Has anyone else noticed the curious shifting of emphasis with many mid to senior jobs lately? The shift from people focused to technology focused? Let me give you an example. Twenty years ago or so, when organisations were just getting going with their corporate social responsibility agenda, the sustainability area was focused on outcomes for people and included many kinds of approaches and people – policy oriented people, community pioneers, governance types and people on the ground improving the way that things were done. Now, there is still a massively diverse gamut of jobs in ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) out there but look at the most senior and you see the ‘technification’ of many roles: the focus on regulation, measurement and analysis. This is a change of emphasis that is replicated across many different areas of work.
Of course it is important to quantify sometimes nebulous areas such as sustainability – especially as it includes sometimes hard to measure outcomes such as people’s level of security or the social capacity of a geographical region. I do feel however that some aspects of sustainability – the ones that are easier to measure – are dominating the debate and leaving the qualitative aspects in their wake. The ‘social’ element of ESG seems to be taking a back seat to the (more traditionally male dominated) elements of meeting standards rather than meeting people. Some leaders in this field some like to fire off a list of regulations but steer clear of talking about social progress or welfare; I get the impression that these are not at the forefront of their thinking.
Looking at work more broadly, I see most senior jobs now have a similar focus on numerical analysis rather than relationships; rather than generating discussion people seem steered towards generating numbers. This is fine if the post-holder uses the information coming from intelligence reports and dashboards to underline the fact that quantitative results are there to generate qualitative outcomes.
Why this there new emphasis on measuring? Most large organisations have their work-flow processes now running through portals – work management systems that show just what is going on – as long as this is easily measured. So, naturally, everyone orientates their work towards what is shown on the portal and their own personal (and often competitive dashboard). There’s nothing inherently wrong with this but it does have a number of subtle ramifications. Firstly, just looking at numbers can create a lack of context; good management needs to ensure that the right data is being collected, analysed in the right way and understood in terms of ultimate outcomes and not just target numbers. It worries me that, increasingly, people prefer to stick to portals than to engage widely around issues with others.
Secondly, the emphasis on technification in growing fields such as ESG can lead to the increasing domination by traditional ‘male’ skills. This happened, for example, in the regeneration sector, which went from a broadly social/economic field of work to one more focused on construction and development (and therefore dominated by men). Just as with computing in the ‘90s, it seems that every industry that emerges as one with the potential for high pay and security becomes masculinised. Women are, of course, just as able to crunch numbers and enable organisations, services or industries to reach regulatory standards – but far fewer have the technical qualifications or background that senior roles ask for, so by default they are less likely to be appointed to top jobs in this emerging area and stereotypes start to emerge of the ‘right’ people for the job.
In the excitement of seeing the impressive visuals on dashboards on our screens, it is important to appreciate that the way people feel and behave is just as important as ‘hard’ outcomes in work areas with a social dimension. It is also time for this to be reflected in the people appointed to lead in these sectors.
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