1200 Applications, 450 Interviews and Still No Hire

An Indian tech company recently took to Reddit to express disappointment after failing to hire a single candidate for a junior developer role. As reported by India Today on June 15, 2025.

In their post, the anonymous firm revealed that they advertised a job opening on LinkedIn for Junior Frontend/Backend Devs and QA roles, offering a salary range up to Rs 20 lakh ($23,000). Over 12,000 candidates applied and 450 were interviewed. 

However, they ultimately didn't hire anyone. This situation highlights a potential disconnect between candidates' ability to generate code using AI tools and their actual understanding of the underlying concepts and logic.

The post triggered a discussion online, with users suggesting that the said company properly assess their recruitment proceedings. 

"You seriously need to evaluate your interview process and the time wasted on interviews. Either your recruiting team is bringing you bad developers or your process is having issues. Either way, wasting 450 hours to find one engineer is stupid, to say the least", wrote one user. 

"Evaluate your interview process. Highly inefficient. Don't blame the candidates. There are serious expectations mismatch", commented another. 

Responding to this, the company stated, "The entire point is people are going to use AI anyways in their Jobs as well everyone does, so there is no point of saying to them that do not use AI to write code in the interviews as well. The candidate should understand the solution and the logic behind each and every line, that is our only concern". 

Some users also agreed with the original job advert. "Truly agree, candidates nowadays are missing on core fundamentals. Your HR team can try to implement a resume shortlister and a tech assignment round before F2F", wrote one user. 

The company's experience serves as a cautionary tale for both job seekers and employers. Job seekers need to develop a deep understanding of the concepts behind the tools they use, while employers need to refine their hiring processes to identify candidates who possess genuine skills and problem-solving abilities.

Hello Hybrid

It’s hard to say for sure now – but from the readings I’ve scoured, yes, lots of people want a remote working role – but there are also plenty of people who are just as keen to get back to the office. 

According to a 2022 study by PwC, 11% of US workers would prefer to work full-time in the office, and 62% said they’d like to spend at least some time there. More than half (51%) of managers are also confident their employees would be keen to return to the office full-time, according to GoodHire. 

The motivations of these people might vary – some long for the sociability of the office, while others prefer a clear boundary between work and home. But regardless, companies will need to work out how to accommodate the needs of people who want to be in offices as well as those who don’t, as they map out their post-pandemic working models. 

While many people love the flexibility that remote work brings, for others the loss of an office environment and the social contact it provides can be a major blow. 

This situation of not having a routine where you get up, leave the house, and socialise and interact with other people throughout the day, can affect your mental health. Meaning, not to leave your house for long periods of time, is not good for you. 

It is really about a loss of connection and lack of structure – and that can have an impact for some people. 

According to a May 2021 study by the American Psychiatric Association, nearly two-thirds of people who spend at least some time working from home say they’ve felt isolated or lonely from time to time. For 17%, that’s a constant feeling. Individual family circumstances might feed into how acutely workers miss the office too; studies have shown that during lockdown, people living with family members or a partner experienced far fewer problems with their mental health. 

And it isn’t only wellbeing and social contact that some workers fear is at stake if they spend all day at home, though. It’s also their career prospects. 

Only 40% of UK workers surveyed by employment and HR specialists WorkNest are confident that office-based and home-based staff will be rewarded equally in the next 12 months, according to research shared with BBC Worklife. And of full-time remote workers, two thirds are concerned about missing out on development opportunities by being based at home, according to PwC. 

Working in an office also provides a formal start and end point to the working day – useful boundaries as more and more home-workers report difficulty ring-fencing personal and professional lives. 

Methinks, there are no easy answers. The bottom line is that companies must find a balance. 

Victoria McLean, UK-based founder & CEO of career consultancy City CV, says that businesses are navigating tricky circumstances in which it can be almost impossible to keep everyone happy. “A lot of businesses I talk to are now offering hybrid working, but have one day a week when everyone has to be in the office. This seems to be a good balance of flexible working with having everyone regularly together”. 

For those stuck working at home and loathing it, McLean recommends taking regular breaks from the computer, telling line managers when you’re struggling and filling the day with lots of personal connection, be it chat rooms or video calls with colleagues. Plus, “set a boundary between your work and personal life so you're not 'always on'”. 

Companies need to create a culture of communication and flexibility to meet employees’ needs. For those businesses requiring people to work remotely, that includes creating more opportunities for staff to connect via company-wide socials, regular check-ins from line managers and turning video calling into the default mode of catching up rather than email. 

The important thing is to encourage employees to stay connected. 

Indeed, the shift to remote work has been far from straightforward, and many companies are now grappling with the problem of how to design a model that works for everyone. The evidence to date indicates that people’s personal circumstances and preferences are a key factor in whether remote work brings them any benefits – and, if so, whether the value of these benefits overrides downsides like isolation and loneliness. 

Implementing remote work is really about re-imagining what it means for each and every person to be at work. It is important to recognize that employers need to balance flexibility, give people the tools they need to remain productive and fulfil the social needs of employees. What that ideal balance looks like will change from organization to organization.

Elon Musk Has Had It With WFH

The world’s richest man has had it with this whole working-from-home business. 

Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk (right) sent an email on Tuesday to “Everybody” at his electric-car company, elaborating on an earlier missive to executive staff about the need to be in the office. 

As I have highlighted in yesterday’s post “The Quandary Between Returning to the Office and Home-working”, employees at many companies, used to working from home or hybrid policies, are allegedly rebelling against “RTO” policies and long commutes. 

“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week”, Musk wrote in an email titled “To be super clear”. “Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned”. 

Bloomberg News confirmed that current Tesla employees received the email Wednesday morning. 

“The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence”, Musk wrote. “That is why I lived in the factory so much – so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt”. 

In recent weeks, Musk has praised Tesla China employees for “burning the 3 am oil” while saying that Americans are “trying to avoid going to work at all”. 

Thousands of Tesla staff in Shanghai have been effectively locked in for months, working 12-hour shifts, six days a week. Until recently, many were sleeping on the factory floor as part of a closed-loop system meant to keep Covid out and cars rolling off the production line. 

Workers brought in to bring the factory back up to speed are being shuttled between the facility and sleeping quarters – either unused factories or an old military camp – with day- and night-shift workers sharing beds in makeshift dorms. 

When a fan on Twitter asked Musk to address people who think going into work is an antiquated concept, he replied “They should pretend to work somewhere else”. 

For Elon Musk, there's no two ways about it!

The Quandary Between Returning to the Office and Home-working

Many organizations that allowed knowledge workers to do their jobs remotely during the pandemic now seem committed to getting them back together in the office. 

Company bosses argue for a resumption of in-person work because simply put, it enhances collaboration and innovation. But it is claimed that many employees are balking. 

They liked the flexibility, autonomy, and feelings of safety that came with working remotely. And they cite many legitimate reasons for not wanting to go back: Covid infection risk, of course, but also long commutes, discretion, work-life balance, and office distractions. Rather than return, some are opting to become part of “The Great Resignation”. 

Already, some sources indicate that there is widespread resistance to returning to the office. 

According to the ADP Research Institute report published April 2022 – “People at Work 2022: A Global Workforce View” which surveyed more than 32,000 workers in November 2021 from the US, India, the Netherlands and other countries – two thirds of the global workforce (64%) said that they have already, or would consider, looking for a new job if their employer wanted them back in the office full-time. 

“Even a few years ago, the thought of working in a hybrid arrangement was – excuse the pun – remote to most people”, Nela Richardson, the chief economist at ADP and co-author of the report, tells CNBC Make It. “But now it’s clear that hybrid work and the desire for flexibility after two years of working from home is not going away – in fact, it’s growing in momentum”. 

Resistance to returning to the office full-time is even stronger among younger employees: About 71% of 18-to 24-year-olds said that they would consider looking for another job if their company insisted on them returning to the office full-time, compared to 61% of 35- to 44-year-olds and 56% of 45- to 54-year-olds, the report found. 

As Richardson explains, remote work feels more natural, and less intimidating for young employees. They’ve grown up with technology and it’s embedded in their social fabric, their school curriculum, their hobbies. 

That’s why companies need to “move beyond catered lunches and ping pong tables to get young people back to the office”, Richardson adds. 

Instead, managers need to focus on creating an engaging office environment where employees can get valuable mentorship from higher-ups and participate in team bonding activities with their co-workers. 

“There’s a new need for companies to evolve because of this tight labor market”, she says. “Employees need to feel like they’re personally benefiting from waking up earlier and commuting to the office – that it’s really worth it, or they’ll leave”. 

I don’t think the divide is as uncompromising as it is made out to be. I know that more than a few older workers welcome the flexibility of working from home after years in a cubicle, even as some in their 20s yearn for the camaraderie of the office or the dynamism of an urban setting. 

Sure, home-working adopted during the quarantine or lockdown periods have its advantages – but it removes some of the key business drivers that can only be leveraged when people are in the same physical location: 

• Productivity – Employees can avoid the many potential distractions at home, focus on their work and get more done in their day. 
• Collaboration – Workers who are physically able to see and talk to each other will find it easier to streamline their communications and collectively innovate to develop new ideas. 
• Socialization – Bringing them back to the office keeps them engaged and connected with their own team and with your wider workforce. And they lose chances to network. 
• Coordination – Office-based work helps teams stay functional, and aligned with the work of others. 

The bottom line is that it’s really hard to get cohesion and collegiality without being together on a regular basis. 

I don’t know about you – but to me, the office triumphs over home-working. Still, some form of flexibility for home-working would serve all parties well. After all, we must recognize that for better or for worse, the work environment is changing. With or without our consent. 

As one senior manager says, “You can’t force anyone to do anything these days. You can only urge”. Food for thought.

World's Most Boring Person Revealed

Researchers have discovered what they believe to be the most boring person in the world. 

If you live in a small town, you’re an accountant who likes watching TV, we’re afraid you’re at risk of being a snooze-inspiring bore. 

The unique study conducted at the University of Essex and led by experimental social psychologist Dr Wijnand Van Tilburg into the science of boredom has uncovered the hobbies, jobs and characteristics which are considered a stereotypical snooze. 

Religion, bird watching and smoking are now seen as the dullest hobbies while working in data analysis, cleaning and banking are also signs you might not be very interesting. 

Van Tilburg (right) says studying boredom is ironically very interesting and has many real-life impacts. People thought of as boring were also perceived as having low competence and low interpersonal warmth, and thus might be at greater risk of harm, addiction and mental health issues. 

The peer reviewed paper published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin shows how persuasive perceptions of boredom are and what an impact this can have on people. 

Perceptions can change but people may not take time to speak to those with “boring” hobbies and jobs, instead choosing to avoid them. They don’t get a chance to prove people wrong and break these negative stereotypes. The very fact that people choose to avoid them can lead to social ostracisation and increase loneliness leading to a really negative impact on their lives. 

Dr Van Tilburg said: “It was interesting to me to see the study showed that boring people were not seen as competent. I would have thought that accountants would be seen as boring, but effective and the perfect person to do a good job on your tax return”. 

The truth of the matter is people like bankers and accountants are highly capable and have power in society – perhaps we should try not to upset them and stereotype them as boring”, Dr Van Tilburg had added. 

After examining more than 500 people across five experiments, researchers found the blandest jobs are 

• Data Analysis 
• Accounting 
• Tax/insurance 
• Cleaning 
• Banking

A Career as a Scream Actor

Hollywood actor Ashley Peldon is usually not seen but heard. 

A "scream actor," her caterwaul is heard in Scream (2022), Free Guy (2021), Jurassic World (2015), Paranormal Activity (2007), to name a few of the films where you can chance upon her shriek, shrill and squeal. 

As Peldon explains: “As a scream artist you have to know the subtle differences between screams and determine whether they should peak at certain points, or remain steady for a very long time. I have to think: ‘OK, the character is scared here, but are they scared because their life is in danger or are they just startled?’ Those screams will sound very different. Ghost stories, for example, will often use a shrill, harsh scream because we need the audience to also experience fear”. 

Scream artists are like stunt people, doing the hard stuff that could be damaging to an actor’s voice or is out of their range.

 

You should know that there are many different screams: of fear, anger, rage. Screams of joy and success, and that raw, embodied scream of, as she puts it, female empowerment. There’s the wailing of grief and pain, and screams of effort and fighting. 

According to Peldon, the most difficult screams are those portraying grief, when you’re watching someone having to express such pain or trauma. She says she’s an empathic person – btw, she holds a PhD in psychology – so she finds getting connected with emotion easy, but it also carries a weight with it. 

Of course, as an actor, she does a wide variety of screams – but it should be pointed out that there’s a stark difference between reality and what an audience expects to see on screen. 

In real life, a lot of people would just suck in their breath and not release any noise when they are frightened – but that’s not as dramatic when it’s shown on screen!

The world has surpassed over 500 million officially recorded Covid-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. 

This grim milestone is almost certainly an undercount, with some researchers estimating nearly half of the world’s total population has likely been infected at least once with SARS-CoV-2 over the past two years.

‘Great Attrition’ or ‘Great Attraction’?

McKinsey & Company came out with an insightful piece “‘Great Attrition’ or ‘Great Attraction’? The choice is yours” (McKinsey Quarterly, September 08, 2021) that makes for interesting reading. 

If I understand the McKinsey research correctly, the pandemic is dismantling the way people look at their jobs. This has given rise to what McKinsey call the ‘Great Attrition’. 

And so, they deep-dive into the nature and characteristics of the so-called ‘Great Attrition’ and what’s driving it. 

The bottom line is that it is happening, it’s widespread and likely to persist – if not accelerate – and many companies don’t understand what’s really going on, despite their best efforts. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. If companies make a concerted effort to better understand why employees are leaving and take meaningful action to retain them, the ‘Great Attrition’ could become the ‘Great Attraction’. By seizing this unique moment, companies could gain an edge in the race to attract, develop, and retain the talent they need to create a thriving post-pandemic organization. 

Executives who think that employee attrition is easing – or is limited to particular industries – are misguided. Forty percent of the employees in our survey said they are at least somewhat likely to quit in the next three to six months. Eighteen percent of the respondents said their intentions range from likely to almost certain. These findings held across all five countries (i.e. Australia, Canada, Singapore, UK and the United States) that they surveyed were broadly consistent across industries. 

Businesses in the leisure and hospitality industry are the most at risk for losing employees, but many healthcare and white-collar workers say they also plan to quit. Even among educators – the employees least likely to say they may quit – almost one-third reported that they are at least somewhat likely to do so. 

Furthermore, these trends may persist. Fifty-three percent of the employers said that they are experiencing greater voluntary turnover than they had in previous years, and 64 percent expect the problem to continue – or worsen – over the next six months. 

Among the employees in their survey, 36 percent who had quit in the past six months did so without having a new job in hand. This is yet another way the ‘Great Attrition’ differs fundamentally from previous downturn-and-recovery cycles – and another sign that employers may be out of touch with just how hard the past 18 months have been for their staffers. 

It is claimed that US employees were the most likely to say they had left their old jobs without a new one (40 percent). At the industry level, 42 percent of healthcare and social-assistance workers who quit did so without having a new job – a reminder of the pandemic’s toll on frontline workers. One-quarter of white-collar employees who quit said they had done so without having a job lined up, a finding that held across income levels. 

This trend not only is poised to continue but could get much worse. Among employees who said they are at least somewhat likely to leave their jobs in the next three to six months, almost two-thirds added that they would do so without lining up new jobs. 

CEOs may be tempted to take solace in the fact that 60 percent of the employees in our survey said they were not at all likely to quit in the next three to six months. 

But employers shouldn’t consider this 60 percent “safe” from the prospect of attrition either. Options are increasing, and with more and more employers offering remote-work choices for hard-to-source talent, these employees could change their intentions. 

To stem the tide, senior executives must understand why employees are leaving. Many are struggling to do so. For example, when employers were asked why their people had quit, they cited compensation, work–life balance, and poor physical and emotional health. These issues did matter to employees – just not as much as employers thought they did. 

By contrast, the top three factors employees cited as reasons for quitting were that they didn’t feel valued by their organizations (54 percent) or their managers (52 percent) or because they didn’t feel a sense of belonging at work (51 percent). 

There is a real disconnect between employers and employees. The latter were far more likely to prioritize relational factors, whereas the former were more likely to focus on transactional ones. 

McKinsey suggest employers ask themselves the following questions: 

• Do we shelter toxic leaders? 
• Do we have the right people in the right places (especially managers)? 
• How strong was our culture before the pandemic? 
• Is our work environment transactional? 
• Are our benefits aligned with employee priorities? 
• Employees want career paths and development opportunities. Can we provide it? 
• How are we building a sense of community? 

McKinsey’s solution is simple really – start with a focus on the relational aspects of work that people have missed the most. 

I have always said, relationships matter. This study proves me right yet again. 

Clowns Hire

Clowns are not what they used to be. These days, they don’t really need to wear a unique makeup-face – a ‘clown’ mask will do – and flamboyant costume – even this is optional nowadays – and they don’t even need to do physical comedy. 

If you’ve read my Thursday post “Send In The Clowns”, you’ll understand my point. 

And so, it is noteworthy to mention that when Tom Duffy's travelling circus in Ireland are gearing up to travel cross-country once again, they launched a job drive for clowns (and other positions) ahead of restarting their tour. 

I guess they're wanting to hire new clowns with no experience. The job advert, which was posted Thursday on Facebook, spelled out that they're looking for someone who “must be hilarious” as there are “no old jokes accepted”.  

Yep, I say bring back the old times when clowns are really clowns! Certainly, not promoters nor child-eating monsters! 

Yesterday’s match between Liverpool and newly-promoted Brentford was a frenetic 6-goal thriller that saw the former twice pegged back. In fact, the 3-3 score should give us some inkling as to the pulsating intensity of the game where the latter had given their opponents a run for their money in a contest that could have gone either way. 

Actually, the Bees scored first – in the twenty-seventh minute. But Diogo Jota brought the Reds level just three minutes later, rising unmarked to head Jordan Henderson's looping cross into the corner from the edge of the six-yard box. 

Mohamed Salah's 100th Premier League goal in the fifty-fourth minute put the Reds ahead for the first time in the match, only for the other side to equalize once more. 

Curtis Jones thought he had won it for Liverpool when his 67th-minute strike put them 3-2 up – but Brentford had other ideas and they made it 3-3 with eight minutes to go.

With some extremely questionable defending, and some horrible shooting to match, Liverpool dropped two very important points in London. Still, I’ll have to admit it was a fair result. 

The draw lifts unbeaten Liverpool a point clear at the top of the Premier League. 

But the Reds must surely know there is plenty to improve on ahead of Tuesday’s game with FC Porto in the Champions League before a return to Anfield against Manchester City on October 03.

When Your Job Doesn't Interest You Anymore

On July 27, I had put out a post titled “Boreout is Real” – and today, I read another article that is pretty much related and which I am reproducing here. 

Since Covid and the WFH circumstance, many employees are seeing their relationships to their once-loved jobs deteriorate, as work has become remarkably different. Some found pre-existing disinterest amplified, while others discovered a new level of distaste for their positions or entire fields. And although not every worker has to love their position, keeping the relationship positive – or at least neutral – is key for many to get through the day. 

Millions of workers now at odds with their professions are in tough situations: it can be unnerving to be in a job you no longer feel connected to, especially if you don’t have an alternative on the horizon; and difficult to know whether you’re just going through a phase of disinterest, or if your spark has permanently died. 

So, what’s next? Can you ever hope to re-ignite your passion for a job you once felt good doing – and should you even try? 

There’s a very clear and current phenomenon of people experiencing a waning interest in their work, says Jon M Jachimowicz, assistant professor of organizational behavior at Harvard Business School. 

“Particularly in the beginning of Covid, people started spending a lot more time at home and that gave them a lot more downtime”, he says. “When you’re in the office and it’s hectic, you don’t have as much space and time to think. It’s hard to zoom out and think about the next month, year or five years of your life. Being at home kind of forces that on you, for better or worse. It made people start to question: how can I live a life or have a career that’s in line with what I’m actually interested in?” 

In addition to increased worker introspection, Stacey Lane, an Oregon, US-based career coach and consultant, says a drop in interest could be because many jobs were stripped down to their most essential components. Workers who may have said they enjoyed their jobs before going remote realized it wasn’t the work itself they liked. 

“Suddenly, people were no longer going into a workplace, and they no longer had those social connections. And for a lot of people, that’s what ties them to their job, whether they realize it or not”, she says. “It wasn’t the actual job they were doing – it was the culture, the people, and you just can’t translate that into remote work. It’s all really a package, until it’s not, and then you’re like, ‘eh, I’m actually not interested in this at all’”. 

Still, others lost interest, says Jachimowicz, because doing their jobs during the pandemic became unusually tough, and employers didn’t do enough to help. 

“We’re seeing it a lot in people who don’t feel supported, or who feel overworked”, he says. “The most common thing I hear these days is that employees are burned out, either because the workload has increased, or because this thing we call a psychological contract – all the unwritten trust that exists between organization and employee – has been breached. People react with a loss of interest and a desire to leave their jobs”. 

Staying at a job while your interest in work wanes is difficult, especially if that disinterested feeling has popped up suddenly. 

The most obvious solution, of course, is to leave. Lane has observed many with poor relationships to their jobs choose to quit – including clients who “hated their jobs before the pandemic, but for one reason or another wouldn’t quit”. The “major disruption” of the pandemic has opened a door for change for many workers – and many people who don’t like their jobs are choosing to walk through it. 

But, adds Lane, losing interest in a job is a normal reaction to the pandemic shake-up. It doesn’t necessarily mean you need to quit or change careers. There may be ways to fire up a positive relationship with your job – even if it means simply making it more palatable for now, while you look for an alternative. 

She suggests it can help to take stock of the things you like most about your work, even if you haven’t gotten to experience them for a while. Reminding yourself of what captured your interest in the first place can motivate you to rediscover those things about your job. “It’s getting clarity about what you liked, and what you’re missing now”, she says, and “using that information for self-reflection”. 

If what you enjoyed was collaboration, for instance, you could ask to be assigned to more group projects. If it was face time with a mentor or mentee, you can work to make more time for that. And even if the ongoing pandemic means it’s not possible yet, simply recalling what you once loved can rekindle the feeling. 

Re-lighting the spark might also require switching up your routine, and finding something to get excited about. That might take the form of a side project, or a new collaborative effort with your colleagues. 

“Working toward a shared vision and goal is really motivating”, says Lane. “Stretch projects and new initiatives are where I think most people find the most interest. That’s when innovation happens, because you get a bunch of engaged employees who are just, like, on fire about something”. 

There’s quite a bit of grey area in between a job worth quitting and a job with which you could fall back in love. Realistically, some workers who’ve become disinterested in their jobs are going to remain that way, and still work, anyway. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. 

To me, that is perfectly acceptable – and even for some people, it may be preferable. I do believe there are people out there who do not necessarily want to get too attached to their jobs. These people don’t want to pursue their passion at work. After all, there are plenty of things for people to be passionate about other than work. 

Jachimowicz advises that if your interest in work has waned, it’s time to have a really honest conversation with yourself about your own needs. 

“What needs is your job meant to fulfill? Just financial needs? Then great”, he says. “Do you need it to fill your need for connection? Aspirational needs? Your values?” 

One thing Covid is helping to clarify, says Jachimowicz, is that certain jobs can meet all these needs, and “people either want one, or realize they don’t need one”. 

You just have to make the distinction, and then make a decision.

JDs and What They Actually Mean

An intriguing piece by a fellow blogger who's also a marketer and content creator Sarah (better known by The Corporate Mama on social media), who translates job descriptions into actual straight stuff. 

Popular buzzwords like “dynamic environment”, “incredible room for growth”, and “we treat each other like family” sound great to an aspiring job-seeker – but in the harsh reality of life, they just don’t turn out the right way. 

In a series of viral TikTok videos, Sarah (left) reveals what companies really meant versus what they wrote on paper, and it’s a genuinely eye-opening read for anyone looking for a job. 

She says that what’s often left unsaid by the companies is the difficulties. 

“Many employers often reframe their complex problems as ‘exciting challenges’ which in some cases may be true, but this does not paint a complete picture for an incoming associate to help them understand the full scope of a role and how to find success”, she informs.

Sarah urges any jobseeker going through job descriptions to “be mindful of too many phrases that indicate self-reliance (e.g. must be a self-starter, able to work with no oversight). While it is necessary to be competent, guidance and support is crucial in most roles, and these phrases often indicate an under-resourced team”. 

She’s damn right. In the real corporate world, things are not always what they seem. 

Bonus: People have added to the list!

Boreout is Real

We all know what burnout is and why it’s bad. 

But fewer of us have heard of ‘boreout’ – a related phenomenon that is arguably just as pernicious. 

While burnout is linked to long hours, poor work-life balance and our glamourisation of overwork, boreout happens when we are bored by our work to the point that we feel it is totally meaningless. Our job seems pointless, our tasks devoid of value. 

Boreout doesn’t get as much attention as its workaholic cousin, but experts say that this phenomenon – which occurs across industries – can result in some of the same health problems for workers. It’s also bad for companies, because a workforce with boreout can lead to high staff turnover. 

Knowing what boreout is, and being able to identify it in ourselves, is critical for tackling it. There are also actions both workers and companies can take to alleviate it. And experts suggest that as we emerge into an evolving new world of work that prioritises worker wellbeing, boreout could merit just as much attention as other workplace problems. 

If you don't already know, boreout is chronic boredom. 

Factors that cause chronic boredom, include working in a demoralizing physical environment like a cubicle farm, or feeling under-challenged over a prolonged period. 

Lotta Harju, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at EM Lyon Business School, France, who has studied boreout for years, says the fundamental experience of boreout is meaninglessness – “the experience that the work doesn’t really have any purpose, that there’s no point”. 

Ruth Stock-Homburg, a professor of management and human resources management at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, says she’s witnessed the phenomenon across multiple industries. “I started observing people in quiet hours in retail stores, and people are just standing there bored. Or taxi drivers that have to wait sometimes for hours in quiet times in the countryside.” Tech workers in Silicon Valley have also told her they feel the same way, she says. 

Stock-Homburg and her colleagues have identified three main aspects of the boreout phenomenon: “being terribly bored, having a crisis of growth and having a crisis of meaning”. 

Although it’s normal for everyone to get bored at work occasionally, being chronically bored for days on end may indicate that you need to address the issue, says Harju, because failing to do so can have consequences. 

In 2014, she worked on a study, looking at more than 11,000 workers at 87 Finnish organisations. She found that chronic boredom “increased the likelihood of employees’ turnover and early retirement intentions, poor self-rated health and stress symptoms”. 

Other research backs this up. A 2021 study showed that 186 government workers in Turkey who suffered from boreout also dealt with depression, and high rates of stress and anxiety. Studies show depression from boreout can follow workers outside the office, and lead to physical ailments from insomnia to headaches. 

Tackling boreout can be tricky, however, because generally by the time you recognize it, you’ve been chronically bored for a while. 

“Boreout is different from burnout in the sense that bored-out employees rarely collapse out of exhaustion. Bored-out people may be present physically but not in spirit, and people can keep doing this for a good while”, says Harju. 

Workers who realize they’re experiencing boreout may also be reluctant to flag it up as an issue to line managers or human resources. While the behaviors that feed into burnout – overwork, drive – are appreciated and rewarded by employers, boreout “reflects a lack of interest, a lack of motivation”, says Harju. “These are very much taboo in organizations”. 

Fahri Özsungur, an associate professor of economics at Mersin University, Turkey, who was behind the 2021 study on the health effects of boreout, points out that combatting the phenomenon isn’t just down to the individual. 

“Giving meaning to the job is not just up to the employee”, he says, instead it’s up to management to create an office culture that makes people feel valuable. “Make minor changes to the job or tasks. Whatever makes work boring, make it enjoyable”. Organizations need to learn what boreout is, he says, and then make resources available. 

Sure, some jobs can be inherently unstimulating. But “even though the work itself would not be all that exciting, other aspects of work, such as having good relationships at the workplace or feeling appreciated by the employer, can to some extent compensate for and bring meaning to tedious work”, says Harju. 

Preventing boreout in workers, says Harju, can boil down to “plain old good leadership”, whereby leaders take time to communicate to workers why what they’re doing is valued and valuable.

WFB: Will It Work?

Malaysia’s Sunday Star (p 25) highlighted a story of Manila-based digital nomads embracing WFB (or Work From Beach). 

After so long being cooped up in the coronavirus-hit capital city, many of them fed up with lockdowns and restrictions are escaping to largely deserted nature spots, notably beaches, to 'work' and in the process, injecting much-needed revenue into communities dependent on outside visitors. 

A ban on foreign holidaymakers entering the archipelago nation and domestic travel curbs since the pandemic began last year have devastated the tourism industry. 

And now, digital nomads are offering a lifeline. These people are, after all, location-independent. 

These remote workers already prefer traveling to different places – often working in coffee shops, co-working spaces, or public libraries, relying on devices with wireless Internet capabilities like smart phones and mobile hotspots to do their ‘work’ wherever they want. Therefore, this makes the whole idea of WFB really appealing. 

Even better, the digital nomad lifestyle as represented by travelers working on a laptop on a tropical beach is irresistibly inviting. 

But is this image too good to be true? 

I can visualize it as work that looks like a holiday – but it can also be a holiday that looks like work! 

Admittedly, WFB is the biggest cliché of the digital nomad lifestyle – the image of a laptop on a towel or sun-lounger on a scenic beach somewhere. These glossy images, which look almost like they come from holiday brochures, are plastered all over digital nomad lifestyle blogs. They overplay the lifestyle, making it appear like the digital nomad lifestyle consists of nothing but lying in the sunshine, sipping fruit smoothies (or in my case, a Coke or beer) and occasionally tweeting a photo of their suntanned legs. 

There's no doubt, this makes a beach 'office' sounds glamorous. But I reckon, in reality, WFB just won't work. 

First of all, when was the last time you saw a beach with Wifi access? Secondly, the glare from the sunshine causes everything on your laptop screen to become invisible, so you have to hide under a beach umbrella or squint until your eyes ache. Sand gets in the crevices of your keyboard – I’m likely to experience that because I’m clumsy – and the heat causes your poor computer to even overheat.

Bearing in mind all of the above-mentioned reasons and even if you think you're that adventurous, WFB presents a tough challenge to give you that working environment that is productive. I really don't think you can have your cake and eat it too! 

Besides, being a digital nomad doesn’t mean that your work is easier or more fun. The work is still work and you still need to do it, or you won’t earn any money. 

The only reason I’ll consider WFB is because the beach is a beautiful place to relax and engage in creative writing. Being at the beach can stimulate and inspire me. I think. And I'll write with good old-fashioned pen and paper, instead of typing on a keyboard.

Note: There's nothing to stop anybody from working in the beach hotels and resorts though! 

Already, the said country's Department of Tourism are encouraging these businesses to focus on digital nomads and cater to the "new breed" of travelers by offering fast Internet and wellness activities. 

The bottom line is that in some small way, this 'market targeting' helps the local economy during these difficult times.

Presenteeism Won't Go Away

If the Covid pandemic has taught us anything about work, it's that we don't need to be pulling long hours in an office to be productive. 

And yet, presenteeism will still be just as important. 

Sure, WFH is providing bosses and workers alike with an overdue opportunity to re-evaluate this ingrained presenteeism. 

And we've long known presenteeism is problematic: it can cost a nation's economy tens of billions of dollars as sick people drag themselves into the office and infect others; it creates toxic environments that lead to overwork, as people putting in long hours piles pressure on everyone else to do the same. We know it's productivity that matters, not being chained to your desk or computer. 

And now, presenteeism is simply going digital: people are working longer than ever, responding to emails and messages at all hours of the day to show how 'engaged' they are. And, even if bosses call workers back into the office, evidence is mounting that we perhaps haven’t moved the dial on presenteeism at all. 

Indeed, according to Bryan Lufkin in his piece “Why presenteeism wins out over productivity”, presenteeism is still being emphasized. 

It’s not that bosses are hungering to hover over workers as they toil. Rather, subconscious biases keep the practice intact – and unless we do a better job acknowledging its harm, and set up workplaces to discourage it, we’re likely to be slaves to presenteeism forever. 

Clinging to a presenteeism culture just favors those “who have the time to show up early and leave late”, says Brandy Aven, associate professor of organizational theory, strategy and entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, US. Aven also points out that this can unfairly favor some workers over others – parents may have no choice but to leave early, for example. 

And there are some indications that people who don't put in face time may actually get penalized. For example, although almost unfathomable now, telecommuting has generally been stigmatized as irresponsible, and has subsequently held some workers back. A 2019 study, for example, found that telecommuting workers who worked at companies in which remote work was unusual experienced slower salary growth. 

These factors can create the fear that a lack of physical office presence will stunt success. And the normalization of remote work amid the pandemic hasn’t necessarily changed this; in 2020, researchers from human-resources software company ADP found that 54% of British workers felt obliged to physically come into the office at some point during the pandemic, especially those in their early-and mid-careers, despite the rise in flexible working. 

Leigh Thompson, professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business, US, says there are two key psychological phenomena that fuel presenteeism. 

The first is the ‘mere-exposure effect’, which holds that the more a person is exposed to someone or something, the more they start to grow affinity. 

“If I've seen one person 10 times for every one time I’ve seen somebody else, I'm just naturally going to like them more”, explains Thompson. 

If a particular worker makes themselves more visible, they may naturally ingratiate themselves to others just by being there – even if the others don't realize it, or can’t pinpoint what is it they like about the ‘presentee’. “[You might say],'I don't know, I like their smile, I like their attitude – they're leadership material’”, says Thompson. 

And, before you know it, the presentee might get a raise or promotion. 

This bias exists alongside another psychological concept called the ‘halo effect’: associating positive impressions of someone with their actual character. 

“You start to think of the person who's bringing you coffee or asking about your weekend as maybe ‘a sweet guy’ – but then I take the mental step of thinking you're a productive worker, too”, says Thompson. “You're nice, and then I immediately bloom that out to, ‘the guy must be a hard worker as well’ – even though you've given me no evidence in this coffee-cup situation to make me think that you're a hard worker”. 

This can lead to promotions or other benefits going to in-person workers. Ironically, despite the potential rewards of showing your face at the office, workers aren’t actually necessarily more productive when they’re putting in that face time or working overtime. 

Still, workers feel the need to perform – both in person and now digitally – since managers don’t necessarily know their workers aren’t actually accomplishing anything extra. 

In fact, during the pandemic, the number of hours worked around the world have gone up, not down. In 2020, over the course of the year, average daily working hours increased by more than a half hour on average. 

The idea is, if everyone else is online, I need to be, too. Many bosses only see the most visible people, so they assume those are the most productive employees. After all, how do you really measure a person’s output? 

So, in lieu of something measurable, managers tend to think workers are producing as long as they’re at their desks. 

Workers know managers value this visibility – and so they fall into the presenteeism trap, especially as they see their peers doing the same. This is especially true in times of economic vulnerability – such as we’re experiencing right now, due to Covid-19 – when workers fear the stability of their jobs. They work because they want to prove they can tough out stress and excel, as well as be reliable. 

However, this may not be good, not only for staff members but also their organization. In the UK, for instance, 35 workdays are lost per worker per year in the UK due to presenteeism, and one 2014 paper from a Stanford University study, “The Productivity of Working Hours” also shows that productivity plummets after working more than 50 hours a week. 

I do believe a top-down overhaul of what’s valued in the workplace has become necessary.

WFH Has Really Caught On

Work From Home has really caught on in a very big way.

Now, it appears that once American office workers got a taste of the freedom by working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, they don’t want to let it go. They’re really enjoying the freedom that comes from the flexibility of remote work.

And so, more studies are showing that these people are even willing to quit their jobs, relocate or do whatever they need to do in order to continue enjoying this WFH environment. 

Check out this news report:

I betcha this is true everywhere else too.