Death by Desk: Speak Up and Stay Alive

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The recent tragic news of the death of a young employee Anna Sebastian Perayil from Ernst & Young in India has brought back into focus the Corporate India’s most dreaded affliction, that is ‘STRESS’ from the workplace. This incident has sparked discussions about the detrimental effects of high-pressure work environments on young professionals and the apparent lack of empathy and support from organizations. Also that no colleague of her attended her funeral has pinpointed the ever growing isolation many people feel in their work environments. This incident is a wake up call for an urgent need for change.

Overworked & Overwhelmed

The corporate world, particularly in sectors like finance, consulting, and software, is known for its intense and fast paced work culture, which is more outcome driven than consideration for human health. In India, this is characterized by long working hours, unrealistic performance expectations ultimately leading to fragmented work-life balance. Anxiety, Depression and Burnouts have become uncommonly common as a result of this constant pursuit of mindless productivity.

Since this incident, Linkedin is galore with the stories of people who have survived extremely toxic work environments, many of them even exhorting others to quit their jobs and find new one’s if there is a slightest hint of breeding of a toxic work culture. The mindset, especially in Corporate India where junior level employees are considered easily replaceable expendables, is the real culprit. No wonder that such callous and dehumanizing approach arouses suspicion towards the management in every company and brings forth unfortunate incidents.

What needs to change?

Most us are very clear on what the problem is. We discuss it routinely amongst ourselves unbeknownst to the fact that it is us who are partly responsible for creating that work environment. Even though there is a wave of sympathy for Anna at this moment across the social media, but I am sure people working across the industry would harbour a unspoken thought that all of us should be able to handle the conventionally condoned work-pressures of today’s world.

This is not just the result of lack of empathy but a world created by our own mindset where we have created a deep chasm between the words ‘human’ and ‘resource’ so wide that we have even forgotten the basic decency of sharing grief with the family members of the departed soul, a departed soul much like us in many ways.

Will things remain same after all the outrage? or will things change in the future so that people do not suffer the same fate as Anna’s? Let’s not digress anymore into an uncertain future and let’s talk about two things that are very important here, two cogs in the Corporate Machine that need to be well oiled, two extremely significant areas of improvement to create a healthy work environment :

A Manager’s Duty and An Employee’s Motivation.

Firstly a ‘MANAGER’ is a responsible position of leadership, a position that has POWER to take decisions which can have short as well as long-term consequences, and it befits only those people who are professionally competent and at the same time possess EMPATHY. Only a professionally competent person would understand what it would actually take for the people reporting to him/her to achieve a given task.

Only a professionally competent manager with empathy knows how to inspire his/her team to do wonders, and create a super productive workforce. A wrong person without the necessary professional competence and even worse, without empathy, assigned as a Manager would set unrealistic expectations with his/her team starting the journey towards a hostile work environment and a culture of subtle coercion or silent mental abuse where everyone conforms to that culture out of fear of losing their jobs.

It is a sad fact that Corporate India is abundant with Managers who are completely oblivious to these simple ‘human’ aspects of the workforce, whether it is greed, favoritism, nepotism or sheer incompetence of people above that leads them to positions of responsibility, it wreaks havoc on not just mental and physical health of employees reporting to them but also counterintuitively on the bottom lines of their own organizations as well. It is an implicit fact that bad and incompetent Managers inflict more damage to their organizations in the form of losing good people and consequently losing good business.

Organizations should take this note very categorically, and form a proper selection criterion for Managers. The quintessential criterion of the selection should be how one deals with another human being in terms of being approachable, responsive, receptive and ability to maintain composure and shielding the team in times of crisis. Very few organizations have routine trainings for Managers which do not cover the above aspects.

The work culture would be very different if a Manager understands or is trained to understand that every human action is intertwined with emotions. Organizations can save time, avoid unnecessary attritions and generate more revenue through business continuity just by focusing on the absolute need of bringing back the ‘Human’ in the ‘Human Resource’. Hopefully all the Organizations have already smelt the coffee after Anna’s demise, because Lives are at Stake here!

Secondly it’s about the EMPLOYEE. To start with I would like to share an advice given long ago by a veteran of the 1971 Indo-Pak War, Colonel Balasubramaniam, who was an artillery expert and had fought in the Battle of Longewala, he had told us in a class in jest that we should be well aware of the person with whom we are getting married and he mentioned that a same approach applies to our jobs as well. The advice was very practical and it helped us a lot in making career choices since then.

But not all of us possess the instinct to understand our aptitudes or let go of our many different obligations. Sometimes the circumstances in our lives drive our decisions in making career choices rather than our self-interest. In such cases the apprehension of losing an income stream from a safe job in itself becomes a motivation to continue working in a hostile, unfriendly or un-empathetic environment. Having said all this, such mindset becomes counter-productive as you move up in your career.

One of my colleagues shared an article with me recently, written by HR Expert and Coach Liz Ryan in 2016, which has a similar undertone to this article. Liz basically advises all employees to ‘learn to set boundaries’ and not succumb to an unnatural inferiority complex that sets in when someone thinks that he/she is easily replaceable. Liz correctly explains that you shouldn’t become a metaphorical ‘doormat’ so that people can walk all over you just because you needed a job.

Traditionally India as a country with its rich history and traditions, is a culture where we revere our elders, be it our Parents, Older Siblings, Teachers, Law Enforcement or other Governmental Authorities . And due to this cultural ingraining or conditioning, India ranks high on a very interesting concept called as ‘Power Distance Index’ a measurement of acceptance of Power Hierarchy. If you have already guessed it, then the ‘Managers’ or Job Giving Organizations also fall into the same Hierarchy of Power.

Malcolm Gladwell in his famous book ‘Outliers’ mentions how Power Distance Index came into focus during a Korean Air Flight 801 Crash in 1997 and the major reason for the crash was poor communication between the flight crew where the junior Korean Pilot could not properly express his disagreement with his Captain and also with the ATC tower below resulting in a deadly crash. Well, no points for guessing where Koreans rank on the Power Distance Index.

After this incident a whole slew of cultural reforms were taken up within the Airline Pilots Community and things changed for the better. There is no reason why we can’t do the same here! Again, there are lives at stake here!

Right amount of professional ‘ASSERTIVENESS’ is the need of the hour. Being assertive doesn’t mean being a jerk, it means being aware of how to articulate your genuine needs. If you know how to express what are your concerns effectively, then half the conundrum is resolved then and there. Your goals and aspirations might or might not align with your Manager or your organization at that time, but in no way that should affect you personally.

Your capabilities, your time and even your mental health has a value that should not be treated cheap. Even the Managers should encourage Assertive Employees, for they help in reforming work culture and a simple act of responsiveness would increase any Organization’s credibility.

Lastly, no amount of healthy food, daily exercise or the right antacid will help in relieving your stress if your head is not in the right place. Normalizing the behavior of being more expressive and articulate will not only change the working conditions for you but for others as well!