Guest: Melissa Swift | Book: Work Here Now: Think Like a Human and Build a Powerhouse Workplace
Too often, the day-to-day reality of work feels like a grind. Endless meetings, performative reporting, and unreasonable demands quietly wear people down, leaving organizations drained of energy and innovation.
In a recent Working on Purpose conversation with Melissa Swift, founder of Anthrome Insight and author of Work Here Now: Think Like a Human and Build a Powerhouse Workplace, we explored what’s really broken in modern work — and how leaders can fix it. Melissa has a gift for naming what many of us feel but can’t quite articulate, and she does so with refreshing honesty and practicality.
“Respect how people live and work. Work should fit into human lives, not consume them.” – Melissa Swift
The Two Monsters Menacing Work
Melissa introduces two vivid forces that sabotage productivity and morale:
- The Work Anxiety Monster. This monster feeds on the belief that employees are lazy and slow. Leaders who buy into this mindset double down on surveillance, micromanagement, and “prove it” work. The result isn’t higher productivity but wasted time, eroded trust, and rising burnout.
- The Boss Baby Customer. Born from good intentions around customer centricity, this monster takes things too far. Organizations make promises they cannot realistically deliver, placing impossible expectations on employees. In the end, both staff and customers lose.
The Copy Machine Effect
Even when leaders recognize these problems, organizations often replicate the past. Melissa calls this the organizational copy machine — the unconscious compulsion to reproduce outdated systems, policies, and roles. Performance management processes designed in the 1950s, endless cycles of cloned job descriptions, and layers of performative meetings all illustrate this effect.
Breaking the copy machine means deliberately interrupting the cycle. Leaders can start by maintaining a clear and accurate picture of their workforce, holding open conversations about how work really gets done, and cutting away activity that no longer serves the mission.
A Four-Part Model for Human-Centered Work
What makes Melissa’s work especially useful is her four-part model for redesigning work so it actually works — for both people and business outcomes.
- Humanism: Respect how people truly live and work. Work should fit within human rhythms — sleep, rest, meals, family — not override them.
- Inclusion: Remove barriers that lock out capable contributors, from unnecessary degree requirements to rigid schedules. More inclusion means broader talent pools and fresher ideas.
- Realism: Design with real-world imperfections in mind. Systems will fail, processes will wobble, and people will juggle competing demands. Plans must account for this.
- Sustainability: Work must be doable over the long term. If a system only functions when people burn out, it doesn’t work.
Why It Matters
The monsters and the copy machine give us language to name what is broken. The four-part model gives us tools to fix it.
When leaders redesign work with humanism, inclusion, realism, and sustainability in mind, organizations don’t just prevent burnout — they unlock higher engagement, stronger loyalty, and better performance. In other words, when people thrive, businesses thrive.
It’s time to stop normalizing dysfunction and start redesigning the everyday experience of work. That’s how we create organizations where people can do their best work — and actually want to stay.
Your Call to Action
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