Imagine you‘re the boss of over 100 people. One morning you walk into the office and you think: „Hm, it‘s awfully quiet in here.“ Indeed, the mood seems to be down. So, it‘s up to you, you‘re the boss after all, to improve morale in an industry that has been disrupted and cost-cutting, layoffs, and constant performance pressure are the norm.
What do you do?
You probably think about some viable possibilities. Talking with your employees, give them space and time to voice their concerns, for example.
But this story takes place in reality, and we live in the weirdest timeline. And fair warning, the following story has a relationship to music but not in a good way.
The scenario happened exactly like I described above in the newsroom of one of Switzerland‘s biggest publications. In an email to staff, that I obtained by a source, the chief content officer wrote:
„The other morning I commuted to the office with loud good mood music in my ears, walked in on the second floor and thought: It's VERY quiet here. A bit of atmosphere would be good. So even before the first coffee, I had an idea: what if a newsroom employee were the DJ every day of the week? We would play music in the newsroom at 8.55 a.m.—as a wake-up call before the morning meeting.“
(translated from German)
Employees can wish for a song via a Google form and provide a reason why they chose it. The song gets announced in an internal Slack message.
Music, Moral & Performance: It‘s complicated
Now, I‘d be the first person to agree: Music can have a significant impact on your mood. It immediately evokes positive or negative emotions, brings back memories, past times.
If we think about music and morale, our thoughts may immediately go to the military, depicted in movies like Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. Or the infamous scene in Fahrenheit 9/11 with The Bloodhound Gang’s The Roof Is On Fire.
Or maybe you remember Bill Millin, the bagpiper who played on the beaches of Normandy during the Second World War.
However, the relationship between music and soldiers’ morale isn’t as straightforward as it may seem, as pointed out by US military research, stating two historical examples:
„During the Civil War, troops from both the North and the South came together through music as their bands and soldiers sang nostalgic songs common to both cultures in unison. In the immediate timeframe following the music, the soldiers wanted to cease hostilities. The music reminded them of home and they simply wished to return to their families. In the longer term, this music solidified their resolve to fight for the ideals that brought them to war initially.
Again, the power of music is visible in a similar way during the Christmas Truce of 1914 in WWI. Soldiers shared a cultural experience, initiated by music, leading to an enduring cease-fire and continued friendly interaction. Leadership coerced the soldiers into continued fighting after the event, although many no longer wished to battle.“
A 2022 study by the University of Turin was looking at the relationship between music, performance, and job satisfaction, and concludes:
„The results suggest that simply listening to music in the background does not harm productivity per se, but it may not have a positive effect on job satisfaction, which is an important variable for performance. Rather than mandating listening to music in the workplace, management should work with employees to implement personalised interventions.“
As the study points out, personalised interventions may see more effects than an enforced mandate. Not unlikely because music is highly subjective. What I might find uplifting, you could perceive as plainly annoying. And—not that I could understand this notion—some people don‘t really care about music at all.
Again, this personalised approach was underlined by another study. The results indicate that employees’ productivity is much higher when they listen to their preferred music while working than when they don’t.
Rob Lambert, however, points out in his blog looking at multiple sources of research around music and productivity: „Mixed bag when it comes to performance. There were other papers I looked through but didn't cite - and the same outcomes seem prevalent; some saying music does improve und performance, some saying music doesn’t.“
Well-intended but pointless
But this whole mandated approach feels absurd. It sounds like an idea that got cut out of Severance.
The crisis in professional journalism intensifies every day. The independent publication Republik documents the ongoing concentration and media decline in Switzerland, and their work doesn’t spark confidence in both the audience and journalists alike.
We see mass layoffs, and, in the case of this company, according to sources familiar with the subject, there has been a severe decrease in traffic since the latest website redesign. In this particular company, 55 people were laid off last year after a corporate merger.
You can play the most uplifting tracks ever recorded: You‘re doing shit to tackle the root cause for low morale or the crisis. And it‘s bonkers, as a leader, to implement this idea, even if it‘s—and I believe this to be the case—with good intentions. And I surely hope that management has other and additional ways to address the issues employees might point out.
„It‘s funny to see what other people are listening to, but it doesn‘t compensate for the low salaries and the myriad of problems in the newsroom,“ one employee told me.
The announcement email opened with: „The world needs more joy... Our newsroom needs more joy.“
True, but maybe start with listening to employees rather than drowning their voices in music.
