This perspective is consistent with what the Faas Foundation has been advocating in its initiative to create psychologically healthy, safe, fair and productive workplaces. In partnership with the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence and Mental Health America, we have found that for the majority of North American workers, dialogue between managers and supervisors is limited to the annual or semiannual performance review, or when things go south.
A survey conducted by Harvard and Stanford Universities suggest that as many as 120,000 deaths occur annually as a direct result of unnecessary stress in the workplace. This is an alarming number, and given that the economic impact can be as high as $1.5 trillion, this should be a high priority to any business leader.
This article in APost explains how a toxic boss negatively impacts employees’ health, accounting for a whopping 75 percent of stress in the workplace! Unfortunately, employees haven’t had a lot of choice and have had to accept these circumstances because that’s just the way it is, and they can’t afford to quit. However, the whole landscape is changing, where attraction and retention of employees is the biggest issue for employers.
In my recent blog, I discuss this dynamic in reference to both Facebook and McKesson. Thankfully, employees are starting to have a choice because there is a fight on for employees. Employers should start to consider and be very worried if 75% of their employees are in this kind of a bad situation. No amount of ping pong tables or other enticements will offset that toxic culture. Organizations will succeed or fail based on employee attraction, engagement, and retention.
In a period of time where employers are looking for magic bullets to protect their organizations from harassment and abuse exposures, as well as attracting and retaining employees in an increasingly tight labor market, they are still blind to the obvious, which is bringing back the human element into the equation and value the exchange between the employer and employee.
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