E311 - Worklife 2026: Now With 20% More Anxiety

E311 (Audio) - Worklife 2026: Now With 20% More Anxiety

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[00:00:00] Nick Roome: Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Human Factors Cast. I'm your host, Nick Rome. I'm joined today by Mr. Barry Kirby. Hello and good evening. Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are, wherever you're watching and listening. Uh, we're recording this episode live on December 12th, and this is episode 311.

[00:00:17] Nick Roome: We got an awesome show lined up for you today. We're gonna be talking about, uh, Glassdoor, put out a work life trends for 20 25, 26. ~And, ~and so we'll be talking about all of the trends from the lens of human factors. Uh, but first we do have some programming notes here for ~You'all. ~As you know, we are in December here, so, if you are looking ahead, we are now doing two week, ~cadence ~cadences for our shows.

[00:00:42] Nick Roome: We need to figure out, uh, ~well, ~we're not doing a show next time. Let me just say that we'll probably be back in about one month's time because if we were to meet again, it would be right around that time where everybody opens presents. We will be back in early January. We'll be back on the eighth if everything goes to [00:01:00] plan somewhere around there.

[00:01:01] Nick Roome: But the plan is to be back on the eighth. We'll take ~a, ~a short hiatus, but I promise it won't be a year long. Hiatus ~still make promises we can't keep, we, we, yeah. Okay, we'll, we'll, ~we'll be back ~in, ~in just a month's time, but there's ~a, there's, uh, ~plenty of, ~uh, ~backlog items for you to go and listen to if you're new to the show.

[00:01:15] Nick Roome: Uh, and if you're old to the show. Listen to something else again, I don't know. Or spend time with your, it doesn't matter. Barry, what's, uh, I'm gonna switch gears entirely. Barry, what's going on with 1202?

[00:01:24] Barry Kirby: Well, what's really ~talk, ~talking about taking a year out. Anybody who's obviously been ~listening to or not ~listening to 1202 will know that I have been off for a year.

[00:01:31] Barry Kirby: We've been ~talk, ~talking about it ~'cause we, ~'cause I took a year out, but Spotify wrapped came out, last week ~and spot. ~So if you are a normal listening, you get ~the Spotify~ your Spotify rap, but also as podcasters you get Spotify ~for PO ~for podcasters. And it was really interesting to see a lot of ~the the, ~the demographics, a lot of the numbers that were coming out.

[00:01:46] Barry Kirby: ~A lot of, ~a lot of the statistics have still shown ~a, ~a significant amount of growth. Now I sort of ~expected to, ~expected all my numbers to ~say sort of ~stagnate, maybe drop a bit because ~I, 'cause ~there was ~no, ~no real new content coming through. But yeah, certainly through Spotify it seems to have ~had a, ~had a [00:02:00] bit of a massive or say quite a decent chunk of growth.

[00:02:02] Barry Kirby: So I was really pleased to see that. And thank you to everybody ~for ~who has been listening whilst we've been out. And content will resume in 2026. So, yeah, that's it. Awesome.

[00:02:15] Nick Roome: Uh, I need to take a look at the human factors cast wrapped. Okay, let's not bury the lead. Let's get right into the news.

[00:02:20] Nick Roome: That's time for everybody's ~part. ~Favorite part of the show? ~May, ~I don't know. Is it your favorite part of the show? We put it up front because people listen to the news. That's fair. Barry, what's the new story this week?

[00:02:31] Barry Kirby: It's either people like listening to the news or trying to work out whether we can get through the entire thing without, uh, stumbling over it.

[00:02:36] Barry Kirby: So this week's article from last store Economic research dives into work-life trends of 2026, and it's basically human factors snapshot of a job market where power is swung back to employers and workers are feeling the strain. Leadership ratings are sliding whilst words like disconnect, misalignment and distrust, spiking reviews, signal ~signaling, ~a serious breakdown in trusted communication between [00:03:00] employees and senior leaders.

[00:03:01] Barry Kirby: Instead of big one and done layoffs, we're seeing the rise of the forever layoff. Frequent small cuts that quietly erode psychological safety and feed chronic job insecurity. Remote and hybrid workers still report better work-life balance, but their ratings for career opportunities and senior management have dropped below in office peers, nudging people back towards the office via a slow motion, behavior driven return to office.

[00:03:24] Barry Kirby: AI gets a lot of negative buzzing reviews, but the actual impact on jobs, ~on ~on satisfaction scores is surprisingly tiny overall with bigger hits, concentrated in a few highly exposed roles like translators and software engineers. Meanwhile, candidates are rejecting fewer offers ~in low, higher, ~in a low, higher environment.

[00:03:41] Barry Kirby: Even as ~early way~ early career wages finally claw back and surpassed the 2020 purchasing power, especially in rising metros like Provo, ~um, boys~ for human ~practice ~practitioners, this is rich territory. The design of layoffs ~are to your policies, ~AI rollouts, and ~system careers, sorry, ~career systems is reshaping trust, workload, and long-term engagement.

[00:03:57] Barry Kirby: And the discipline has a lot to say about [00:04:00] how we make these transitions less harmful and more human centered. So, Nick, what are your thoughts ~on the, um, ~on your work-life balance and ~your, ~your office environment? ~This is interesting and ~

[00:04:08] Nick Roome: ~I'm, ~I'm going to preface everything that I'm saying that I am talking about this from a place of privilege.

[00:04:16] Nick Roome: I've not had the same. Trends experience personally in my own, work life ~trend analysis. ~But ~I, ~if anyone has spent any meaningful amount of time on LinkedIn or spoke with others in the field, these are common, ~ish ~themes that keep coming up. I think one thing that I see repeatedly on LinkedIn is that the job market is terrible.

[00:04:41] Nick Roome: I can't find work anywhere. No one's hiring for the roles that I've traditionally held in the past. Folks who are just getting now into the industry are having a really hard time finding work. And like I said, if you spend any meaningful amount of time on LinkedIn, you will see this. The other thing that I wanna mention is that some of [00:05:00] these things are interesting from a, what they're really trying to do perspective.

[00:05:05] Nick Roome: I tend to think about return to office mandates or return to office as a way to stealth layoff people. I think in a lot of ways, this is a power play by companies to say, come back to the office. You know, ~we're, ~we've evolved past the pandemic and now you need to come back. And the answer I always ask is, why do you need me to come back?

[00:05:30] Nick Roome: Thankfully I've not experienced a return to office mandate, but others who have said, you know, that it's hard to come back because they've. Establish their lives in these different locations and to just ask somebody to uproot and move back. If they are fully remote, then it's not, ~I don't~ I see it as kind of scummy and in a lot of ways ~it's~ it's manipulative of employees.

[00:05:55] Nick Roome: ~And that's a, ~that's a very strong statement. And ~I, I, ~I said what I said, I think ~the~ the [00:06:00] greater issue of layoffs, especially in the tech industry, again, this is sort of something that I've noticed, is that you'll see these patterns of layoffs. They're recurring, they're happening almost all the time.

[00:06:10] Nick Roome: And I know there's ~like ~a lot of, fear and anxiety from folks in my network who are like, ~I don't, ~I don't know when the shoe is gonna drop. Is my role safe? ~I, ~I certainly felt, this way when I was working in large tech, big tech. ~I, I, ~I felt not super secure and that, ~you know, ~I was part of a layoff.

[00:06:29] Nick Roome: So I get it. And then I think the other thing to mention here is just towards the end, they talk a little bit about the shift in ai, this impact on employee satisfaction. And ~you look at the, um. ~You look at the numbers and the numbers are quite small, 0.03 of a difference. ~Or, or, you know, ~and ~I think the 0.02, negative 0.02, ~I think these are small numbers, but indicative of perhaps a larger shift across the workspace.

[00:06:55] Nick Roome: And so it's interesting that they called that out specifically. ~Those, ~those are my high level thoughts, but [00:07:00] very, ~I'm, ~I'm interested in your perspective, because not only, ~uh, ~are you not America based, but also you know, ~you, ~you have your own business and so ~I, ~I'd imagine you have a very different perspective on this than I do.

[00:07:12] Barry Kirby: Yeah, it's, it is interesting because yeah, I mean these are all ~u um, ~US numbers and I do have to ask you before we go Provo and boys. What is that? Uh, Provo, Utah, Boise, Idaho. Ah, gotcha. ~Yeah. Got, um, I, ~I recognize, I was reading out names, I was like, I've got no idea whether I'm just in the whole town, city, county, whatever.

[00:07:31] Barry Kirby: So my apologies to anybody who does live there that I just properly mash that, but I now feel better educated. I'll give you a pass. ~The, um, ~yeah, ~I mean, ~I do recognize a lot of the stuff that's being said. These are ~am ~American numbers, but a lot of it I think is certainly being seen worldwide. ~You, ~you mentioned like you see it on LinkedIn, you see different things, you know.

[00:07:50] Barry Kirby: Whilst there's still a lot of jobs being advertised, still trying to get jobs is still difficult. ~There, there is not. ~It is definitely not, a simple market to play. I think almost ~in, ~in many cases ~there's no~ there's no [00:08:00] huge, ~death ~of people in whatever environment. So yeah, absolutely. ~The, ~I do think though that this is a lot of ~the~ the post pandemic thing coming home to roost in some ways.

[00:08:09] Barry Kirby: As you say, I see this from two different perspectives. Firstly, I run my own business, but ~I, ~I run a small business. ~There's, you know, ~there's five core staff ~and, ~and associates. So ~it's still ~anybody who's done sort of Scrum and Agile know that ~the, that the, ~the best sort of team size is around 11 for communication channels.

[00:08:25] Barry Kirby: And so I've always sort of said that I try and keep ~my, ~my teams below that number. I also work ~in some for, uh, ~with some large organizations. So ~I'm, ~I'm seeing, ~uh, ~that work in a more traditional manner. And so working with teams in there ~about, ~about how they, ~uh, ~are seeing this and also different types of projects.

[00:08:40] Barry Kirby: So some are very physical as in your building or looking to build physical bits of kit, as opposed to, ~um, ~stuff that you can do completely remotely, say, ~um, ~software or ~you do. Yeah. So ~something that ~is~ PC based, so ~I think the, ~I think we've seen now, a whole bunch of the disadvantages of working from home from ~a~ a team perspective.

[00:08:57] Barry Kirby: So ignoring the [00:09:00] work-life balance bit for the moment, but looking at the team productivity piece, ~it's not necessarily, we, ~we know we can do a lot of stuff remotely through teams and we do make a massive use of it. It is really good. But you do miss things like some of them social cues. You do miss the water cooler chats, the coffee chats, and actually there's a lot of stuff that happens in there that I think previously we took for granted.

[00:09:22] Barry Kirby: There's a lot of stuff that in terms of sharing information across projects and across businesses that perhaps ~we, ~we didn't realize just the value of ~that, of what that hap ~what happens there. I'm intrigued 'cause actually a lot of my team want to be in the office. As opposed to, and I'm very open ~if you, I, ~if you wanna work from home, you work from home.

[00:09:40] Barry Kirby: ~If, ~if we need to have a meeting, we know each other well enough that you can just jump on the teams ~and, ~and that works. But actually ~a ~pretty much all of my team want to be in the office and do stuff almost to the point I'm like, no, no, no. I want you to work from home today 'cause I wanna work from home.

[00:09:53] Barry Kirby: So ~there, ~there is a bloke No, get outta the office ~and, ~and, but, um, but no, I think in reality, but I think that's, [00:10:00] that is also a level of trust. Because I do think that in ~the, in the wider articles and, and this, sorry, ~the wider numbers and this article brings it out, ~is there is, ~we seem to be going back to some management wanting to, if they can't see you, then you're obviously not working.

[00:10:13] Barry Kirby: Um, and so there is ~a, ~a bit of that creeping back in, in terms of old school management of ~if I can't, if I, ~if I can't see what you are doing, ~um, ~then you must be slacking. Which is, can be true. I know that there's people who work from home who do slack, but equally, I know there's a lot of people in the office who Slack, who go and, um, spend more than like, say the five or 10 minutes having ~that, that, um, ~that coffee chat ends up being like half an hour or something like that.

[00:10:35] Barry Kirby: So I don't think ~any of this is any, ~any of that home piece. But equally, I don't think we've ever taught anybody how to manage hybrid teams. ~Um, ~so we have these managers, coming in and a lot of us at the time just had to work out how to make it work. And even now, ~I don't think we, I mean, ~I don't think we teach managers well enough anyway, ~um, ~about how to manage.

[00:10:54] Barry Kirby: You're just thrown into it and say, get on with it. But ~we don't, ~we don't manage ~for, ~for today's environment. All of this ~kind of sums up, ~[00:11:00] gets summed up with, ~you know, ~we've never, as an HF community, ~I don't think we've ever ~truly explored the implications of hybrid and remote working. We've just taken it for granted because the pandemic threw us into it.

[00:11:12] Barry Kirby: Technology evolved ~really, ~really quickly. So whether you teams or zoomed or other platforms, we just got on with it and we did it and ~we made, ~we made it happen. We've never, then afterwards turned around and said,

[00:11:23] Barry Kirby: What did we lose? What did we gain? What, what, how do we make this work optimally? It's still been a battle of manager versus employee, or business versus employee about, you know, do we work from home?

[00:11:36] Barry Kirby: Do you work from do you work from the office? Um, do we go back to old school? And we've never sort of sat down and gone, right, okay, well what was the good stuff about this bit? What was the good stuff about this? And how do we move forward to get an optimum model? Because ~I do, ~I do think that there is huge values in both.

[00:11:53] Barry Kirby: So yeah, I think this is a really, really great time to review because we are you know, ~we've, ~we've significantly moved on [00:12:00] from the pandemic. Now. ~There is a, ~there is an air gap, though we are getting flu in the uk. ~There is a, ~there is an air gap between what happened. ~There's been, you know, ~there's been time to almost breathe after it.

[00:12:09] Barry Kirby: And now ~we can op, ~we can reflect with site possibly more objectively. And so it's quite good to see ~some of these, ~some of these numbers come through.

[00:12:16] Nick Roome: Yeah. ~I wonder if we back up. ~I wonder if we back up just a moment here and talk through what these trends are. So they actually label 'em out. The trends one through six.

[00:12:23] Nick Roome: I think it's, ~I ~important for us to cover like the return to office is just one of them, right? So let's talk through these trends, maybe one-on-one. I'll read them out in their entirety and then we'll focus in ~on, ~on each one. So trend one, the great employee leader disconnect. Two is the forever layoff in trend three, the slowmo return to office continuing trend four.

[00:12:51] Nick Roome: Four is that AI isn't bringing on yet. And trend five job seekers will take it and [00:13:00] is drum roll please? Better pay for new grads who can land a job. And so I think the, um, they go into the methodology here and, and we can talk that, but I think that the more important thing is that we talk through the trend, right?

[00:13:14] Nick Roome: Absolutely. So let's talk through this trend. The first trend ~is, ~is that there's this great employee lead connect. And essentially what this means is that ~there's~ there's been a trend towards negative of employees trust and I guess perception. Others, and, and you can see this number I think there's this big spike towards the, uh, towards the pandemic where the trust goes way up.

[00:13:41] Nick Roome: And, and slowly over time it's gone down. Rebounded a little bit in 25, but still hovering low. ~I, ~I think if look at the raw numbers, we're between 3.5 and 3.6, we're at the height of the pandemic as close to four. What as a leader, Barry, ~what, ~what is [00:14:00] your perception on this?

[00:14:02] Barry Kirby: Almost like, ~as, ~as I said earlier, I think ~it's, ~we're just going ~back to the, ~back to the old norms in many ways.

[00:14:07] Barry Kirby: There was, ~as I said, ~like the back end of the pandemic ~when~ we sort of got over it and we ~sort of, we went back into, ~went back into work and people were still not entirely sure about ~how to, ~how work was gonna happen. So we kind of kept on doing what we were doing then. Whereas now there is that whole how do managers, how do leaders lead ~in, ~in today's piece, ~we, I think ~we expected a bit more, distributed, ~um, ~responsibility.

[00:14:29] Barry Kirby: ~Um, ~maybe a big change in the way the business runs because ~we, ~we can show the business runs in different ways. We then go back to, it's almost like any part of a business change. ~You know, how do you, how, ~you know, we always say that the best ~way to get or the big ~thing I want is a pay rise. ~I want to pay rise and, ~and a promotion.

[00:14:44] Barry Kirby: But actually the research shows that as soon as you get your pay rise, money doesn't actually affect your motivation hugely. ~Um, ~you get a pay rise and then ~you, ~you'll have a blip in work productivity and then you sort of fade back to normal. I think ~there's~ people just want to have ~a, um, want ~sort of ~have ~gone back to that dynamic where ~they, ~they want to blame their bosses [00:15:00] for everything really.

[00:15:01] Barry Kirby: Um, and ~some of this, ~some of that's absolutely valid. But ~some of it's, and you, ~you see in larger work, you know, the larger the workforce, the bigger the disconnect, between the leaders on the shop floor. So ~the, the, ~the closer you can have that, ~that~ or ~the, ~the narrower that power gap, ~uh, the, ~the generally the better it is.

[00:15:17] Barry Kirby: ~I don't, but that's in that data, uh, ~that's not in that data, that's in other data. ~Uh, ~but the narrower you make that power gap, ~the, ~the more satisfied people are. ~You know, one Interesting. Yeah. I think it's~

[00:15:22] Nick Roome: one interesting thing that I'm, ~I'm ~is this a new generation entering the workspace and having different, excuse me, having different social.

[00:15:34] Nick Roome: Norms, you know, ~is, ~is some of that being manifested here? I wonder because this really, if you look at the key industries here of management and consulting, media and communication and technology, it starts to experience a dip in 2020 and just goes down. It's quite a significant trend downward.

[00:15:55] Nick Roome: And I wonder if part of this ~is, ~is a new generation entering the [00:16:00] workspace and demanding new things that, that previous generations haven't demanded. And I don't pejoratively, I just mean that as there's a, there's a different demand from different generations. And I wonder if that gap in the leadership who is of probably a certain generation or certain generations plural then is misaligned with the new, uh, demands that are coming into the workplace from a different generation.

[00:16:29] Nick Roome: ~I, ~I that's something that's not plotted against this, chart here mm-hmm. That I would be interested in seeing, population of certain generations over time as well.

[00:16:38] Barry Kirby: There's almost two elements to that. One is that we talk certainly a lot in the uk I dunno how this stacks up in the US but in ~the, ~the lost education generation.

[00:16:47] Barry Kirby: ~So again, that's that. ~Then people during the pandemic who didn't get the same educational experience, um, as everybody else. So going to university, going to college, ~doing it, so ~therefore having to do it all remote. Maybe not even doing exams in the same way that they, either ~they, ~they were, [00:17:00] canned, didn't happen or they were done in a different way.

[00:17:02] Barry Kirby: That is the generation that's now entering the workforce. And so, what does that mean? I don't think we fully appreciate, or certainly I didn't fully appreciate the nature of how they were affected. 'cause for a lot of us, it's like, well, ~it's, ~it's two years. It's not ~that, that, ~that big a deal. But actually that's, ~that's ~very formative time ~when you, when you are going for, ~when you are ~enter ~entering adulthood, ~um, and dec ~and deciding what you're doing with careers and stuff.

[00:17:23] Barry Kirby: So I think that's ~good ~a factor that ~I think ~is worth looking at. The other factor, I think ~is then ~is almost linked in terms of generational, but I think ~the work, ~the young workforce of today looks upon. Employment differently to our generations and generations. Before ~we were very much of the, sorry, ~my generation, generations before were very much of the, ~you have one~ you need a job, ~you have to have a job, and ~you have to have a well-paid job, a successful job, and ~you, ~you keep hold of that thing for as long as possible.

[00:17:48] Barry Kirby: If you are thinking about changing jobs, that's a really big deal. And if you are gonna hand in your resignation or you get made redundant, that is life shattering news and you need to work out what to do next. A lot of younger people [00:18:00] coming through the job market now a lot more socially recognize that ~they, ~they can be a lot more mobile employment, mobile.

[00:18:06] Barry Kirby: So ~if they, ~if they don't keep a job or they don't like the job, they're more, more willing to terminate and go and find another job. But also the multi-threaded nature of what they're doing. So we talk now around the side hustle and ~they ~a lot of. The younger generations now will have multiple side hustles or have maybe a more willing to take, say two part-time jobs for a better for a better employment.

[00:18:28] Barry Kirby: Which then leads it to the final piece is ~the fi this current, this, ~this generation coming through, I think has the right attitude to ~work, ~work-life balance, um, that they want that proper work-life balance. It is, they want to ~live, uh, ~work to live, not live to work. I would love to say that I get it right, but everybody who knows me, uh, knows I get it massively wrong all the time.

[00:18:48] Barry Kirby: And, but I, but I'm, I'm the first to have a go to other people. You're not taking your holiday, you're not doing this, that, and the other. And I'm just completely rubbish at doing it myself. Um, because ~I, ~it's sort of embedded into me that, that ~I'm not, ~if I'm not [00:19:00] working hard, ~I'm not, ~I'm not doing the right thing.

[00:19:02] Barry Kirby: And so that's generational. Um, ~so I think all M three things still then lead back to, ~I think the complaints in the, the disconnect between leadership and an ~employer~ employees is because the leadership is there to make sure the business runs. The employees are there to ~earn, ~earn a wage, ~to, ~to develop their career, but develop their career on their own terms, not necessarily be dictated to in the way that previous generations, ~uh, would, ~would expect or be happy to ~be di ~be talked to in that way.

[00:19:28] Nick Roome: Yeah, I wanna move on to the other, uh, to the other trends here. But I do wanna just mention quickly some of the terms that are coming up in these Glassdoor reviews. And this is one of the data points that they pulled up they say disconnect has increased by 24% from 24 to 25. And then there's other words here, misaligned plus 149% miscommunication, 25% hypocrisy, 18% distrust at some of those are making their way into, some of ~those, ~those [00:20:00] reviews.

[00:20:00] Nick Roome: Let's get into the second trend here, which is the forever layoff. And this is sort of the ~cyclic ~cyclical pattern ~of sort ~of laying off employees. And ~this kind of ~something that I think when you look at the graph it's not quite, ~uh, ~apparent be it's just at a level, but then it looks like it's starting to climb back again.

[00:20:18] Nick Roome: The graph ~is, ~is kind of hard to read, but essentially what they're saying here is that there's a rise in layoffs that is trending upwards in annual layoffs. And because of this trend up, there's a thought that this is more of a ~like ~seasonal thing. You do layoffs seasonally. Um, I. I don't know how to feel about this other than this is bad.

[00:20:45] Barry Kirby: It's sort of it, it is and it isn't. It's like I say, ~the, ~having been the victim ~of a~ of one of these many years ago, ~um, of ~worked in a company ~that ~that would always go through every six months would have redundancies. And it was almost a, when's it gonna hit me? [00:21:00] Type of thing.

[00:21:00] Barry Kirby: ~And, ~and one day it does. So I think when you, ~I guess ~understand, ~um, ~that the biggest expense that any company has largely is the workforce, ~uh, ~because they are ~the they're ~the, well, ~they're, they're, ~they are the core of your business. But also ~they're, they're, you know, ~you have to not only pay for them, you have to pay the other expenses that go along with, ~with having an, ~having employees.

[00:21:19] Barry Kirby: So in the uk ~it's, ~you've gotta pay national insurance, you've gotta pay your employment tax, all that sort of jazz. If you need to rescue the business in some way, or if you need to rescue the bottom line, ~the only way you can do that, the only flexible, this sounds a terrible thing. You said ~the only flexible thing you've got ~Yeah, it does.~

[00:21:31] Barry Kirby: ~Um, is, ~is employees because you can, if you could generate more work. ~You generate more custom, ~you would, but you can't just turn around to somebody and say, you need to buy more stuff off me, or, you need to have more of my services. ~You need to have more of that sort of stuff. ~If you've got buildings or hard assets, you can't just suddenly sell them ~and, ~and create the revenue outta them.

[00:21:49] Barry Kirby: So ~it's, ~it's employees. And this is another reason why ~I'd, ~I've ~sort of ~got away from working for large business because it's not nice, but even, you know, me [00:22:00] running my own business, it's when things get tight, ~it's, ~it's the only thing you can look at. ~Um, okay,~

[00:22:05] Nick Roome: but let, let's look at the example of big tech though, right?

[00:22:08] Nick Roome: And I think this is where a lot of perception comes in because ~you, ~you think about big tech and you think about CEO salaries, for example, right? You say sometimes the workforce is the only way to accommodate for that. But there's other ways. It's just that I personally feel that greed is getting in the way of doing other way.

[00:22:29] Nick Roome: And to be clear, I've seen it happen the other way too, where CEOs take a pay cut, to help make sure ~that, ~that most of the workforce can stay on and the like ~the, that, ~that is a super cool approach and I wish more places would do it. Because really ~that ~when we're talking about a margin of what's available, I think.

[00:22:48] Nick Roome: ~That, ~that is another resource that can be pulled at ~that. I don't think it~

[00:22:50] Barry Kirby: can, however, not Pac ~that tends to be a, ~that tends to be a one-off pull. So yes, there are some really good examples of where, and again, it tends to be the tech sector [00:23:00] where ~the, ~the CEO or whatever is dynamic and engaged enough to recognize that what you are hitting is a blip and therefore they can take that hit~ and, ~and readdress it across the workforce.

[00:23:09] Barry Kirby: 'cause the workforce is, as you know, ~you, the workforce is ~the most valuable asset you have. Um, because that's where all your knowledge is. Uh, and, and you don't, you know, I don't care what anybody says, nobody wants to get rid of the people ~out of, ~outta the workforce. However, I think there is also, when you've got some companies that are so divested, I think a lot of it is, is around, you know, shareholdings and stuff like that and where, ~where, and held ~that business is owned.

[00:23:31] Barry Kirby: But ~if you have, ~if you need to manage short term, manage that bottom line on the stock market or something like that, that's where it, ~that's where it go~ comes from. It's also why I don't ~like, ~like working them sort of businesses. But, um, yeah, ~I don't, you tend to, ~you also tend to see, I think those people with the bigger salaries it tends to be the ones that could truly affect it is if you, if it's not just the one off the big boss, but actually you turn around and say that anybody who is above this certain level, we all take a hit.

[00:23:58] Barry Kirby: That would be [00:24:00] a better thing. But then you get businesses that are so big ~that they, ~that the top can't see the bottom. So yeah, no, it's, I think there is I think it's mixed up in people behavior a lot. ~And, ~but there's some things that do work and some things that don't.

[00:24:16] Nick Roome: Yeah, ~I, yeah, we, ~we have a comment here on LinkedIn.

[00:24:18] Nick Roome: It says, we seem to be getting rifs each quarters and each time I'll look at the stock price and it'll go up around $5. I ~cyclically wonder, ~cynically wonder, was that really worth messing up folks' lives we're all bouncing in a roulette wheel that doesn't discriminate based on performance. It's pretty depressing.

[00:24:36] Barry Kirby: Yeah. And I think ~that's the, ~that's the nature. I, I dunno, cynically, I would say that's the nature of business now. ~We there them, ~the old days of having. The job for life or the business that is ~the, it's ~always gonna be giving. Um, I don't think that exists anymore. You know, you look at, I mean, ~you, ~this is why I think the likes of, oil and petroleum companies are trying to hold onto as much as they possibly can because they are the old school technologies ~that, uh, worked in, in old school businesses ~that worked in a predictable [00:25:00] way.

[00:25:00] Barry Kirby: ~I mean, ~that doesn't exist anymore. Or ~he ~is very much on the way out. It's hard to see, ~you know, the, ~the large manufacturing, ~the large, that sort of thing. ~Business has changed, ~uh, ~dramatically. And I don't think that the current markets ~have really caught up, uh, ~or the current workforce has caught up ~track ~truly ~what, ~what it is that we should be doing.

[00:25:14] Nick Roome: Yeah. I just wanna mention that was from Chad h on, on LinkedIn. Our service doesn't tell us who the LinkedIn user is, but I went and looked it up so that, oh, well, they get credit. Thanks, Chad. All right. Let's get into the next trend here. And maybe ~we, ~we gloss over this since we talked a little bit about RTO at the top.

[00:25:30] Nick Roome: So ~re ~return to office and that slowmo return to office, I think it's, ~it's, um, ~a way to force folks ~to, ~to quit, ~um, ~without the risk of having severe. Anyway, let's move on to the next one. ~Let's the one that probably the ai, ~let's talk about AI for a second. AI isn't bringing employees down yet.

[00:25:44] Nick Roome: ~There's, um, ~the trend here is that ~there's a, a, a. A ~satisfaction in occupations with high exposure to AI declined slightly relative to other occupations since 2022. And this is where I was saying that slight, decline in [00:26:00] satisfaction is maybe ~a, ~an indicator that over time we'll start to see ~more of a, ~more of a shift.

[00:26:08] Nick Roome: It's starting to head in that direction and I, I don't know. What's your perception on AI in the workforce and what are employees telling you?

[00:26:16] Barry Kirby: Fundamentally we dunno how to use it yet. You know, you've got people like us who are willing to play with it. ~Any, any, you know, ~the, ~this ~article just highlight, ~you know, the, the, ~their occupations that are vulnerable to large language models, which has been, ~you know, ~when we talk about ai, we largely talking about LLMs ~and, ~and ~the information of ~implementation of LLMs.

[00:26:30] Barry Kirby: 'cause that's ~the, ~probably the most accessible thing to any sort of workforce. A lot of ~workforces, a lot of work. ~Workplaces are just banning it, just can't use it. Um, because they still don't necessarily understand it. There is more and more access to it now, but it's certainly ~the, in the, ~in the, early days, we ~just, ~just don't use it.

[00:26:44] Barry Kirby: We're starting to see more use but it's not properly integrated ~into, ~into what we do. So it's not integrated into business processes, business models and things like that. ~Unless you are do, I mean, ~even the ones that, use. AI or have an output ~of, of ~as AI [00:27:00] in some way, or use ~NLM ~still don't, ~with the, ~with the exception of software engineers still don't use it ~as a, ~as a core element of the business.

[00:27:06] Barry Kirby: ~Um, ~I think that's gonna change. I think that's gonna change radically over the next couple of years, as AI and generative AI really start, growing. But again, it's, it's, it's how will that negatively affect what people do? ~I, ~there was an argument put together the other day, which I thought was interesting, that it will make people who are less competent at their jobs, ~um, ~be able to hide, within the business.

[00:27:30] Barry Kirby: Um, so the people who weren't as productive and weren't as useful because they'll be able to use AI a lot more to generate their work. Um, does that mean that they'll ~be, ~be able to hide in bigger organizations and not be, ~um, ~and basically take away a salary for just working ai? I don't think that's necessarily true because ~I think, ~I think working AI is still a skill.

[00:27:49] Barry Kirby: And so if you are rubbish at your job, you're largely gonna be rubbish at doing AI as well. So, it's interesting though. I think, like I said, I think this is gonna get worse as AI [00:28:00] develops, but then also I think we'll also then see a lot of blame for bad performance on AI as well. Yeah, ~that'll, ~that'll be an interesting one.

[00:28:09] Nick Roome: Yeah, for sure. ~I don't have much else to say on this. So go, we've, I said ~I don't have much else to say on this. This one's we kind of talk through at length on, across other shows, but it is interesting that, the trend of having AI being mentioned in a review tends to be towards the, the negative, in, in the aggregate data. That, that to me is, is a little bit interesting. Uh, anything else on the AI trend before we move on to the next one?

[00:28:33] Barry Kirby: Um, ~I, ~I guess the only other bit will be, as other AI technologies come out, it'll be interest to see how that changes. Obviously, as I said, we focus ~on, ~on LLMs at the moment.

[00:28:41] Barry Kirby: Other technologies are gonna be coming out in different areas. We talk a lot around ai. We use ~a sub, a sub sub ~in a subservient manner at the moment. How is that going to change as AI gets integrated into teams, ~into, ~into potential leadership roles as well? That's going be interesting to see what happens [00:29:00] there.

[00:29:00] Barry Kirby: Yeah.

[00:29:01] Nick Roome: Let's talk about this fifth trend here. Job seekers will take what they can get. So job applicants were 12% less likely to reject a job in 2025 than they were in 23 hiring rates at a 10 year low. We expect the downward trend in offer rejection rates to continue in 2026. I tend to see this, ~or this is ~anecdotally, ~as well, ~and I think this is just, um.

[00:29:23] Nick Roome: ~Like I said, the, uh, if, ~if anyone spent any meaningful time on LinkedIn over the last year or so, you know, that folks are having a hard time finding jobs. So ~this, ~this tracks for me, take what you can get. ~If ~it's because the philosophy that a lot of folks hold is that you can always look for a job while you hold a job, but ~it's, some, ~something is better than nothing.

[00:29:40] Nick Roome: And so I've seen this and this tracks,

[00:29:43] Barry Kirby: I've seen two versions of this, and I think ~this is where I think the, ~there's potential ~a ~nuance. It'd be really good to understand, ~um, ~why declines. ~Um, ~part of it is that people, are only going for the jobs that they really want. ~So if there ~people are less likely [00:30:00] just to blanket apply for a wide range of things, I think that's true in some markets.

[00:30:05] Barry Kirby: I don't think that's true in others. ~I think there are some, you know, certainly ~when you get, ~when you good. ~Towards the lower end ~of LA ~of the labor market. ~They say people just want a job. ~People just, ~just don't even just want a job. They ~need a job. But also this whole multithreading thing ~that we took, ~that we mentioned earlier, ~um, ~there are some people who want the perfect job or a perfect bit of a job.

[00:30:18] Barry Kirby: The big thing I've seen around rejections at the moment is the terms and conditions not being what was, ~or what was in ~originally, ~not offered, but um, ~implied. ~So when, when he talk a bit ~like what we said earlier, ~you know, it sort of, ~it was implied that you'd be able to do, ~um, ~working from home.

[00:30:30] Barry Kirby: And then, ~so ~actually no, ~we we're just changing now because ~we want everybody to be in the office. ~Oh, ~well ~you, ~you know, that I want to be working from home, so I'm gonna decline the offer. ~Um, so yeah, ~it's interesting. ~I think the, I think ~historically we would've taken that ~as a, ~as a single, ~um, ~statistic.

[00:30:41] Barry Kirby: I think it'd be really good to get more nuanced understanding behind the why behind it, because ~I don't think it, I don't think it's, ~I don't think it's as simple as we make out now.

[00:30:50] Nick Roome: Yeah. ~Yeah, ~I have not really much else to say on that one. Let's get into trend six here, which is, ~uh, ~and again, I don't have much to say on this one either, 'cause ~I'm not a, ~I'm not a new grad, but better pay for the new [00:31:00] grads who can land a job.

[00:31:00] Nick Roome: So real wage growth was down 4.1% for early career workers ~from 20~ from 2020 to 2022. But we'll finally surpass 20, 20 levels next year. So ~it's, ~it's raising back up. And to me this is just like a return to normal, which great. It's trying to match inflation, essentially ~is, ~is my perception of it.

[00:31:21] Barry Kirby: Yeah, I think it is what it is. I think the, um, it's good that we ~see, ~see more of that. However, this is where the business owner comes in. ~It comes in that the that ~the higher the base salaries, ~the, ~we are not tracking that ~with~ with inflation at the moment, as in ~the, you know, we ~we're not buying goods.

[00:31:35] Barry Kirby: In the same sort of way. It's ~good that the ~good that the graduates who are coming in are getting a solid foundation to work from. Interestingly, in the UK ~we've, ~we are having some, strong discussions about the minimum wage for 18 to 25 year olds being significantly increased, ~which~ which on ~the face, uh, or ~the face of it is brilliant, but a lot of businesses are pushing back saying that, ~um, ~they won't be able to employ as many, ~when, you know, ~particularly hospitality and things like that where you generally ~do have, you have, um, younger or you ~want ~younger ~to structure cheaper [00:32:00] labor.

[00:32:01] Barry Kirby: So yeah, it's interesting to see how that affects, everybody.

[00:32:07] Nick Roome: Alright. Any other final words on the job trends for 2025 leading into 2026?

[00:32:16] Barry Kirby: ~I think as a, ~I think I said from the top, ~I think this is, ~we were at an interesting time ~between now ~to compare between now and sort of the pandemic era.

[00:32:22] Barry Kirby: I think we're coming back to the normal, whatever normal looks like, but, technology, particularly the implementation of ai, ~I think ~is gonna ~see~ see huge job impacts ~over, um, ~over the next five or 10 years. ~And how, ~how we work on a day-to-day basis is going to significantly change. ~And this, ~I think this is the first bit where ~we, I think ~we see the idea about where younger people want to, work to live.

[00:32:43] Barry Kirby: And ~I, ~I strongly ~uh, strongly ~advocating and chasing that.

[00:32:47] Nick Roome: Yeah. Alright, well thank you to our friends over at Glassdoor for our news story this week. If you wanna follow along, we do post the links to all of the original articles in our Discord where you can find us for more discussion on these stories and much more.[00:33:00]

[00:33:00] Nick Roome: We're gonna be taking a quick break and then we'll be back to see what's going on in the Human Factors community. Right after this

[00:33:07] Nick Roome: yes, huge thank you as always to our Patreon patrons. We, we truly appreciate your patronage. All that support goes right back into the show. I don't pocket any of it. Barry, I think may be siphoning some off the top, but I can't prove it. So, uh, you truly keep the lights on over here. And we really, Barry, you're you're fine.

[00:33:26] Nick Roome: You're fine. He's not siphoning anything off. I promise. Somebody's gotta pay

[00:33:28] Barry Kirby: for my poetry habit.

[00:33:31] Nick Roome: That's where all the funds have gone. No, truly, truly. Thank you all. Um, they go right back into the production cost of the show. Uh, and we couldn't do it without Jim. So thank you so much. Why don't we get into the next part of the show?

[00:33:45] Nick Roome: Yes, it came from this is the part of the show where we search all over the internet to bring you topics The community is talking about. Anything is fair game. We found a couple really good ones here from the Human Factors subreddit, and there's one from the UX research subreddit as well [00:34:00] that we're gonna modify for human factors.

[00:34:02] Nick Roome: And I, I almost wanna start with that one because ~I, I think we're running well, ~I think we're okay on time. Do you wanna start with that one, Barry?

[00:34:08] Barry Kirby: Which one? ~We, we, we, ~which one are you talking about? The Hot

[00:34:09] Nick Roome: Takes. You wanna do Hot Takes?

[00:34:11] Barry Kirby: Oh, I haven't opened that one yet. I didn't even realize it was there.

[00:34:13] Nick Roome: ~Whoa. Whoa. ~Alright, let's not do Hot Takes. We'll get that one. We'll get there. Alright, let's do this first one. We've been gone for a year. This one's from the Human Factors subreddit a while back, but it's an important question. Why isn't Human Factors more well known? ~This, ~they go on to write, I'm planning on going, for a Masters in Human Factors.

[00:34:31] Nick Roome: It seems like there's an interesting, versatile career path with opportunities for good pay, but no one I mentioned to has ever heard of Human Factors. I didn't even know about this field until last year. I'm just wondering why it doesn't seem very well known compared to other related fields, at least to the people I know.

[00:34:48] Nick Roome: ~Uh, ~this one comes to us, like I said, from the Human Factors subreddit. This is by Magnolia 56, Barry, why isn't Human Factors more well known?

[00:34:58] Barry Kirby: Oh, because then if everybody [00:35:00] knew about it, then everybody wanted to do it and I'd be out of a job. I think it's fundamentally, when I sort of talk about this, ~I, ~because in of itself, human factors is not ~a, ~a single, it's not like math or science or, you know, something that's very straight.

[00:35:14] Barry Kirby: ~It's, ~it's an amalgamation of ~what, ~eight or nine different, ~different basically ~sciences ~and, ~and engineering and things like that. So it's a bringing together eight to nine different disciplines. It is a transversal idea and it's as much about bringing things together and I think ~a ~because a lot of people see it as because it's about people that they feel it's wooly and all that sort of stuff, despite it being a science and all of our engineering and things like that.

[00:35:38] Barry Kirby: In the UK we also don't push it very well. So you don't go to secondary school primary school and secondary school and talk about human factors and ergonomics. Um, ~you, there's no, the, ~the syllabus don't work like that. So, people then ~act, ~fall over it at some point, either during the degree or early careers and think, oh, that sounds exciting.

[00:35:58] Barry Kirby: Let's go and find [00:36:00] it. Yeah, I just don't think we know enough about it ~in, ~in early stage careers.

[00:36:05] Nick Roome: Yeah. ~To, ~to me ~it's, um, ~it's fundamentally a communication issue. And this is coming from somebody who runs a communication lab. ~Uh, ~this is coming from somebody who does a science communication podcast on the regular, it's a communication issue.

[00:36:19] Nick Roome: I mean, really human factors is not a, sexy, catchy term that explains every possible thing that we do. To me, the popularity ~of a~ of any industry is the ability to, ~like, ~for lack of a better term, sloganized the thing. ~I, I, ~I truly believe that UX is sexy. ~Like that ~the term UX is sexy.

[00:36:44] Nick Roome: It is understood. And ~that, ~that you are making an experience for a user. ~And I, ~what are you doing in human factor? Are you factoring a human? ~Are you, uh, ~like there's no, ~there ~it's two words. ~Right? ~And it just doesn't explain what we do. ~Well, ~it's a lot of stuff and it's really important work, and ~from almost I wouldn't say almost, but a, ~a vast [00:37:00] sampling of folks that I know have discovered the field.

[00:37:05] Nick Roome: By accident. ~Yeah. ~They've fallen into it ~by~ by coming from an adjacent field, whether that be design or engineering or psychology. They've fallen into the field of human factors. And so I think fundamentally ~it's, ~it's a communication problem. We have a hard time marketing ourselves and maybe we need to hire some marketing experts in the field to just really get us, ~get us, uh, ~caught up with everything else.

[00:37:28] Nick Roome: But like, part of the other thing is that I think there's a want and desire from many folks to want to have something to point the finger at when something goes wrong.

[00:37:44] Announcer: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:45] Nick Roome: And ~in, ~in human factors, we are very protective of the people who are doing tasks and doing things. And it's kind of hard for people to grapple with the fact [00:38:00] that it's not user error.

[00:38:02] Nick Roome: It's not, just because somebody messed up their job. It's because of all these other things that go on behind the scenes. It's a complex series of systems that ~we're, ~we're trying to design for and accommodate for, and it just doesn't simplify well. So there's not a really good way to market it. I don't know what.

[00:38:21] Nick Roome: Am I making any sense here?

[00:38:24] Barry Kirby: No, ~I ~I think you are. Pretty much there. Bang on. ~I mean, the, it's also, ~I mean, it's also got that bit about it that actually within the industry ourselves, ~um, ~we don't necessarily, 'cause we all come from different viewpoints and different perspectives, like I said, ~d different, ~almost different disciplines.

[00:38:37] Barry Kirby: We have our own view on it and let's, I think, put it politely, there's some louder people than others, and some of them louder. People don't necessarily agree with what some ~of ~other people say, but just say it very loudly anyway. And so some of our communications are wrong. ~Some people don't, like, ~some people think they own part of this discipline.

[00:38:54] Barry Kirby: Um, so we have as much internal problem as we have, an external problem. So if we can't agree ~in ~amongst ourselves, ~so ~there's [00:39:00] a lot of people who talk about is human factors actually the right term. And, and I've had many ~a, uh, uh, ~a wine driven conversation, ~um, ~around that. And, ~and you, ~you always get back to, well, there's nothing better.

[00:39:10] Barry Kirby: Even like looking at human factors integration and you know, ~in the, ~in the states you call it human systems integration who's right or wrong? ~It, it's, ~they're both kind. ~Well, they're, you sort say, ~well, they're both the same thing, but they're not because they're both defined. In a Venn diagram overlapping, but there ~is ~significant differences as well.

[00:39:24] Barry Kirby: So, yeah, ~I don't~ we don't even know what, we can't even agree ourselves. Nevermind getting anybody else to understand it. I think we're

[00:39:30] Nick Roome: too up in arms over what we call things. We're all on the same team here. Alright~ I'm gonna, ~I'm gonna get into the next one here. This one's also on the Human Factor subreddit.

[00:39:38] Nick Roome: This is by Golden Retriever, MPLS. How would you get somebody interested in human factors? I've been asked to present a session at an upcoming seminar aimed at early career professionals or early career individuals. They asked me for an introductory level presentation about human factors, engineering, specifically medical devices.

[00:39:57] Nick Roome: The presentation will be 30 to 45 minutes and I'd like to have some [00:40:00] hands-on activity so it's not just me talking to an audience the entire time. What would you do, say, present or explain to get someone interested in human factors if you had 30 minutes?

[00:40:10] Barry Kirby: Wow. 30 minutes. It takes me 30 minutes just to ~just ~introduce myself.

[00:40:14] Barry Kirby: Actually ~I do a, ~I do a lot of these and I always start off with a case study. ~Always, always, always. ~I ~do a ~tell a story about where something has either, depending on my audience, I'll mix it up a bit, but ~it's ~generally ~it's, ~there's been some sort of disaster or some sort of error or something. So I use ~the, uh, ~the Hawaii one quite a lot.

[00:40:31] Barry Kirby: Or you might use ~an, uh, ~an air crash ~or so, ~or something like that. Talk them through a problem and what the human solutions are. Ideally, ~you wanna get the, you, ~you wanna make it interactive, get some feedback from the community, and it's worth spending five minutes, laboring that to bring out all the human factors, elements of it.

[00:40:47] Barry Kirby: And then you ~go into, ~use that as your springboard to then go into, and this is human factors engineering, ~um, ~or human factors and ergonomics and the different areas, blah, blah, blah. But I ~always, always, ~always start off with ~a, ~an attention grabbing case study. ~What about ~

[00:40:59] Nick Roome: ~you? ~That's a good [00:41:00] question and I would approach this very differently ~for~ for different audiences.

[00:41:03] Nick Roome: If it's a group of folks, I think I would go with your approach, but I'm gonna talk to ~like ~the individual perspective. How would you get someone interested in human factors? ~I'm gonna ~take that quite literally ~and, ~and talk about it. ~If I was, ~if I was talking to a friend. I wanted to get them interested in human factors.

[00:41:19] Nick Roome: What I would do is appeal to their interests and make it about them. ~I would human factors the approach, right? Mm-hmm. ~I think in a lot of ways you need to understand what appeals to somebody and ~how to how to lever those appeals or ~how to lever those motivations. ~And so for me, when it comes down to it~ I actually did this quite recently with my sister-in-law as ~she was, she, ~she was talking about future career paths, and I was like, oh, well, have you heard of human factors?

[00:41:37] Nick Roome: Let me tell you about it. ~And so, you know, ~ultimately it came down to understanding what drove her, what her motivations were, what she was interested in, and what she wanted to do when she grows up. ~And ~I think the important thing is that I kept it focused on, ~well, ~that human factors is a field that fits, ~like ~all the things that you're talking about.

[00:41:56] Nick Roome: Here's how, and kind of explained the bridges from what [00:42:00] she wanted to do to what human factors. Do and acted as a translator from the experiences that she knew into the experiences that human factors can provide as a field. And so really the approach that I would take as a tailored approach towards the individual.

[00:42:18] Nick Roome: And that's really where the power is. But I think your approach of presenting a story that can capture the attention of folks in a group setting is a good one too. Okay. We have just a little bit of time left. We have this last one here. Oh boy. This one's a good one. This one's from the UX Research Subreddit.

[00:42:37] Nick Roome: This is by Nerd Queen Hydra. Uh, they write, what are your UX R Hot takes? And this is UX research, but I'm gonna change it to human factors. Again, we can't agree on the terms, but I have a few, but would love to hear yours first. Don't hold back. What, Barry, what are your human factors? Hot takes,

[00:42:55] Barry Kirby: well, actually, ~I, ~I was gonna almost stick with the UX A one going from what you said [00:43:00] earlier ~about~ about it being a sexy term.

[00:43:01] Barry Kirby: And because ~it is, 'cause ~it is, it's fashionable. However, I think ~the, the. ~There are way too many UXs who are qualified just from, or say they're qualified. ~They, ~they've attended a bootcamp, ~the~ these wonderful online. ~You, ~you've done it for a weekend, you're suddenly fully qualified uxa ~and, ~and are amazing.

[00:43:16] Barry Kirby: I'm seeing way too much of that now. People who think that they're experts having done it for a weekend. ~That's my, that's, ~that's my massive gripe.

[00:43:25] Nick Roome: I have a few, ~hot, like ~what I would consider hot takes. Okay. So some of them I'll just gloss over because some of them are ~like, ~from my unique perspective as a content creator in the human factor space.

[00:43:36] Nick Roome: And I think that content creation in and of itself is a practice in human factors, like being able to create content for someone to consume that ~it ~has a very directed goal. I think also, I mentioned it in the last one, our field is very bad at explaining itself. That might not be a hot take. That might just be reality.

[00:43:57] Nick Roome: But I think, if I were to talk about ~like ~the field as a whole and not ~like ~the [00:44:00] meta, I mean podcaster in the human factor space, I think the thing that I would, ~kind of ~harp on ~and ~this is especially true in ~like ~larger organization, I ~think ~there's not necessarily a problem with UX in these large organizations ~or, you know, ~because a lot of times you'll see these.

[00:44:15] Nick Roome: Large companies, ~kind of ~hiring UX people to ~like ~solve their problems. And it's not necessarily a UX problem that they're trying to solve. It's an accountability problem because the way in which they build these large programs is they're not taking things into account like risk. They're not taking things into account like incentives for not only the business, but the end users as well.

[00:44:40] Nick Roome: And I think they're measuring a lot of times the wrong metrics. And so I think they're, less, it's less about, a UX problem because there's probably people there doing good work. It's about tracking the wrong things and ~doing, ~looking at the wrong things at a higher organizational level.

[00:44:58] Nick Roome: And that's my hot take. [00:45:00]

[00:45:00] Barry Kirby: Cool. Like

[00:45:01] Nick Roome: ~that. ~All right. So ~that was, ~that was the, it came from section. Now we gotta find brand new ones for next time. Barry, we got four weeks now. That's that. We can do it. Alright, let's get into our, ~uh, ~segment called One More Thing. It's just where we have a talk opportunity to talk about one more thing.

[00:45:15] Nick Roome: Barry, what's your, one more thing?

[00:45:17] Barry Kirby: So I was gonna talk about pottery again, just 'cause, I mean, you can't get enough of it. However, that's ~not, ~not what we're gonna go with this week. 'cause this week normally we mentioned, um, ~at the, ~in the pre-show that it was my, uh, it was my birthday this week.

[00:45:28] Barry Kirby: And normally we have a rule that we get the Christmas decorations up in the house before my birthday. And so my birthday means that, ~um, it's, ~it's the start of Christmas celebrations as well. So ~I, it's, ~it's normally a marker. We never got the Christmas decorations up ~in time for my birth ~in time for my birthday this year.

[00:45:43] Barry Kirby: I think Christmas is now late and gonna be ruined and I'm very nervous, ~um, ~about what's gonna happen. So this weekend we have to get the Christmas decorations up. Otherwise, yeah, I dunno what's gonna happen.

[00:45:53] Nick Roome: Are you the groundhog of Christmas? Like ~if, ~if Christmas lights are up before your birthday, then Christmas will [00:46:00] be on time and ~if it, ~if they're up, then Christmas comes late.

[00:46:03] Barry Kirby: Well, I don't know because it's so long since, um, we've not had the Christmas decorations up for my birthday that I'm, we've been uncharted territory. ~You're kind of, ~

[00:46:10] Nick Roome: in a way you're kind of saying that you're the harbinger of Christmas.

[00:46:16] Barry Kirby: ~I, I, ~I probably ~the ~goes to Christmas future in some ways that, um, if ~I'm, ~I get it into place, you know?

[00:46:22] Barry Kirby: So yeah, I don't, ~I, I'm, ~I'm very nervous.

[00:46:25] Nick Roome: Okay. All right. Well, ~hope, let's One more thing. Hope ~hopefully Christmas ~won't, uh, ~won't come late this year. So actually Christmas came early for us this year. ~I, um, we~ we've been off for a year, right? So, ~uh, ~this is new context for people who are longtime listeners.

[00:46:38] Nick Roome: We bought a house this year, and one of the things that we wanted to do with this house is convert one of the rooms into a proper library for all of our physical media, for all of our books, to keep in one place. ~So, uh, ~arriving at my doorstep last weekend ~was ~nine Ikea Billy bookshelves that I needed to [00:47:00] assemble, ~to put up ~to line the walls of this room.

[00:47:03] Nick Roome: ~And the assembly. So ~I'll talk about two things. ~The ~first off, the assembly process for this, ikea's got it down. They have streamlined the process, especially for this ~Pacific ~product. The Billy Bookshelf, not sponsored, just genuinely ~like, ~found it super easy to do and put together. I could do it on my own.

[00:47:19] Nick Roome: Help is. Better and preferred, but you could put one of these things together on your own. The second thing that I'll mention is that there's a unique design decision that was made with these Billy bookshelves that I super appreciate. And I put this in the show notes so that you could see it, Barry.

[00:47:34] Nick Roome: There is a notch cut out of the bottom edge of these Billy bookshelves to account for the crown molding in your home. So you can place this right up next to a wall and the crown molding won't push it forward, so you won't have anything kind of like slipping behind it so that way when you fasten it to the wall~ it's perfectly, um, ~perfectly sat up right against the back.

[00:47:54] Nick Roome: I thought that was a great design decision ~and, ~and the process itself for putting ~all, ~all of them together, was not [00:48:00] too bad. And so that was my one more thing.

[00:48:02] Barry Kirby: I'd say also with that, that I only found out with some recent IKEA furniture as well, that the back ~that you normally, ~that normally holds a lot of the strength of the thing that now, ~uh, ~rather than having to wedge it in a weird sort of way that you need like four arms, 10 legs and 20 friends.

[00:48:17] Barry Kirby: Now, just once you get it right, just slides in 'cause it's notched in the way inside. ~That took my, ~I was having a real flap about ~trying to put, so ~trying to put this thing together and my son did it in like 10 seconds. And I'm like how did you do that? And he is like, well, I just slid it in. I was like, oh, IKEA evolved.

[00:48:33] Barry Kirby: So yeah, ~they, they do stuff at the moment. They're, I'm, I'm, they're, ~you only truly notice it. When you then buy a piece of ~put ~putting together furniture that is not ikea ~and, ~and you realize just how bad that stuff is and how good Ikea stuff is

[00:48:45] Nick Roome: very well designed and like kudos to the ~like.~

[00:48:47] Nick Roome: Process, people that put that together and designed the whole thing. It is, it's great. Alright, well that's it for today's episode, everyone. If you like this episode, enjoy some of the discussion about work-life balance. I'm sure there's something in our backlog [00:49:00] probably about working from home or remote.

[00:49:02] Nick Roome: So go listen to that comment wherever you're listening with what you think of the story this week for more in depth discussion, you can join us on our Discord community ~and, uh, ~and have a good time over there. Visit our website, sign up for our newsletter, stay up to date with all the latest human factors news.

[00:49:15] Nick Roome: If you like what you hear, there's a couple things that you can do to help support the show. One, wherever you're at, you can leave us a five star review cost you nothing to do except your time and makes us really happy and boosts our ego. So if you wanna do that, please do that. Uh, you can tell your friends about us, and that's truly one of the best ways that the show grows.

[00:49:35] Nick Roome: So please do that. And three, if you have the financial means to, and you would like to support us financially to help us do bigger and better things on stream, consider supporting us on Patreon. You can, there's a couple different tiers in there with a couple different rewards. Check it out. As always, thanks to all of our socials on our website are in the description of this episode.

[00:49:53] Nick Roome: I wanna thank Mr. Barry Kirby for being on the show today. Where can our listeners go and find you if they wanna talk about ~Mm, ~your perspective as a [00:50:00] boss.

[00:50:00] Barry Kirby: Well you can come and find me ~at, ~at the local pub as well as LinkedIn, Facebook. If you ~want to, if you don't wanna talk about bosses, you just ~wanna talk about Potter.

[00:50:05] Barry Kirby: That's what my Instagram is now focused on towards. But if you wanna do the whole human factors stuff, then you can find me at 1202 podcast.com.

[00:50:12] Nick Roome: As for me, I've been your host, Nick Rome. You can find me on our discord and across social media at Nick Rome. If you're watching live, stay tuned for the post show.

[00:50:20] Nick Roome: Thanks again for tuning into Human Factors Cast until next time. It depends.