LEADERSHIP
Work Related Stress:
Are We De-Humanizing
Workplaces?
By George Mbithi
T
he media is awash with reports of
stress-related disorders, including
suicide cases related to work stress.
Just the other day, an alarming report of
an employee of a leading “Big Four” firm
who jumped off the roof of a tall building
in Nairobi to meet his death was in all
news outlets.
Following the said incident, a lot of
opinion pieces and advisory articles were
written about stress in the work place,
with most of these pieces making efforts
to analyze how one can withstand the
stressful environment at work.
However, for me, I feel we should first ask
ourselves where the rain started beating
us. Why is it common to experience work
related stress? Is it because we no longer
look at the people we employ as human
beings, but as robots who should deliver
on what we ask them to, at the expense of
their health and wellbeing?
From a very basic understanding of
organizations and how they operate,
we learn that the leadership bears the
responsibility of deciding what to pursue,
long-term as well as short-term goals, and
how to attain them. One of the key factors
of how to get there is staffing, a key role of
management. When we do staffing, we get
the best fit for the job, train the people to
continue being better and better at their
jobs, motivate them to remain that good,
and generally make them comfortable at
the work place.
It is like we are building companies where ro-
bots, which do not have feelings or emotions,
work. We care less about how our employees
feel, whether they are stressed or not, and if
they need emotional attention or not. This is
why suicides will most likely not reduce, burst
ups in the office will only increase, families
will continue to suffer, and at the end of it all,
seemingly successful people will look back and
realize they were running after the wind.
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The last bit of making them comfortable
is totally forgotten by many business
leaders, as they are focused on the numbers.
What is the annual turnover? How do we
measure against our competitors? How
much did we make? The “how much” is
the biggest worry, and business leaders
will drink themselves off when their firms
report tremendous growth. Their source of
satisfaction is when they continue to win
those awards of “fastest growing company”,
“the employer of the year”, among others.
However, what really matters most is not
a concern… the wellbeing of the people
leading the process of winning these
awards. The firm grows at the expense
of the health of these employees, at the
expense of their families, at the expense of
the humanity of the leaders of the firms.
I think we have lost it. We have lost the
human-centeredness that should be the
main focus. It may look simplistic, but to
me, the happier your employees are, the
more they buy into your agenda/vision, and
the more your business grows.
However, it is like we are building
companies where robots, which do not
have feelings or emotions, work. We care
less about how our employees feel, whether
they are stressed or not, and if they need
emotional attention or not. This is why
suicides will most likely not reduce, burst
ups in the office will only increase, families
will continue to suffer, and at the end of