How do we create better work in the not-for-profit sector?
Elliot Bidgood comments on key lessons from our recent Foundation event on people management, including wellbeing for homeworkers, steps the sector must take on inclusion and the prospect of automation
At the start of 2020, the EP Foundation launched our ‘Future of Work’ programme with an event exploring megatrends in the social sector. Since then the working world has been turned upside down, accelerating many of the trends we discussed in January and creating new ones altogether, and we explored many of these in our event in November on people management, which brought together stakeholders from across the social sector in discussion with a panel of three sector leaders. These are big questions, but I drew four key lessons from this latest discussion.
1. Many expect a long-term shift to homeworking, but there are reasons for caution
When we polled our event guests, 91% said they expected a long-term shift to working from home and one noted how some charities are dispensing with offices altogether to save on costs. However, Professor Emma Parry of the Cranfield School of Management was more cautious, noting that experiences of homeworking in lockdown can differ and there can be differences in perspective between employer and employee. For example, she shared that she had personally enjoyed homeworking and found 64% of our Zoom attendees felt that homeworking was generally good for wellbeing, but people’s living arrangements and caring responsibilities at home can vary widely. A few guests noted how the lines between work and life can become blurred and, at the extreme end, we must be aware some staff have no respite from violence at home.
75% of our audience also reported their workplace had a wellbeing policy and a set of practical measures to implement it, but this is not a universal experience - an Institute for Employment Studies survey earlier in the year suggested there was a widespread lack of proper processes and risk assessments by employers. An HR officer from a prominent education charity reported that their youngest staff, often renting rooms and lacking home offices, have required crisis support, while a specialist in the NGO sector warned many organisations he worked with have not invested in the technology necessary to make a proper transition to effective homeworking. Many workplaces are still finding out how to manage performance and maintain peer relationships in this new world, and Emma warned we will ultimately have to learn to trust staff even when we can’t see them.
2. Charity managers can lead by example on wellbeing, but can also need help themselves
Jules Hiller, who leads the charity Pause but also worked with ACEVO on mental health and wellbeing in the sector, emphasised the importance of an environment where staff have “permission not to be okay” when they are not their best selves. Notably, she described how she emailed all Pause staff asking them to join her in carving out time in the day to go for a walk as the days become shorter and darker, eliciting a good response from staff who had felt the same but had not yet asked. This shows how managers have the power to open up conversations in their organisations, encouraging good wellbeing practices from the top-down.
However, Jules also warned that not all charity trustees fully understand the importance of mental health and wellbeing. This is bad in terms of ensuring that it is accounted for in organisational governance, but can also be personally challenging for chief executives struggling with the unique burden of leading entire organisations at a time of unprecedented change (St John Ambulance chief executive Martin Houghton-Brown talked about having to make and explain “lonely decisions” in a recent interview). One board chair attending the event reported that the mental health of their CEO had become their primary focus during 2020, while other charity chief executives have shared how they have come to rely on their peer networks, using other chief executives as both a sounding board for ideas and a personal coping mechanism.
3. Charities don’t have an inherent edge on diversity and inclusion
We were also joined by Amie Buhari of the Hebe Foundation, who spoke about both the work Hebe does engaging young people in south London and the broader issues the sector has with inclusion. Strikingly, she noted that only one of the top five Inclusive Companies in the UK is in the not-for-profit sector (Leeds health charity Touchstone Support - as a provider of many Black and Minority Ethnic services, Touchstone commit to sharing their “resources, knowledge and position of influence with smaller, grass roots organisations”). Others recognised among the top 50 included Mind, Community Links Northern, Calico Group and Changing Lives, but the list is heavy with public and private bodies. This is sadly not out of kilter with broader data - in 2018, ACEVO found that only 9% of voluntary sector employees were from BME backgrounds, compared to 11% in both the private and public sectors.
Amie also confronted an elephant in the room in conversations about diversity - that BME people are 13.8% of the population and this can lead to the issue being pigeon-holed as a “minority issue”, when conversations instead need to start from first principles about equality and quality of life (other guests reacted that this approach would be of one of their key takeaways). She warned that 2/3rds of tech sector leavers cited poor work culture and a lack of voice as a reason for their change, but this remains a common experience in other sectors as well, including charities. It is difficult to overcome these issues with staff "if you don't know their story" and engage with them as individuals, she suggested, while learning their strengths would enable workplaces to empower marginalised staff through delegation.
Amie also talked about how employers must be aware of when the twin hot-buttons of diversity and homeworking overlap, as BME staff can have specific factors in their home lives that must be accounted for. This can include the presence of extended families, tech challenges in low-income communities, and different approaches to personal communication.
4. Expectations are mixed about the impact of automation
“Factory jobs will go, but personal jobs will still remain”, one guest suggested – this was reinforced by Emma Parry, who suggested that those involving hands-on people skills or creative thinking that cannot easily be replicated may be more protected from automation. This includes management roles and care work (the latter is significant, both because of the public recognition they’ve earned this year but also the large share of the voluntary sector workforce they make – as many as 37% according to the NCVO).
Our guests likewise split 50-50 on whether they expected large-scale job losses by 2030 due to automation, likely reflecting these nuances. However, this may not be of comfort to those potentially impacted within the social sector, such clerical staff. This raises challenges for the education system to its game on digital literacy and create opportunities, a commenter joining us from the tech sector warned. Charities interested in the school system and life chances could be at the forefront of creating the campaigning pressure for this to take place - the Edge Foundation has focused on this in recent years, for example.
Elliot Bidgood works as Communications Manager for the Eastside Primetimers Foundation