Corporate Cults
A recent survey by the WHO, in conjunction with the ILO, found a clear link between overwork and premature death. 745,000 in the Western world died of either a heart attack or stroke in the year 2016 due to overworking. I can only imagine this has increased since. Apparently, if you work 55 hours or more per week you will increase the likelihood of heart attack by 17% and of stroke by 35%. Neither of these figures is inconsequential. When you imagine 100 people - up to 52 of them stand to be affected, to die. I doubt that is acceptable to any CEO or Company Director.
It is hardly surprising that working too much turns out to be deleterious to your health, let alone the impact it has on your family. But it didn’t need a survey by an organisation, that no doubt cost it a small fortune, done by its overworked employees, to tell us this. You could have asked their spouses, children (father or mother – who/what are they?), friends or psychologists.
I read of a company that is looking at limiting the working hours of their staff, to a maximum 80 hours per week. 80 hours!! Magnanimous. If that is their version of staff health - the new corporate mantra - I’d hate to see them putting pressure on their staff. You simply can’t live and breathe with these numbers/hours being demanded of you. In fact, they are the hallmarks of a cult – a corporate cult.
A cult demands so much of your time you no longer question, disagree, think for yourself, or do anything than isn’t deemed as cultic, read corporation, affirmation. They call it taking a ‘hit for the team’ and it is proudly displayed as a badge of honour instead of the badge of folly it is. There are times in any organisation that long hours are necessary, but this is entirely different than the kind of hours consistently required of their staff – who are too nervous to say anything. Fear shuts a lot of mouths.
These companies skate on the thin ice of exploitation.
If change being introduced about what hours weren’t to be exceeded was a genuine attempt at ameliorating damage to health it is to be applauded. But I remain sceptical at companies who bandwagon the latest corporate trend or social cause in the name of solidarity with their people, when in fact it is more than likely driven by the demanding deities of money and power. Being fashionably incensed at the latest abuse is good for the bottom line. There is less care than is promoted and paraded, exceptions withstanding.
Of course, these companies pay you very well which is inducement enough for ambitious young people. Ambition is not the issue, the issue is the cultish nature of these companies, and a barely concealed superiority they inculcate in their devotees. If you make it to partnership likely your marriage didn’t make it, but you have.
Long hours - your baptism. You are now part of the called, the company family is now your family. The CEO - your cleric. His/her word and approval are your food. Remuneration - your bread and wine. Everyone partakes, and it makes everything right; it atones for everything.
Except that it doesn’t.
Back to work.