Hating what you do

The "Economist" featured an article written by Schumpeter in October 2009.

Here are some extracts:

Suicide, proclaimed Albert Camus in "The Myth of Sisyphus", is the only serious philosophical problem. In France at the moment it is also a serious management problem. A spate of attempted and successful suicides at France Telecom - many of them explicitly prompted by troubles at work - has sparked a national debate about life in the modern corporation. One man stabbed himself in the middle of a meeting (he survived). A woman leapt from a fourth-floor office window after sending a suicide e-mail to her father: "I have decided to kill myself tonight...I can't take the new reorganisation." In all, 24 of the firm's employees have taken their own lives since early 2008 - and this grisly tally follows similar episodes at other pillars of French industry including Renault, Peugeot and EDF.

A survey by the Centre for Work-Life Policy, an American consultancy, found that between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of employees who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95% to 39%; the number voicing trust in them fell from 79% to 22%. A more recent survey by DDI, another American consultancy, found that more than half of respondents described their job as "stagnant", meaning that they had nothing interesting to do and little hope of promotion. Half of these "stagnators" planned to look for another job as soon as the economy improved. People are both clinging on to their current jobs, however much they dislike them, and dreaming of moving when the economy improves.This is taking a toll on both short-term productivity and long-term competitiveness: the people most likely to move when things look up are high-flyers who feel that their talents are being ignored.

The most obvious reason for the rise in unhappiness is the recession, which is destroying jobs at a startling rate and spreading anxiety throughout the workforce. But the recession is also highlighting longer-term problems. Unhappiness seems to be particularly common in car companies, which suffer from global overcapacity, and telecoms companies, which are being buffeted by a technological revolution. In a survey of its workers in 2008, France Telecom found that two-thirds of them reported being "stressed out" and a sixth reported being in "distress".

A second source of misery is the drive to improve productivity, which is typically accompanied by an obsession with measuring performance. Giant retailers use "workforce management" software to monitor how many seconds it takes to scan the goods in a grocery cart, and then reward the most diligent workers with prime working hours. The public sector, particularly in Britian, is awash with inspectorates and performance targets. Taylorism, which Charley Chaplin lampooned so memorably in "Modern Times", has spread from the industrial to the post-industrial economy. In Japan some firms even monitor whether their employees smile frequently enough at customers.

A more subtle problem lies in the mixed messages that companies send about loyalty and commitment. Many firms - particularly successful ones - demand extraordinary dedication from their employees. (Microsoft, according to an old joke, offers flexi-time: "You can work any 18-hour shift that you want.") Some provide perks that are intended to make the office feel like a second home. But companies also reserve the right to trim their workforce at the first sign of trouble. Most employees understand that their firms do not feel much responsibility to protect their jobs. But they nevertheless find it wrenching to leave a post that has consumed so much of their lives.

Can anything be done about this epidemic of unhappiness?

We believe the problem, very simply, is Human Energy - what should be positive, has become negative - even toxic.

We have been measuring the energy levels of individuals, teams and organisations, for a number of years, and our fear is that very low levels of Human Energy prevail in South Africa, especially after the heady years of our new democracy (and the short uplift caused by the World Cup) - in most cases high levels of negative energy.

But it does not have to be like that - we have clients who have changed energy levels both successfully and sustainably.