Perspectives on the problems and the solutions from those who’ve cracked it.

A new book by Sonya Lennon is a ‘flick to the issue’ guide to the common problems that prevent workplaces from working. Whether you’re a manager or being managed, you share the pain of our badly designed processes and behaviours. But guess what—there is a better way.

Today’s workplaces are full of issues and annoyances, according to the Gallup Global State of the Workplace 2024, 77% of workers are either not engaged or actively disengaged and 20% of workers feel lonely, at a cost of $8.8 trillion to the global economy. The bigger question is, what is the human cost? 66% of workers cited that they were struggling or suffering at work and 51% of US workers are watching or actively seeking a new job.

Under the hood, the human stories show commonalities in the lived experience. Regardless of hierarchy, workers feel unheard, disrespected, disempowered, lonely and lacking in motivation.

Assumptions, lack of trust, poor communication and fear impede so many of us in the volatile world of work. We have to work very hard to realise that our world view and experience is not everybody else's blueprint. It has been said that all businesses are people, and as AI threatens that maxim, how we think, speak, and behave is more important than ever.

Work’s Not Working examines the major impediments to a company culture of psychological safety and high performance and shares lived experience from both employers’ and employees’ perspectives on a range of the most common cultural, procedural and behavioural problems in the world of work.

These problems include disengagement, isolation, lack of recognition, unfairness, and cultures disempowerment. and a lack of clarity about how to speak to people with different identities to our own.

Ultimately, this is not just a book about the problems, it also posits solutions. Sonya gathers together gold-standard practices from countries and companies that have created new ways of working through innovation, policy, technology, and communication. New ways of working that work.

The goal is to create cultures where everyone is given the opportunity to thrive, feel valued and engaged. In this way, everyone wins, happier people, better business. This message gets lost in the highly fragmented diversity, equity and inclusion discourse. It’s time we remembered that we are human, flawed and have our own unique set of experiences and potential.

This book is a ‘flick to the issue’ guide to why things aren’t working and what you can do to fix it.

Sonya Lennon — Background

Sonya is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur and social entrepreneur who founded WorkEqual a non-profit focused on supporting underrepresented groups into sustainable careers, and LIFT Ireland a non-profit focused on developing personal leadership. She also has a lifestyle brand called Lennon Courtney. She is a high-profile advocate for equitable workplaces and women’s empowerment. Sonya lobbies at the European level for policy change and was recently called as an expert witness to the Joint Oireachtas Committee for gender equity. Sonya recently completed a Masters in Business Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in IADT.

For over a decade, Sonya Lennon has been advocating at a European level for equitable workplaces and engaging with employers and underrepresented groups about the imperfect nature of our workplaces, whatever their form.