Colin Newlyn (@colinnewlyn)

Thanks Mark! To answer your question, remember I said don't listen to what they say, look at what they do. Just look at an employee handbook and you'll see the underlying assumptions are that emplyees are lazy, unable to work without supervision and untrustworthy. Processes are also based on these assumptions. I don't think it's necessarily intentional, it's an over-reaction to the minority of bad ones, but it's pervasive. It's also a consequence of Taylorism, where managers were superior gentlemen who did the thinking and the workers just labourers to be ordered about. However, I think the lack of trust is more explicit in the US. And yes, I don't think employees trust employers. They used to but that trust has been broken. That's why we had all the fake furore about 'quiet quitting', which was employees just seeing the job as a transaction and doing what they were paid for and no more. There are some organsations that try to do the right thing, to trust and to care for their employees. If they are businesses, then the financial markets will push them in the other direction should they get into difficulties. The evidence is that generally they perform better than average but they are swimming against the cultural tide at present. There needs to be some systemic change, which has to be brought about through government policy and legislation. I advocate for self-organising structures because a necessary condition of these is having a high-trust environment. I think different ownership models can help, like employee ownership and co-operatives. Although I think that fundementally we have to have a debate about what work is for, it's role in our lives and society and the role of organisations and their broader responsibilties, especially commercial ones.