struggle also like an ENPS is that people when they take those, they might say, yeah, things are great here. I just call it a seven or an eight. Well, in the ENPS world, that's not good. You're actually a detractor.

[00:13:46] So it's always good to evaluate. Is this the perfect solution? I don't think so, because I think I would rather look at impact and effectiveness than satisfaction. And, you know, you you when you said about satisfaction and about impact, it really got me thinking about whether if people are satisfied, does it inherently mean there is impact bubbling around?

[00:14:11] But I also think what's interesting about these 13 questions and the and the and the breadth of this is for me, this goes beyond most internal communication functions. So talking about meetings, talking about how the what was there's a question in here, I'm trying to find it in my notes about the meeting element, like whether or not meetings are well organized or something like that. That's it. How well organized are the meetings I participate in like that is about organizational communication?

[00:14:41] That's not internal communication. And I like the breadth because I feel like I play in that organizational communication space. But if I was an internal comms function looking after channels and campaigns, is this relevant or is this taking me way out of that space? And so I I think I just think it's interesting. But I also enjoy the subjectiveness of it because I think that there is something nice about the reality of the human messiness of communication and the fact that it is subjective.

[00:15:09] And even if you do want to talk about impact in terms of we need to run a campaign to reduce accidents by 60 percent, we can measure that in terms of how many accidents. There are a lot of other things I think that are very subjective in our world that are more linked to the employee experience and the bigger things. And maybe this does give a read on that. That's a better number than employee engagement, for example. And I wonder, though, great segue, because I wonder if this all comes down to numbered results.

[00:15:38] Does this become another score to beat? Does this become another like, oh, you better put a seven? I assume the higher is better in this case. You better, you know, if you're going to put a six, let's figure out why that is. It's like when we go to a like a car repair shop and they're like, hey, we'd love to get your feedback as a five. If it's not a five, let us know, because then we can see what we can do to get that five. I don't know. It's it's never again. It's never bad to understand. I just don't know the validity of it.

[00:16:06] And does this become another score to beat in the organization? No different than engagement numbers or an ENPS. Yeah. And to bring us into the next article, ultimately, this satisfaction survey feels like it's looking more at the broader organizational culture and how the how the organization communicates, which is just way bigger than a comms function.

[00:16:27] And that's the next article, which is the research from Bink, which is their culture at work study where they've explored why workplace culture really breaks down. So the headline finding is that it's not a communication problem. It's a say do gap. No surprise there. Culture isn't shaped by what leaders say they value, but by what they actually reward, tolerate and reinforce.

[00:16:48] The study surveyed 300 culture, communications, HR and strategy professionals and found 91 percent agree the gap between leadership messaging and leadership behavior is one of the most damaging forces inside organizations. A little cheer from me there. The business case is clear to 87 percent said culture has influenced business performance and 84 percent said it's influenced retention. The most interesting finding from an IC culture perspective is the authority gap.

[00:17:15] So 54 percent of respondents say the people responsible for improving culture don't actually have the authority to change the systems that shape it. That's paired with 68 percent agreeing that structural systems matter more than messaging and 78 percent saying employees learn the real culture by watching what senior leaders tolerate, not by reading value statements. There are four things the report calls out just to sort of summarize those, which is that leadership behavior is the strongest signal of culture.

[00:17:42] Culture is reinforced through systems. Culture requires authority, not just accountability. And alignment strengthens organizational performance. Chuck, question. Leadership behavior is the strongest signal of culture. Yes or no? Oh, it's a strong signal. I don't know that it's the strongest signal.

[00:18:07] And I know that a lot of people are going to focus on this 54 percent headline in there. But I think the the number that stood out to me the most is that 14 percent of the people responded said senior leaders view culture as a strategic lever tied to performance. We always point that culture is this performance driver.

[00:18:33] But yet the senior leaders are saying it's not. Like the belief and the data aren't lining up because we say that, oh, my gosh, yeah, culture leads to this. But we actually don't believe that leaders believe that, which I think is an interesting shift. Do you think we don't believe that because of the gap that the report highlights in terms of the behavior that say do gap that we don't believe it because we don't see it? We don't we don't see it from them. So why?

[00:19:03] Why do we think they believe it? Because people follow through with their actions. I think the other part which stood out of our H.R. listeners out there that 18 percent say senior leaders view culture as an H.R. or people initiative. Mm hmm. So I wonder where the other 82 percent see it because they they clearly think it's sits it sits somewhere.

[00:19:27] Someone owns that. It's not a part of who we are. That's someone's responsibility out there. But do you think that I think that's the case with with culture, with comms and engagement is from a leadership perspective. I think a lot of leaders do think, oh, no, that's someone else's problem to solve that culture thing, the communication, the engagement. Yeah, absolutely. Someone else is. And I don't know whether I was going to say blame them, but that sounds unkind.

[00:19:54] But like someone's doing a disservice to leadership training in the masses in terms of what your role is as a leader. If people still think it's not their job, given all of the data points from all different areas, this report, other reports about this gap, the importance of the signal from leaders that they still think it's someone else's problem. Mm hmm. And that points to another data point in there was something more than half.

[00:20:19] I want to say is like 50 plus 55 percent, something like that, said that middle managers are the ones expected to drive culture change when they have no support or no resources. Yeah. And this is also the group that we've talked about in previous episodes that is being eliminated across the organization. So, yes, let's just keep shoving this responsibility further down. It's not our problem. It's not our behaviors that drive it.

[00:20:44] It's on you. Right. It's you be secretly happy about this, but don't actually show it that it's your problem to fix. It is not us. So it's a great way to absolve any sort of responsibility. Let's pile on the people that are already getting piled on. Yeah. And that even better. Let's pile it onto people and then remove them from the organization. Right. So it's just gone away. Which then shifts it further down because they're going to then add that to the next group. Yeah. Yeah. No good comes back. It's a really good report that we'll pop that in.

[00:21:14] So you'll have a link in the show notes for people if they want to grab it. Now, the last story I want to talk about today is a Zen pic causing weird work conversations. This was a piece in Business Insider. It was talking about the GLP-1 weight loss drugs have blurred the workplace's unspoken rule against commenting on colleagues' bodies. Because it reads as a quote unquote medical topic, people feel freer to ask about it, leading to unwanted scrutiny. What's being called as GLP-1 phishing questions and speculation about who's using them.

[00:21:44] It's also creating real friction beyond the social awkwardness in the US. This shared health insurance costs means that GLP-1 coverage decisions affect everyone's premiums, fueling tension between coworkers who want access and those who resent subsidizing it. An employment lawyer notes persistent unwelcome body talk could even edge into hostile work environment territory. But for now, there is no real HR playbook or social norm that's caught up with how common these drugs and the conversations around them have become.

[00:22:15] Chuck, where do you think the responsibility line falls here? Should HR and comms proactively set norms around this the way they might for other sensitive topics? Or is this really a manager training individual boundaries issue that policy just can't solve? Well, I think this is a specific problem here in the US because of the way health insurance works. And I'm going to share a story around this. This is a company I worked at probably about maybe 15 years ago.

[00:22:44] And everybody goes through these benefits meetings where you sit in this meeting and HR is up there doing their dog and pony show about the benefits and selling you on how great it is and how much you're getting out of it. And this very young engineer raises his hand. I'm going to say he's in his mid 20s. And that's the question. He's like, wait a minute. I'm paying the same amount as that guy. He didn't know who that guy was.

[00:23:12] That guy was the COO of the company who was in his early 60s. Who clearly when you're in your 60s, you're going to have theoretically a greater health insurance needs and medical use than say someone who's healthy and 25. That's just the nature of it. But that's also the nature of health insurance is a pooling of resources. Yeah, it's like all of a sudden you're going to point to people having kids and be like, wait, you just had a baby. I'm paying for that person to have a baby.

[00:23:38] Like, yeah, I'm sure people have had that conversation or maybe they've had that thought. This is no different than with GLP one. It's a shared cost. It's a shared responsibility. I think what's interesting to note, I don't remember what bank it was, but I I'm going to let's assume this number is accurate.

[00:23:56] OK, he claims that his bank through benefits spent around 250 million dollars in GLP one medications for their employees. Wow. Massive bank out there. Massive. I think it more shows to the high cost of these drugs drugs than necessarily the people that need it. Yeah. More and more studies keep coming out about the benefits of this far beyond weight loss.

[00:24:25] I know that's how it started, but it's proven that I think there's some cancer reductions and sleep apnea and all these amazing results around it. It just more shows that the profit motivations of the pharmaceutical companies that these are expensive drugs. People are benefiting from this. So for the first time, people are actually truly benefiting from their health insurance. And now it's becoming this calling it out instead of seeing like, wow, what an amazing resource we can now provide our employees.

[00:24:54] I did look this up because I remember seeing this number talked about how much the US Department of Defense spent on erectile dysfunction. It's in the tens of I think it's somewhere between 50 to 100 million dollars. They spent. That's a lifestyle thing. You can say health. Also, yeah, the lifestyle thing. GLP one's the same. Like people just want to lead better lives. Let them lead a better life.

[00:25:24] Yeah, I think it's interesting that the when I was reading the article, there is there is quite a lot in there about the benefits piece in the US. And you're right. It is an issue over there. But when you read this, the stories in the article as well around how people are sitting around having a cup of, you know, having a cup of tea at work or whatever, and someone's lost a lot of weight. And I think it was in this article where this guy was saying that he had overhauled his entire diet and lifestyle at the same time as the GLP ones came out.

[00:25:51] And he'd naturally lost like 20 kilos or something from doing this. And everyone, this is where this GLP one fishing thing, everyone's like convinced that he's on them. So they're like badgering him and saying, oh, you must be there. Go on. You did it. You did it. Didn't you? To the point where he's had to go to HR to say, like, I'm being like harassed now. And people are kind of saying that I'm lying and not telling the truth.

[00:26:13] And that I think is, is also happening across, across different continents, because I do think people are curious and interested. And it's become such a normalized conversation among society because we see it everywhere. But in the workplace, it's really different. And I do think that this is a challenge for HR folks in terms of how you're going to navigate this around people feeling harassed from other people who are curious.

[00:26:41] And I think it's really, I think it's really hard, this bit, because we've never had anything like this, I think, in the workplace where people have been this invested in whether or not someone's taken a drug or whether or not they've just overhauled their lifestyle. And they're not believing people that might have overhauled their lifestyle. Like, that is an attention that's going to create and just feels really messy. Yeah, there is a lot of curiosity around it and discovery around it.

[00:27:09] But I do think this is a chance for, whether it's HR or whether it's company leadership, to just say, hey, people's business is their business. Yeah. If they want to volunteer things and talk about it, like this event that I was at earlier this week, someone made the comment of like, oh, you saw so-and-so. And I was like, yeah, well, she's going to be leaving. She's pregnant. And I'm like, yeah, I could tell.

[00:27:38] But I also know enough not to say anything about that, too. So sometimes you just got to mind your own business. Yeah. On this stuff. And let people have their stuff and choose to share or not share. And yeah.

[00:27:53] And again, whether this person lost their weight through diet and exercise or they lost their weight through the assistance of a GLP-1 and diet and exercise, it's more like, man, what a life-changing situation for that person and millions of other people out there who are like I think about when the GLP-1s first came out. I immediately thought of my father.

[00:28:18] My father struggled with his weight almost his entire life and was trying all these crazy fad diets and trying to do different things. And no matter what he did, he's just a big guy. Yeah. Just how it was and how life-changing these drugs would have been. I mean, it's possible he might even still be here if these drugs had been available. So think about like the longevity this might be able to give people that, yes, it might help them lose weight.

[00:28:46] But what does that weight loss actually help them do beyond just weighing less? Yeah. Yeah. There is something about the natural curiosity of people that I think leads to all sorts of troubles for HR. So I'll be interested to see how HR deal with this and how it differs, to be fair, in terms of what we've talked about, about the US-UK, the benefits angle versus just a hostile work environment, how that plays out across different cultures as well.

[00:29:11] Well, for people that are on my side of the political world, here's a fun little stat that I learned. Please use this in your conversations. The US Department of Defense spends 10 times the amount of money on erectile dysfunction drugs as they do gender affirming care for that community. So keep that in mind. Yeah. We should be spending more time talking about erectile dysfunction than we should transgender military members. So anyway. Oh God, the stats are staggering. Right.

[00:29:41] That brings us to the end of our articles. What are you freaking out about? Well, last week I was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Got to spend time with the Sanford Health team. So thank you, Kara and Erica, for having me out there with the team. While I was there, I visited Startup Sioux Falls, which is a site for our annual flyover festival there. And we are sold out again. Back to back years, we have sold out our employee comms and culture flyover festival. I did a video, like a little walking video as I left the venue.

[00:30:09] And people ask us, like, why are you doing this in Sioux Falls? And our response is, why not? Like, you have to do an event somewhere. So why not do it in a community that values it, that treasures it, that brings new voices and new people to the first time they visited Sioux Falls, South Dakota. So we love doing that. We love being there. We love having it there. It would be a great event. August 27th, sold out. Thanks everybody for supporting the event. Oh, it's exciting. And I love that you're still doing it there.

[00:30:39] Because I think it's, like you said, it's got to be somewhere. So why not there? There's a contingency of people that are actively trying to get me to move it. And I'm just setting the record straight. It's in Sioux Falls. That's just where it is. You'll just have to do more than one a year. That's what's going to happen. Just going to throw that little in there for you. So we both got a little event celebration freak out this week. So I'm hosting Comms Reboot in October in the UK, Friday the 9th of October, which you're coming over for, which is very exciting.

[00:31:08] And we haven't quite sold out. We've still got 55 tickets left. But we finished our early bird ticket sales and I wanted to sell 100 of those and we sold 91. And I was just really pleased that everybody who has bought a ticket has bought a ticket. Because when you hit numbers and you set targets for yourself, as we all know, you just never know whether you're really going to hit them. And it's the fourth time, fifth, sixth time I think I'm doing Comms Reboot now. And I'm just dead excited. I was having a look at the attendee list yesterday. I was talking to some of our sponsors about it.

[00:31:38] And I'm really excited to see loads of internal comms directors, internal comms leads, managers, all sorts of different people coming along from all over the world. So I'm really excited. And we have still got tickets if anyone wants to come. It's on Friday the 9th of October. And I will put a link in the show notes for anyone to grab a ticket. So thank you for joining us this week. We hope that the articles and insights will help you think about how to improve comms leadership and culture in your organization. If you don't yet subscribe or follow, please do as it helps make sure you won't miss an episode.

[00:32:07] And all the links to all of the articles we've mentioned today are in the show notes. You can grab those to read if you want to. We'll be back with you on Monday with more news, insights and opinions about everything comms and leadership in workplaces today. Appreciate you being here with us.