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Workplace Wellbeing Is a Scam?

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Re: Workplace Wellbeing Is a Scam?

#121

Post by duckfang »

mtberatwork wrote: post #78
wiz21c wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. I mean, nobody cares that I agree. But I have been hurt so much by all that bullshit that readin your comment makes me better. Now I have this question for all the HR departments who engage in spreading those "touchy feely" terms : either you do realize that there's a problem with that, then why do you go on spreading it OR you don't realize there's a problem, then why do you feel those terms are acc…

I believe from the company's perspective it's viewed as a mechanism for reducing insurances costs.

It's also a great way to garner fake empathy and "create" a better working environment than you really have. People with lower/average mental faculties are more susceptible to these kinds of doublespeak.

Its like those oil commercials of "We care, we really do", showing a few ducks being wiped off from some horrid oil spill disaster, and doing nothing to solve the root cause.

Re: Workplace Wellbeing Is a Scam?

#122

Post by hallway_monitor »

fernandotakai wrote: post #107
kayodelycaon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 30 days Where can I find a job with 30 days of leave? A lot of places seem to think 15 days is beyond generous because they treat all PTO as vacation time and ignore that sick time used to exist. Meanwhile, my health issues make it extremely difficult to bank any amount of PTO.

or even worse: "infinite PTO" aka you never take time off because you are scared of overusing the perk.

Untracked time off is a double-edged sword for sure. I just make sure to take more time off than I would have gotten at my last job, and I tell my employees to do the same.

Re: Workplace Wellbeing Is a Scam?

#123

Post by chasd00 »

granshaw wrote: post #67
barrkel wrote: post #57

Wellbeing, even when it's sincere, is a top-down effort - as in way up the tree-tops - and usually raining down diagonally from a different org. Meanwhile, down on the leaves of the org tree, you have delivery pressure from users, peers, and so on. If the pressure is high, no amount of messaging about wellbeing will make any difference. Taking time off, whether it's some kind of leave or for some wellbeing meetings o…

Let me tell you, delivery pressure exists even right at the very top. You think there’s no pressure as a CEO/COO beholden to 30% top line growth this quarter? I sometimes think about being in that position and it seems pretty scary too

you know, now that i think about it, all the tears shed on conference calls i've been on have been from either senior management or directors. The pressure at the level is pretty intense, everyone is nipping at your heels to expose any weakness and take your spot.

Re: Workplace Wellbeing Is a Scam?

#124

Post by pdimitar »

I feel this is one of those areas where it pays off if you are a bit darker and a more cynical individual. If you ask any random Eastern European (a group to which I belong) I can bet my neck that likely 90% of them will tell you "workplace well-being is a feel-good signal for the people on top and nothing else".

I have had people fiercely contesting this with me during a table conversation, only for them to eventually begrudgingly admit in the end: "Yeah, I see your point, maybe preaching yoga to very stressed people who already almost don't have free time in their day isn't the best way to go about this...". And I am like -- oh, you think, dude?

There are a number of things that can be done but I found many organizations to not care about enforcing policies like "no Slack messages after 19:00" or "minimize emails religiously" or "is this meeting actually useful for anyone except me who is in a chatty mood?" etc. Not to mention have people who police the meetings to keep them on topic and brief. And somebody paying attention if you are loaded with responsibilities outside of your job description? That's science fiction.

Start from these: multi-tasking and having too many responsibilities. Reduce these two factors for each person as much as possible -- or, if the person likes the extra load, maybe consider a pay bump plus reducing a smaller chunk of their stress.

Before something else outside of empty virtue signalling is done, the problem will persist. Companies just refuse to see the huge problems that even a single employee possessing a lot of institutional knowledge leaving will entail, so I guess they'll just keep suffering and pretending that some extremely half-done measures will fix the problem.

They will not. Nobody cares about your luxury coffee at the office. Nobody cares about the funny furniture. Nobody has their life sustainably improved by a free neck massage for 15 minutes a week (although it does help somewhat).

If any manager or business owner is here, take this single piece of advice: aim for measures that solve problems long-term.

Re: Workplace Wellbeing Is a Scam?

#125

Post by Narnach »

geofft wrote: post #109
shoto_io wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say exactly that. There is pressure everywhere. CEOs are scared of boards. Boards are scared of shareholders. It's just not that visible because there is no tool like "OfficeVibe" showing this transparently. Sure, they get paid well. So you could argue that they have to take the pressure.

Stop having boards and shareholders then. Or, at least tell them, our growth target this year is 2%, our growth max is 10%, if we grow more than that I'm concerned about the pressure on my employees and my goal is to have a great and sustainable place to work and not to fill the universe with paperclips, and I'm going to start laying off sales and marketing if we're taking on more commitments than we can handle. We'r…

Yep, I think for long term sustainability we need many more B Corps, because otherwise we’re all working ourselves to the bone for private equity companies (which often seem to be the aggressive profit seeking shareholders).

There is a lot of value in being good for your people, the environment and the rest of your supply chain.

Re: Workplace Wellbeing Is a Scam?

#126

Post by astura »

wilsonrocks wrote: post #69
danpalmer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but I'd rather have an office with tea/coffee, a drinks fridge, etc, than the extra salary that the company is spending on providing that. In part I'm paying 40% in tax so if I'm going to buy coffees it's actually more effective to have them provided by the company. But in general, that sort of convenience and benefit is often worth more than the monetary value. Tea/coffee in the office is very differen…

Tea and coffee ought to be a baseline in any office environment imo. I think it'd be worth it for companies to just pay for it, otherwise employees set up a tea club, spend work time doing it and fall out over it.

Interesting, there's no tea/coffee club at my office - my company doesn't provide tea/coffee/beverages, but does provide keurig machines. People either bring in their own coffee machines/coffee/french presses or they bring in their own k-pods. I am perfectly fine with it myself.

Re: Workplace Wellbeing Is a Scam?

#127

Post by wing-_-nuts »

mtberatwork wrote: post #50
kumarvvr wrote: post #23

Workplace wellbeing Wholesome workplace Workplace is a family and a myriad of other touchy-feely terms are just plain bullshit. Whole industries have cropped up to support the efforts of managements to keep workforces in control and deflect resentment (people don't leave companies, they leave managers ! and other crap) The ground reality is when the company feels you are not needed, all that touch-feely stuff goes do…

> Workplace is a family This one is the biggest eye roll for me. Family and friends don't give performance reviews and push other such metrics down your throat.

>Family and friends don't give performance reviews

I don't know about you, but I absolutely got 'performance reviews' every single time a report card came in. At least my manager doesn't beat me when I fail to meet expectations.

Re: Workplace Wellbeing Is a Scam?

#128

Post by hnarn »

jp555 wrote: post #26

"one of the biggest causes of stress in the workplace is a lack of decision-making power among workers." You know what's also more stressful? Having to make more decisions in domains outside my circle of competence. Give me total autonomy in my area, while also not burdening me with having to contribute to EVERY decision.

Or the in-between variant: constant meetings and initiatives to create the illusion of worker influence on major decisions when there is in reality none at all. A complete waste of time to check a box somewhere about "horizontal hierarchy", and at the end of the day the decisions are being made "in the sauna" as it were anyway.

Re: Workplace Wellbeing Is a Scam?

#129

Post by Frost1x »

wiz21c wrote: post #64
kumarvvr wrote: post #23

Workplace wellbeing Wholesome workplace Workplace is a family and a myriad of other touchy-feely terms are just plain bullshit. Whole industries have cropped up to support the efforts of managements to keep workforces in control and deflect resentment (people don't leave companies, they leave managers ! and other crap) The ground reality is when the company feels you are not needed, all that touch-feely stuff goes do…

I totally agree. I mean, nobody cares that I agree. But I have been hurt so much by all that bullshit that readin your comment makes me better. Now I have this question for all the HR departments who engage in spreading those "touchy feely" terms : either you do realize that there's a problem with that, then why do you go on spreading it OR you don't realize there's a problem, then why do you feel those terms are acc…

>I honestly ask. Because all of that looks to me as a total intellectual scam.

Most upper corporate messaging I've seen is an intellectual scam or intellectual dishonesty (be it HR or any department), although I'd say that's putting it far too politely.

These are typically well educated and skilled individuals that aren't oblivious of reality. They have careers and want to maintain them, so they maintain the corproate narratives that work and pass responsibility for lower level managers to maintain plausible deniability as to why efforts seem disingenuous. There are strategies to any of these moves or messaging and rarely ever are they in anyone's interest but the business unless you coincidentally have interest alignment with the business.

It's a lot easier in business (perhaps in life) to strategically lie and achieve measures of success than to be honest and be successful.

I am completely and utterly cynical of any piece of information and communication passed off by corporate entities or those who have heavy sway in their control and direction. They have far too much incentive and motive to be intellectually dishonest and little-to-none to be honest. Even apparently benign information is often strategically crafted, reviewed, and re-reviewed before passed off with very carefully chosen wording. It's not until you get to the underlying employees that I have any trust in what they say.

HR honestly seems like a terrible career to me if you actually care about people in modern business environments (I couldn't do it). You're essentially powerless in terms of business decisions and more often than not act as damage control between what business management unilaterally decides to do and how it effects employees. If your goal pursuing an HR career was to improve wellbeing of employees, it seems like a career where you'd be in for quite a culture shock in most environments. Of course they also serve to maintain and smooth out other legal compliancey issues and staffing needs.

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