One innovation company—What If!—claims to celebrate the ideal of ‘meaningful work’. It says that it works with clients who want to innovate and grow, and that it helps clients to ‘release the creative potential of their people, products and brands’. The business claims to be built on five key values that are embedded in how it works: impact, audacity, passion, love, and adventure. The company director argues that great people are motivated by being surrounded by other great people and that, if you can break down the distinction between ‘work’ and ‘home’, and think more of work as part of your life, you will be much better off. The long hours put in by staff are a consequence, he believes, of hiring and empowering talented and motivated staff.

Questions

1. Are these employees, in your view, best defined as ‘willing slaves’ (see Chapter 1 for a definition)?

2. There are other companies that are ranked as ‘best places to work’. Airbnb, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google were ranked as some of the best in 2016 (see https://www.glassdoor.com/Award/

Best-Places-to-Work-LST_KQ0,19.htm). What can you find out about these organizations that make them some of the best workplaces in the UK?

3. Do you have doubts about the claims that these companies make? If yes, why? Can they avoid all staff being alienated regardless of the job that they do? Do you suspect that some staff—maybe those with less autonomy and scope in their jobs, for example, the cleaners or other support staff— might not say that these are great places in which to work?