Work Culture

Many have been talking about it since a long time. Every manager in every single company has been bragging about their work culture, how they have their employees follow that culture, etc. People mindlessly follow or abandon the some of the work ethics, principles, and later shift the burden of the blame on someone else’s shoulders. Now, a lot of psychologists will study these problem statements to fill up their pockets. A lot of statistic people will satisfy their wallets by using skills of numbers that they have acquired. People are treated like numbers only. They are put into jargon of normal distribution to find out the problems that are causing setbacks in different factors of the corporate world. But all of them are and will be missing one factor, which is sort of the underlying problem. I will discuss it here and leave the judgement to your wisdom.

The new so-called work culture has provided a lot of advantages and disadvantages to the corporate world. So, to get to the bottom of this, we need to take a look at the both. New work culture has emphasized on the flexibility in the workplace, so that the employees can give maximum of their energy to work and not something out of the work or unnecessary stuff like it. Some parameters have been kept flexible such that the output is only measured by the work and its delivery on time, subject to the circumstances.

Nowadays, modern work culture (we will stick to this term because it will be convenient later on) focuses on the team building rather than an individual building everything on their own. We have always heard that a pack of wolves is much more dangerous than a lone wolf on a certain mission. I am sceptical about if the teamwork makes the dream work, but surely a thing built by a team is slightly better than a thing built by an individual. There is no use of finding the exceptions to handle this point because there is no single rule or point that does not miss out on the exceptions.

This is the golden era of the work space and work environment because now everyone is getting more aware about the overall well-being of an individual rather than just being well-paid. The world is going crazy about the mental health of the employees today, as if it has never been there before and only now it has come into existence. You might go to an office on a random morning and see people dancing and jumping around, joining wellness programs constructed by the companies for the employees. Then these days, there is huge irritating market of motivational speakers to generate temporary euphoria in sullen and sunken minds. All of these are having a big market as equal as the companies themselves.

Emphasizing on learning and skill development has been there for a long time, but on the dawn of digital media, that has been taken to another level. Earlier, employees used to learn single skill and on sufficient practice, master it. But now, employees learn multiple skills. They do not necessarily master any one of them, they combine all those skills to make their unique skillset. Through on-job training, internships, different simulation tools and timely assignments, initial level employees earn their skillset through practice. These practices ensure that almost all times, the work-life balance of the employee is maintained throughout their years at the company. Now, I do not have an idea about every single company and how their policies are made and what shape they take in reality, but increasing the creativity of employees becomes an important factor as it is necessary not only for their improvement in artistic skills, but also required for their minds to become and remain active in their daily tasks at the workplace and beyond. Also, modern corporate world is somewhat aware about the social responsibility it should rest upon its shoulders for the welfare of the society and its different disadvantaged strata. Overall, it focuses on the continuous improvement of the employees and the company in all the aspects possible to ensure their full growth and realize the full potential of each individual.

The flipside of the coin

Let us flip the coin now and see the dark side. Because without that all these words will be biased and I will sound like a PR. Now to consider the extra work hours that an employee has to work, there is an increased amount of stress. It is increasingly difficult to constantly compromise your circadian rhythm and keep working for more than 12 hours a day. This eventually builds up into a habit of working for long and late hours and thus reducing the efficiency of all the people. This is the point which all the people miss out and realize only after it is too late. I don’t even need to mention the loss of work-life balance because of this. People already have lost the so-called balance, since the idea itself has been superficial for too long. I don’t claim to be perfect at this, even I might have failed to realize that I have lost the very balance between work and other lively activities.

Everyone likes to manage other people. It gives us immense pleasure to know that we’re in charge or controller of something, and it satisfies and inflates our egos. But what we do not like is getting managed in every single step of our work and its effects, consequences and credits. You may come across a situation like where you will feel that your existence s being erased at the workplace or being severely controlled by those sitting on the higher chairs. No one likes to admit that the higher chairs exist, but they do and they’re there for a lot of reasons, known and unknown. This creates a vicious kind of race that engulfs the employees and make them feel less and less secured about their current position and their future in the company and in the worst case, their field of interest. With frequent layoffs and constant changes in the roles of people, most of the people either leave their jobs or just start a small business to avoid this conflict (and enter into the world of business conflicts).

Pay disparity has been the burning issue for almost every single decade since the industrial revolution. Although a group of people will feel that it is because of some gender, some caste, creed, religion, etc, but the fact is that this thing is created and fueled by people themselves. First of all, I never saw a sensible reason why anyone should fall in such a trap. There is disparity, and therefore there is despair. But not due to the reasons some activist groups mention. Some are benefitting highly from the propaganda while some groups are seriously falling behind the curve. This breeds the toxicity that we are so afraid of. It slowly takes its true shape and form and mends people to its will. And suddenly one finds themselves changed and an active part of the toxicity circle that they so hatefully dismissed. Because, you become what you hate.

Now, the lost work life balance takes a huge toll on mental stability of an individual and their families. I will not mention statistics because I simply do not consider people as numbers. People are free to do their research, but without sufficient empathy, I don’t think that any research will be done for betterment of humans. “You signed up for this!” is what all people on the job get to hear. From their bosses, to their parents and partners and their children. Lack of empathy, unnecessary sympathy, absence of gratitude, are the major factors behind corporate world losing the mental stability.

Work is now only a burden. It used to be an escape for some people in the early days. Now it seems like a distant dream that by working, anyone will feel that they are the ones shaping the lives of people for the better. This all is topped by increased used of technology. Over-utilization of tech and mi-utilization of human resources has destroyed the balance of work. It is not mainly about machines taking over jobs that are for humans, because a skilled worker just delivers any job as good as a machine does. For daily life, nobody cares two cents about the accuracy on a quantum scale.

I wrote all of this over the course of two months just to express in full what I understand and feel about the modern corporate culture which is degrading by each day and continues to deteriorate human lives in known and unknown ways. We have a choice of taking control, understanding that the survival and thriving of humans is solely dependent on collaboration and not on competition and full automation. We need to sustain the entire global system including the skilled and unskilled population. Both types of elements are equally necessary in building of the world. I will leave the judgement to the wisdom of the reader, because even though it is common practice, it is the best thing to do. Since, we know the coin by looking at both of its sides, we know its value, limitation, and application. I wish all the readers very best in their corporate and personal lives.