The study of Asterys

How to eliminate harmful dynamics in the company to create successful organisations

81% of workers claim to suffer significant consequences on their psycho-physical state and professional performance due to the harmful dynamics of their company

9 April 2024

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The term 'new normal', which rose to prominence in the first months following the pandemic emergency, soon (and perhaps mistakenly) fell into disuse. The changes that have affected society, business and the world of work in recent years, partly due to the accelerated adoption of digital technologies, have been profound and significant. And, precisely because of their magnitude, in several cases they have not been adequately accompanied by in-depth reflection on how to reconcile the new needs of the people working in the company with the company's own pursuit of success. We are told this by a new research by Asterys, a global giant in the field of organisational development, which has investigated the state of people's well-being and the relationship between existing models and the new needs of Italian workers in the light of the above changes, analysing the presence of potentially dysfunctional dynamics and the factors that predominantly contribute to the decision to change jobs.

Workers in distress

The percentage that immediately jumps out at you from the study, which surveyed 600 national employees and managers, is as follows: 81%. So many workers claim to suffer significant consequences and imbalances on their psycho-physical state (including nervousness, unhappiness and prolonged stress) and on their professional performance (inefficiency, unproductiveness and drop in performance) due to the harmful dynamics of their company. Only 47 per cent of the sample surveyed, moreover, stated that they were guaranteed equal opportunities to express their potential. What emerges, as stated in the note accompanying the research, which Il Sole 24Ore was able to preview, is therefore a critical situation, which highlights the urgency of transformation towards models that are more person-centred, agile and ready to face current and future challenges. The consequences, for those organisations that are ignoring and will ignore this possible evolution, are significant and reflect the risk of becoming entangled in obsolete practices and jeopardising competitiveness and employee welfare. To avoid this risk, and this is the suggestion coming from the experts at Asterys, a new approach is needed, one that can transform the power structures and mindsets of people within organisations and ensure a healthier, sustainable and (at the same time) successful environment in the long run.

Smart working, an opportunity only half-taken

The thought that smart working, in Italy, is an opportunity half-taken and that the obligation to return to the office has somehow impacted on workers' well-being also shines through in the words of Giovanna D'Alessio and Stefano Petti, partners at Asterys and co-authors of the study. "Our survey tells us that 53% of employees of companies with more than 50 employees are given the choice of their workplace, and this figure is in line with that of the Smart Working Observatory of the Milan Polytechnic. But what the surveys do not specifically say," D'Alessio observes in this regard, "is how many companies allow employees to work remotely while maintaining the same work organisation, the same procedures, and the same performance monitoring, and how many instead have embraced a new work paradigm that makes working from home truly smart, through technologies that enable information sharing, management by results and not by objectives, and a new relationship between management and employee based on the latter's full autonomy.

The obligation to work in the presence, even if only a few days a week, should not be underestimated because it does not nourish the motivation that the freedom to choose where to work instead gives people: the fundamental problem, in short, lies in the rigidity of wanting to control when a person must be in the office or work remotely. To fully reap the benefits of smart working, Petti emphasises, "we need to go beyond simple alternation and rethink the relationship between the company and its people in a broader way, adopting a culture of self-organisation that helps teams find a balance between physical presence and remote activity according to the needs of projects and individual preferences, focusing on a cultural transformation that values responsibility and mutual support, creating an environment where everyone can effectively manage their own work".

Too much hierarchy...

If putting the wellbeing and personal development of one's employees at the centre, fostering a truly innovative and sustainable working environment, is the way forward, the profile of Italian companies photographed by the research tells us instead that the most widespread typical structure at present (71% of responses) is the traditional hierarchical one, in which key decisions are taken at the top and operational decisions by line managers, who also have a supervisory role vis-à-vis their subordinates.

So-called 'flattened' companies, in which the threads of decision-making are predominantly in the hands of management and team leaders and employees retain a fair degree of autonomy, account for only a quarter of the sample. By contrast, the share of companies in which team members make decisions independently and monitoring and control over results is delegated to the entire team drops to 4%.

What do these data mean? Do they highlight a problem of corporate culture or what else? 'Hierarchical organisation over the last 200 years,' D'Alessio explained, 'has given companies a strong imprinting on how power is distributed, who can make decisions and who must execute. Up to a certain point, this model worked perfectly to guarantee control, replicability and standardisation, then times and the context changed and the increased complexity, unpredictable waves of disruption and exponential technological evolution required flexibility, the ability to adapt, speed and continuous innovation. Companies must therefore change their skins, but it is not easy because the hierarchical paradigm has generated mindsets that are very difficult to transform, unless the structure and processes are transformed first'.

... and little responsibility

In Italian companies, in other words, it does not seem to be uncommon that people do not play an active role in the decisions that influence their daily work. It is therefore legitimate to ask oneself, this is the provocation launched by Petti, "whether the current leadership model is really serving organisations well or whether it is, instead, holding back the potential for innovation and adaptation that a true culture of autonomy could unlock. Are leaders, we ask, ready to share the helm and allow collective intelligence to guide the organisation towards horizons that an individual could never imagine?".

The study clearly highlighted several limiting dynamics that affect the quality of life in Italian companies, ranging from internal competition and excessive workloads that are always or often present (items reported by 50% of the sample) to excessive bureaucracy (48%), from operating in watertight compartments (41%) to the presence of cumbersome and unnecessary processes (42%), not to mention the fact that 41% of those who report little attention to the needs of employees and 19% of those who have never experienced these dysfunctional situations.

That wasted energy

Based on these assumptions, it is not blasphemous to say that people often work badly in Italy (not everywhere, of course), and this is also proven by the fact that the entropy rate, i.e. the percentage of corporate energy dissipated in activities that do not create value and are detrimental to employees' performance and well-being, is on average around 40%. So who has the onus to reverse the trend of not adopting managerial principles and practices that would allow them to realise the full potential of their employees? The CEOs, HR managers or the entire management staff? The answer is quite articulate. "If from a certain point of view," D'Alessio concludes, "we can say that management, with the CEO at the forefront, shapes the company's culture and has a direct influence on collective dynamics and behaviour, on the other hand, the problem is systemic, as the structure of the company system generates predictable and inevitable dynamics. Moreover, it is no coincidence that all hierarchical organisations suffer from the same limiting dysfunctions, such as bureaucracy, risk aversion, cumbersome and unnecessary processes, and so on. To solve a systemic problem, it is necessary to transform the system, abandoning the old structure and adopting a new model based on self-coordinating teams and a new mentality based on trust in people'.