Hidden Tensions between U.S. Employers and Employees, with Matthew Dietly

In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Matthew Dietly about the hidden tensions between U. S. employers and employees. Throughout a career spanning management consulting, agency strategy, and digital strategy at a major tech firm, Matthew Dietly has developed a multifaceted approach to helping brands achieve profitable growth through innovative products, services, and experiences. This diverse background has equipped him with expertise across digital transformation, product innovation, customer experience, and growth strategy. Dietly's methodology centers on human-centricity and mutual value creation, consistently asking: Who is the target audience? How can we create value for them? How do we ensure profitability and sustainability? This philosophy has proven effective across varied industries, geographies, and contexts. Beyond professional pursuits, Dietly thrives on collaborative problem-solving with passionate teams. Personal time is spent playing games and exploring parks with his young daughter, hitting the golf course and ski slopes, and following baseball. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  Welcome to the HCI family of podcasts. We're your source for personal, professional, and organizational growth and development. We share our own original research, explore industry trends, and interview executives and thought leaders from across the globe. Join us for practitioner-oriented content around all things leadership, HR, talent management, organizational development, and change management. Maximize your personal and organizational potential with the HCI family of podcasts.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Matt Dietley, welcome to the conversation today.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Hey, John. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  It is a real pleasure to be with you. You're joining us from Pittsburgh. I'm south of Salt Lake City in Utah. And today, we're going to be talking about the recent long-duty report, which unveils hidden tensions between US employers and employees and identifies solutions to overcome them. It'll be really interesting to dig into that report. You're going to talk to us a little bit more about long-duty along the way, and even talk about the name a little bit. I just found that to be an interesting name as we were talking in the pre-interview. Yeah, you'll explain a little bit more about that, too, as we get going. As we get started, I wanted to share your bio with everybody. Throughout a career spanning management consulting, agency strategy, and digital strategy at

• 1:20Speaker 00

  a major tech firm, Matthew Dietley has developed a multifaceted approach to helping brands achieve profitable growth through innovative products, services, and experiences. His diverse background has equipped him with expertise across digital transformation, product innovation, customer experience, and growth strategy. His methodology centers on human-centricity and mutual value creation, consistently asking, who is the target audience? How can we create value for them? How do we ensure profitability and sustainability? This philosophy has proven effective across varied industries, geographies, and contexts. Beyond professional pursuits, Dietley thrives on collaborative problem-solving with passionate teams. Personal time is spent

• 2:03Speaker 00

  playing games and exploring parks with his young daughter, hitting the golf course, ski slopes, and following baskets. And I could say a lot more about Matt's background and accomplishments, but I'm going to pause there. Matt, anything you would like to highlight before we dive on in?

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Boy, that's a very comprehensive bio. I think the team did a really nice job putting that together. I guess the color I'd add is that that these days at Wong Duty, I head up our employee experience capability area. And when, you know, when I talk about employee experience, I don't, I'm not an HR leader at our company. I don't oversee our employee experience, but rather I lead the practice that helps consult for our clients on theirs. And, um, and that's really, I guess it's applying all the things you just said, but inwardly to our clients workforce. You know, we, we work with a lot of clients that are going through big business digital transformations. And, um, there's often little consideration given to the employee's perspective and changes like that. And, uh, so we really help those, those orgs ask and answer questions around, you know,

• 3:03Speaker 01

  what tools or capabilities or experiences can we give employees to help them through? What can be a pretty tumultuous change?

• 3:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So that's fantastic. As we dive into this report, uh, maybe start by just, uh, explaining a little bit about Wong Duty and the name and the company. You've already explained a little bit, but go into that a little bit more.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Wong Duty, fun name and always a good icebreaker in conversations like this. So we, we were founded 30 odd years ago, uh, as an ad agency. And like any good ad agency of that era, our name is just a mashup of our founders' last names. So having a guy whose last name is Wong and a guy whose last name is Duty yielded us a pretty interesting and memorable name for our agency. And, um, I guess since then, I mean, we have a long history of, you know, creative campaign work and branding and product design. And, you know, like it came up in my bio, it's all sort of united by this idea, like, let's understand people. What do they think? What do they want? And how can we help give that to them?

• 4:07Speaker 01

  And then, you know, seven, eight years ago, Long Duty was acquired by Infosys. And that's given us sort of a huge technical capability. And it exposed us to a lot of sort of backend or workforce transformation programs. And so I saw that as a great opportunity. You know, how can we bring our, you know, customer experience, practice? And apply those same skills and techniques to employee experience? And, you know, what started with like a, a human centered product design for employees is sort of evolved into a whole practice area. And I guess ultimately that's what led us to this research.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you for the background. Let's dive on into this, this current project and, and describe for us a little bit, um, what went into, uh, this research report.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I mean, in any given year, just through like the course of our work, we talked to, I mean, hundreds of employees or leaders, you know, to help improve their business. And I'd say over the last couple of years, we just started to feel a shift in the behavior, the mindset of, of workers. And I mean, at a high level, it just felt like there was more tension than we were used to seeing.

• 5:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  And we wanted to understand that better, right? It's, you know, I think the phrase I hear a lot from people, leaders is like, we need to know the current moment, what's happening in this current moment? So we can address it. And that's what led to the research study. Um, and look, I, I know there's a lot of good research out there about employee experience and the workforce. And I don't know, I, I wake up every morning to two or three emails that tell me about the newest AI research study and how only this brand can help me, you know, avoid that change. Um, but we wanted, I guess what we wanted to do was just a little deeper investigation of like the human mindset around work. Unfiltered, sort of unbiased, just how do people think and feel at work?

• 6:01Speaker 01

  No anchoring to AI or, or hybrid work or post, whatever narrative. We just sort of wanted to let people tell us what was on their minds around work. And, and so that was it. I mean, we hired. A fieldwork partner called nonfiction research, they're excellent. And their whole approach is just that, it's really digging into sort of the culture, the mindsets of people. Meeting them where they are to really talk to them about what they're thinking and feeling. Yeah, so that's, that's what led us there. And I think the results are really, are really compelling. Do you just want me to launch into that, or?

• 6:38Speaker 00

  Well, so, so the, my understanding, the name of the, the, the report is Cold Work: Hidden Tensions of the Modern Workplace. Is that correct?

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that's a, a interesting name. Why Cold Work? Um, you know, that's an interesting framing.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if you give me a little runway to explain it, I can build up to it. I think it's helpful, but.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  You know, in the research, I'd say there were two high level learnings that really stood out to me. And the first was that workers told us that like this moment in the history of work just feels unique to them. And I don't know, I think that's kind of profound. I mean, I started my career right before the great financial crisis. And then everything from then to now, I mean, we worked through COVID and everything. So like, it's not like there haven't been big moments recently.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  Right, yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  But most people, things like eighty seven percent of workers we talked to in the study told us that now feels particularly unique. And it's some mixture of economic instability, or AI uncertainty, or political tension. And, um, and one that was sort of like the aggregation of all of those stressors are just causing fatigue among people in and out of work, and they're sort of carrying that with them to the workplace. And that's the second big learning is that it's manifesting as these hidden tensions in the workplace. It's not a loud conflict, but like a quiet disengagement. And, um, and you know, some of the stats, I think it's sixty two percent of employees, forty nine percent of employers.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Claim that they're doing these hidden behaviors that sort of secretly punish the other side. You know, workers who are scrolling on their phones during the day too often, who are ghosting on messages or maybe withholding effort. And, and worker, I'm sorry, employers who are maybe surveilling their employees, assigning petty assignments as punishment and micromanaging. These little things that don't like show up as a loud conflict like you'd expect, but represent real tension between employees and employers. And, and so it just, I guess to me, it felt like you've got these two sides who are like freezing each other out. You know, it's this standoff that's unfolding in the workplace.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Both sides are becoming disengaged, you know, sort of trying to survive. And it just, I don't know, not to be overly dark, but it gave like Cold War vibes. And so cold work felt like a, like a natural sort of catchy way we can describe it. And honestly, for me, identifying it, naming the problem is like the first step to figuring out how to approach it. So we wanted something that, you know, folks would remember and, and could sort of think about more, more clearly as they look to improve their workplace.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, interesting, interesting. So the Cold War kind of connection, the conflict between each sides, that's, that's a really interesting kind of framing. And you're right, like the tensions, and it depends on like the ebbs and flows of the labor market. Like it wasn't that long ago that it was totally an employee market, right? Like employees had all of the power and employers were struggling to find good people. And the pendulum has swung, right? And now it's an employer market and employees are kind of freaking out. They're not sure what to do. And so we, we use all these different words about like quiet quitting and we have all these terms, right? Around like all these different behaviors and these hidden behaviors. And yeah, it's, it's just such an interesting set of phenomenon

• 10:13Speaker 00

  as we consider how employers are responding to their employees and vice versa. So this Cold War kind of connection framing is, is super, super interesting. And you're right, like, there really are a lot of subtle, yeah, subtleties, you know, these subtle, subtle hidden behaviors that are are happening. And and I'm not always sure how even aware the the individuals are that are doing them, right? Like, how aware are the employees that they're engaging in these subtle behaviors? How aware are the managers that they're engaging in these subtle behaviors that are having these impacts, often negative impacts on the other side?

• 10:56Speaker 00

  Um, that lead to dysfunction, even toxicity, disengagement, you know, dissatisfaction, all these different things that are making it a really challenging time for everybody.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's absolutely right. And I love that you keyed on right away, too, that that I absolutely saw the switch flip from a worker-centered workplace to, I guess, a more business-centered workplace. And I don't know, I'm not like a macro guy. Maybe it was, you know, my my guess is, once interest rates flipped, you know, every executive in the world went from growth mode to efficiency mode. And and, you know, we actually, like, we mapped out what we saw as the top tensions that came out of that. And this is all sort of symptomatic of, you know, the first one to me, which is this desire, you know, call it flexibility versus accountability. And you have workers and and workplace cultures that, you know, just recently were in that growth mode, employee-centered mode.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  You know, employees having more autonomy over how they work, a little higher agency. And now you've got employers like reining that in a lot more. You know, trying to regain some of that control to to drive more efficient output and and hold their employees more accountable, sort of seeing maybe a lower level of efficiency and attributing it to employee behavior, rightly or wrongly.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so that has manifested also into things like, you know, the return to office mandates, right? You know, that during COVID, it just became, I mean, it was required, like, there was nothing you could do, like, everyone had to go remote. Everyone then started to become accustomed to remote and but slowly, surely, more and more.

• 12:36Speaker 00

  CEOs, more and more employers started to rein that in, started to pull people back, started to get to the point where you actually had to have mandates to to make people come back. Otherwise, they're going to be let go. And and many saw that as, you know, a reining in of the autonomy, the flexibility, wanting to have more control over the employees. Whether or not that was actually the intention of managers of of senior leaders and executives or not, there there can be a huge debate around that, you know, like a big conversation could be had. But but certainly, you know, that that has been part of the the whole equation here, you know, around this this Cold War kind of dynamic.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Oh, 100%, yeah. And and it's, I think that's a big driver of a couple of the other tensions we see too, like, like just cherry picking off the list. One was about how turnover has felt so normal recently. And that, like, this sense of long term loyalty between employee and employer is is just dissolved. And it's in both directions. And I think you see these return to office mandates accelerate that feeling that, you know, employment's a little more at will than we thought. And and you see, you know, employers who feel like they've invested a lot in people are just seeing those people leave. And employees who feel like they've put a lot of their, you know,

• 13:55Speaker 01

  hearts and minds into their company are being let go over something that maybe they view as trivial, like where they work. So anyway, you can see how these sort of ladder up to each other to reinforce that that sort of Cold War.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, and and it is heartbreaking, you know, like I I've seen, we probably all have seen, right? But I I've seen some folks, you know, just in my own personal life, where they've they've worked with companies for, you know, well over a decade. And in one case, I'm thinking of an individual who worked with the company, helped build it. I mean, this company has grown dramatically, worked with this company for two decades in in pivotal roles to help this company grow. And then they decided to do a return to office. This person wasn't in a family position to be able to do that, you know, in their personal position, personal life. And, you know, they just felt completely, you know, abandoned by this company, you know, like.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  They they're just like, what in the world? Like, I I helped build this company. Now you're letting me loose. You know, you're cutting me loose for for what reason? You know, like, I I've demonstrated repeatedly for years and years how essential I am and how much I've been able to contribute. And, you know, and they were just devastated by this, you know? And and so certainly you have individuals like that. Now, you also have individuals who probably haven't contributed much of anything, you know, to the organizations who have also let been let go. And, yeah, it's it's just so hard. It's it the the whole psychological contract of work between employer and employee and that loyalty piece

• 15:26Speaker 00

  has has so dramatically shifted to the point now where, yeah, I, you know, it's it's hard because I like personally, just myself. I like to think of myself as someone who has commitment and loyalty to an organization, to a job. If I'm gonna go work somewhere, I'm gonna give it my all. I'm gonna be committed to them and I'm gonna do the my very best work and I want to I want to at least act as though I'm gonna be there for a long time. But I also know in the current environment that we're in, I know that like I literally could be cut loose at any moment, right? And it has absolutely nothing to do with my performance either. Like, like, it's just, it could be totally large macro things that have nothing to do with me, have nothing to do with my performance.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  And and it's just the way it is, right? And so so then you have people constantly looking for other jobs as backups, you know? It it's just, yeah, I I'm not sure. I'm not sure the way around this. Like, this is the new normal, right?

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Boy, I feel like we have a new normal every every year or two at this.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not sure either. And I I feel for your friend and I I think I share your perspective on this, too. I I've been a remote employee for going on a decade now and um I certainly have my, you know, head over my shoulder sometime thinking, well, if there's a return to office, I don't have an office here.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  But I, you know, try and put the work in the way you described and, you know, find ways to add value as I can. But, um, and I guess that leads me to another point, too. And I don't know if this is part of the new normal or not, but folks shared with us that the sense of like lack of recognition, or maybe like lack of meaning in work that they used to find that they're just not getting anymore. And I don't know if it's the system or the people, but it's this idea that we're rewarding like, like efficiency and output over, over humanity at this point. And so you've got workers in these situations like you just described, who have put their, their heart and soul into growing and building this thing. But the macro condition

• 17:27Speaker 01

  says that it's not right for them, or the work wasn't as efficient, or there's, there's no dollars this year for a reward, or to send you to the conference that, that you wanted to go to. So people just sort of are feeling underappreciated. And, um, and the other word we heard a lot was invisible. You know, I'm just, you know, what's the old, you know, faceless cog in a corporate machine or something. People are feeling a little more replaceable than ever. Something else that came out of this.

• 17:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, interesting. That replaceable piece, you know, and I wonder how much of that has to do with this, this psychological contract breakdown, the loyalty piece that you said? And I wonder how much of it has to do with like years around automation displacement, you know, with like AI, robotics, you know, just, just disruptive technological displacement? Because that seems to be so pervasive, you know, just in the zeitgeist right now, like, like, it just seems like so many people are afraid of, of layoffs, because you, it, you know, it's like almost a day doesn't go by that you turn on the news and some big company is laying off thousands of employees.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It's heartbreaking. And on the flip side, it's interesting, too. We captured the data point. It was, um, 93% of workers aren't very satisfied with how their company has rolled out AI capabilities. Like 93%? I don't know. That sort of blew my mind a little bit. And

• 18:47Speaker 00

  I mean, that's virtually everybody, right?

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's virtually everybody. The seven must be the companies that are actually building the AI tools that the 93% aren't interested in using.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  Or or the executives who were like in like who who wanted the rollout, right? So they said it went great and then everyone else said it went bad.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Well, you hear the stories like like people told us, you know, oh, my, my boss just said, go figure out how to use AI. Uh, I I saw this thing on TV during the masters. Can you can you do this? And it's like, that's, that's all you're giving me? You saw a thing on an ad on TV and you're telling me to go build it for our company? Uh, sure, can I have the resources, the training, like infrastructure to do it? And there just doesn't seem to be a lot of that uh top down support, I guess, that we heard employees are looking for as they're looking to train up and build some of these new capabilities. And that was, that was, I think, the big driver behind some of that 93% is uh, just like lack of support structure to make it happen. Yeah.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  And I guess personally, I don't think it helps that the first few things that we tried to take away from people are sort of creative endeavors. I appreciate that, you know, these tools are making me a little more efficient, but, you know, no replacement for good art and good writing and good communication between people. And we heard a lot of that, too.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. Well, maybe the last uh quick question, I know at the time I'm gonna have to let you go here in a minute, but the the research highlights of roadmap, a clear roadmap for businesses to bridge the gap, you know, between this this divide, this this tension. Uh, maybe walk through that with us a little bit, how to build a more productive, human centered workplace?

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and um, well, I'd say maybe there isn't any one roadmap, like no like cold work silver bullet, so to speak. But sure. You know, it's it's company by company, sort of being able to step back and say like, like, hey, this, this is happening. Um, let's like acknowledge the problem and let's be real deliberate about how we approach it. You know, just like any capability at a company, you know, thawing cold work, creating a great employee experience doesn't just happen. You have to, you know, you have to invest in it, you have to build it, you have to nurture it.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  And I'm even saying like invest probably gives executives pause, but I don't think it's a big dollar investment. It's just being intentional about what you do and. And one of the ways we found is most effective is building this capability we'll call organizational resilience, right? Being able to anticipate disruption, respond with care and like repair those tensions really quickly. And even to expand on the definition a little bit, I think, you know, we think about change at work is like a new, I don't know, a new tool that we have to use, a new platform that we've put in, a new setting in the video conference chat that we're trying to use and figure out as we get started here.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  But like, I think there's so many things that are affecting people in and out of work that they carry with them into work. All the things from the beginning of the call, the, the cultural pressures, the, the macroeconomic pressures. I think that affects how people show up to work. And so if we broaden our definition a little bit about what it means to be resilient to tensions at work, I think it lets us address some of these broader concerns that people might have. And, and just to steal one more data point from our study, 55% of workers say that they have tensions at work that just go unrepaired or ignored. And 64% say that they just see like performative fixes instead of real action.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  You know, the proverbial put a poster on the wall or throw a pizza party rather than actually addressing core underlying, you know, challenges that they face in the workplace. And so, you know, we say that, you know, you need to build resilience into the culture of your workplace. And that's, you know, looking at your, your, we have six points, right? One is leadership. How do your leaders sort of set the vision and model that resilience? Do they have processes in place to anticipate tensions and change that are coming and get ahead of them? You know, managers, like people leaders, how are they supporting and guiding and enabling teams through disruptive moments?

• 23:06Speaker 01

  How do your, you know, your employee communications explain change and build trust? Do you have training, you know, not just a link to a how to document, but like practical learning experiences that help people grow? Do you have, you know, technology and information that that helps support people? Or is your tech a blocker? And lastly, the sixth is, and maybe for me, most important is, is the voice of the employee. You know, are you capturing feedback? Are you acting upon that feedback? Are you making it clear that you've captured and acted upon the feedback? And so on and so forth. So maybe I'll pause there.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the roadmap I'd suggest to recap is, you know, be deliberate about approaching cold work and, and consider, you know, building these corporate muscles of resilience to help, you know, your workforce navigate through that.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  I love that resilience, building resilience capabilities, just being intentional. I mean, that maybe that sounds obvious. It's not easy. It's hard to do. And, but it goes a long, long way. Well, Matt, this has just been a really great conversation. Again, I know at the time I need to let you go, but before we wrap up, I just want to give you a chance to share with the audience how they can connect with you, find out more about your work, your team, where they can find the report, and then give us a final word for today.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, thanks, John. I appreciate it. And this was fun and I feel like we barely scratched the surface of, of, you know, the insights from the research and some of the tactics we've learned. So I, I'd welcome all of like, you know, the audience, you know, come check us out at wongduty.com or, you know, wongduty.com backslash coldwork. And you'll find, you know, a couple of articles that I've written about this. You'll find the full research report, a lot of good insights there. And I always welcome conversation on LinkedIn. So I would love it if folks would reach out to me there and, and yeah, can continue that conversation. And boy, by way of final words, I don't know. Thank you for having me on. This was, this was a lot of fun. I think,

• 25:11Speaker 01

  as I said at the onset, I see a lot of organizations implement a number of changes and not necessarily always think about how it's affecting the end user, the end employee. And I just encourage everyone to maybe take a step back and, and consider that, you know, talk to your people, listen to what they're, they're thinking and feeling, and make sure we're accounting for that as we, you know, as we imagine their own sort of future at work.

• 25:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, love it. Matt, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. I encourage the audience to reach out, to get connected, find out more about what Matt and his team can do for you. Check out the full report. And as always, I hope everyone can stay healthy and safe, that you can find meaning and purpose at work each and every day, and I hope you all have a great week.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  Thanks for joining us for this episode of the podcast. We hope you stay healthy and safe, and please join us again soon.