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Posted: Mon 24th Aug 2026
Last updated: Mon 24th Aug 2026
12 min read
After nearly 20 years working in HR, I've seen expectations of work change in a very clear direction.
Where employees aren't asking businesses to become families. In fact, many people are rightly suspicious of employers who use that language.
Instead, they're asking for something more basic, such as being seen and treated as humans first and as a business asset second.
Employees want to be managed fairly and to be able to raise a concern through open communication. They want managers who can have a conversation, not simply quote a policy. They want decisions to make sense.
More and more people who take part in the world of work say they want some control over how work fits into their lives. This expectation shouldn't be controversial. Yet in many workplaces, it still is.
For years, businesses have said "our people are our greatest asset". But in practice, this has unfortunately not been the reality in so many cases.
Despite being one of the most commonly used phrases in business, it's now gained a somewhat negative connotation. When used without the support of clear evidence (i.e. commensurate pay), people simply get tired of hearing it.
The real test comes when an employee asks their employer for flexibility – in their workload, in interpersonal conflict, wherever.
This is when the values written on a website meet the reality of the workplace.
Employees notice the difference, like when employers promote wellbeing publicly but ignore excessive workloads internally.
The CIPD Good Work Index 2025 surveyed more than 5,000 UK workers and found that one in four said their work had a negative effect on their mental or physical health.
The strongest factors associated with unhealthy work included:
excessive workloads
excessive pressure
poor working relationships
the quality of line management
The same research found that 34% of employees who believed work harmed their mental health expected to leave voluntarily within the following 12 months.
That compared with 14% of employees who believed work had a positive effect on their mental health.
Only 39% of those negatively affected said they were willing to work harder than required, compared with 69% of those who experienced a positive impact.
This is where the conversation about being human-centred often goes wrong. Human-centred shouldn't be treated as though it sits opposite performance.
People who feel unsupported, exhausted or badly managed don't somehow become more productive because the organisation has maintained a hard line. They become less engaged, take time off, or leave.
Others remain but contribute less than they once did. And this is when quiet quitting sets in. When this happens, it usually means the organisation is failing.
The change in expectations is particularly clear around flexibility.
The CIPD's Flexible and Hybrid Working Practices in 2025 report found that 80% of employees who worked flexibly believed it had improved their quality of life.
A third said it had positively affected their career, and an estimated 1.1 million workers had left a job during the previous year because of a lack of flexible working.
Of course, this doesn't mean every job can be remote or that every flexible-working request can be accepted.
It does, however, means that flexibility now forms part of how people judge an employer and whether a job is suitable.
Businesses competing for skills can't ignore that and then complain that recruitment is difficult or retention is poor.
Flexibility also needs to be properly understood. Too often it's reduced to working from home, which risks creating a two-tier workforce.
Office-based professionals may be given freedom over where they work while people in care, retail, hospitality, cleaning, transport or manufacturing are told flexibility is impossible.
The Office for National Statistics' analysis of hybrid working found that 28% of working adults in Great Britain worked hybrid between January and March 2025. However, access rose sharply with income and qualification level.
Where 45% of workers earning £50,000 or more had hybrid working arrangements, only 8% of workers earning below £20,000 had the same opportunities.
A human-centred approach must therefore be wider than homeworking. For someone who must attend a workplace, flexibility might mean:
receiving proper notice of shifts
having some influence over working hours
being able to attend a medical appointment
having a phased return after illness
being consulted before their working pattern is changed
This is because flexibility isn't always about where someone works. Rather, it's about whether work is designed with any recognition that life exists outside it.
Work being human-centred isn't simply a social trend or a new preference of employees. The direction of employment law in the UK is also changing, showing a clear trajectory towards this approach.
Since 6 April 2024, employees have had the statutory right to request flexible working from the first day of employment.
An employer doesn't have to agree to every request, but they must consider the request reasonably.
According to the current Acas guidance on statutory flexible-working requests, an employer must consult the employee before refusing a request, unless it accepts the request in full, and must reach a final decision within two months.
An important note to make is that the word is not "agree" but rather "consider".
A human-centred workplace is not one in which management loses authority, but one in which authority is exercised properly.
The employee is heard, the business implications are examined. Alternatives are considered and the decision is explained.
That's good management, regardless of whether the final answer is yes or no and the legal direction is also increasingly preventative.
The Health and Safety Executive's guidance on work-related stress states that employers have a legal duty to protect workers from workplace stress by assessing the risk and acting on it.
Its Management Standards focus on six areas of work design:
Demands
Control
Support
Relationships
Role
Organisational change
These are management issues which must be addressed as part of business operations. Things such as:
how much work is being given and whether the employee has any control over it
whether the employee is being supported and fully understands their role
whether organisational change is being handled properly
These are things that require communication, intervention and good management.
Some employers may think that being reactive or avoiding the elephant in the room with a wellbeing poster will appease things.
Unfortunately, such an approach would only lead to more dissatisfaction in the workplace. People value transparency, good practices and communication.
A similar preventative approach can be seen in the legal duty to prevent sexual harassment.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission's technical guidance confirms that employers have a positive duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. It describes this as an anticipatory duty.
Employers should identify where the risks are and act before someone makes a complaint.
A tribunal can increase compensation by up to 25% where an employee succeeds in a sexual-harassment claim and the employer has breached that duty.
Therefore, employers shouldn't take a reactive approach and wait for something to go wrong before taking action.
A business must understand what's actually happening within its workplace and prevent any issues from arising.
Some will say employees have become too demanding. Others, that businesses have to make difficult decisions and can't accommodate every individual circumstance.
Both points may sometimes be true as there will always be resistance to change and shaking up the status quo.
But human-centred work doesn't take away the employee's accountability. They remain responsible for:
attending work and performing their duties
behaving appropriately
following reasonable instructions
contributing to the organisation that employs them
Performance concerns, absenteeism and misconduct must still be addressed as business decisions still have to be made. However, there's a difference between managing firmly and managing badly.
Employers should still have difficult conversations – if managing employees requires it – but do it with respect.
Being human-centred isn't about avoiding difficult decisions, but remembering that decisions affect real people and that the way they are handled have an impact on people's livelihoods.
Recent changes in employment law are pushing employers to act this way.
Perhaps a controversial statement given that many people see artificial intelligence (AI) and automation as a threat.
But what's certain is that these technologies reduce the human intervention on some level and will continue to change and shape work.
"Shape" is the key word here. Jobs have already evolved and they will continue to do so, pushing employees and businesses to evolve at the same time.
The CIPD Good Work Index 2025 found that 16% of employees had already seen some of their tasks being automated through AI.
Of those employees, 85% said the automation had improved their performance. The tasks automated were commonly repetitive.
Technology can add real value and can remove repetitive admin, thus giving people more time for judgement, problem-solving, communication and relationship-building.
Technology can also be used to monitor people more closely, intensify workloads and take away their discretion. So, the issue isn't whether a business uses AI but what kind of workplace it creates by doing it.
A business may have strong policies, professional branding and carefully written values. But for the employee, the manager is often the reality of the organisation.
It's the manager who decides whether to take a concern seriously, consider flexibility fairly, challenge poor behaviour or impose change.
The CIPD's research found that employees who viewed their managers positively were:
more likely to believe they performed effectively
less likely to say work harmed their health
less likely to consider leaving
It also found that only 60% of managers believed they had the training and information needed to manage people well, while 59% believed they had sufficient time.
Businesses sometimes promote the technically strongest person and assume they'll know how to manage others.
Then, they're surprised when conflict grows, performance concerns are avoided, inconsistency develops and good employees leave.
Managing people is a skill which requires training, judgement, confidence and time. Without that investment, a human-centred workplace will remain a statement rather than a reality.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 implementation timetable shows the wider direction of reform. Changes that took effect on 6 April 2026 included:
day-one paternity leave and unpaid parental leave
the removal of the Statutory Sick Pay waiting period and Lower Earnings Limit
strengthened whistleblowing protection relating to sexual harassment
Further reforms are being implemented through 2026 and 2027.
Some employers may view this only as another compliance exercise. What they should do is recognise what motivates this direction.
Work is becoming more human-centred because the old model is no longer enough.
People will still work hard and accept accountability. They will still understand that businesses must perform and make difficult decisions.
But they increasingly expect something in return beyond a cold transaction. They expect to be heard and to be treated fairly. They expect managers to manage them as humans.
Those expectations aren't going backwards, which is backed up by changes in legislation.
Businesses that understand this won't become weaker, but will become better places to work. And, because of that, stronger businesses.
