T4 Liquid people T4 Liquid people Single-use plastics remain a pressing concern, with companies like Everlane making efforts to help reduce their impact. Not only are we increasingly expected to make “right” choices about what we buy or do, we are increasingly likely to be criticized if we don’t. In Sweden, “flygskam” (flight shaming) and “tågskryt” (train bragging) has resulted in an 8 percent fall in airport passengers and 2 million extra train journeys. Swiss bank UBS found one in five people have cut the number of flights they took over the past year – which could halve current growth in passenger numbers – because of impact on the climate. Employers, meanwhile, must embrace workers’ liquid expectations – measuring employee experience and satisfaction as they have long done with customers. In the words of author Miya Tokumitsu: “There’s little doubt that ‘do what you love’ is now the unofficial work mantra for our time.” Employers who haven’t already done so must start to prioritize purpose and wholeness in their recruitment, retainment and benefits plans to meet the expectations of younger generations as they enter the workplace. We‘ve started to question work-ism – described by one commentator as “a religion making Americans miserable”. People’s desires to be understood as fully-rounded individuals – with all inherent complexities and contradictions – continues to grow stronger. One response is recently demonstrated by Starbucks’s decision to offer mental health services as an employee benefit. 2019 saw Mattel release Creatable World – the world’s first gender- neutral dolls, which can be male, female, neither or both. 55 56