IT Essentials: Shake it off
Work stress is inevitable. How we respond isn’t.
Beware of a compliant workforce. It really isn’t a good sign.
No, this isn’t *another* article about the government and Taylor Swift. It’s about changes in generational expectations of working life which are playing out in workplaces everywhere right now.
Workplaces are eagerly depicted by the media as a battle between self-obsessed Gen Z who expect everyone to bend to their self-care commitments and their Gen X and older millennial colleagues who came of age in an era where receiving a stand-up bollocking from your boss in the open plan office you spent a minimum of nine hours a day in was just part and parcel of working life.
The question of how individuals respond to the stresses that our working lives invariably place on us was the subject of an event recently hosted by Computing and HSBC
Dr. Susanna Petche, a trained GP and founder of Trauma Sense urged the audience to consider how animals behave when threatened – they freeze, flop (play dead), fawn, fly or fight. If they survive, when the moment of danger has passed, they quite literally shake it off. It's thought that this shaking prevents them incurring longer term damage from the surge of adrenalin that protected them when they were most vulnerable. They need a physical release to return them to a baseline state where they feel safe.
As amusing as it is to picture lots of suits shaking it off in a corporate space, we know this doesn’t happen. What happens sometimes in more toxic workplaces is employees being prevented from baselining after moments of high stress.
Over time that stress builds, and people release it in more damaging ways – by self-medicating, or by developing more serious anxiety and depression or perhaps by quietly disengaging and just going through the motions.
Tech is endlessly fascinating, but long hours, a culture of overwork and burnout sometimes feels as if it’s baked into the industry.
There’s been a lot of talk about how we develop a “culture of resilience” in workplaces. Dr Petche suggested that perhaps we could stop trying to work out how to toughen people up and instead focus on building a culture of psychological safety.
Responses to the idea of psychological safety often break down along generational – and political – lines. At best, psychological safety seems like a “nice to have.” Something we can focus on when we’ve hit target.
“But do you want a compliant workforce?” Dr Petche asked, “When people say ‘yeah I’m fine, yep we’re managing’ it’s because people are too scared to tell you what’s actually going on. They’re not really going to be engaged. They won’t really care how the company does. They won’t be loyal and they’ll leave when something better comes long.”
“When people feel to be themselves in whatever shape or form that is, they’ll perform much better.”
Other speakers like Kerry Adams, Head of CIO office at HSBC, agreed.
“Psychological safety isn’t about creating a fluffy work environment where you can’t give feedback and there’s no consequence management,” she said. “It’s about creating a high challenge but high support environment. High challenge and high support equals high performance. High challenge and no support leads you to burnout.”
It makes you wonder why the concept of psychological safety is even a new talking point, never mind a slightly controversial one. Your employees having that support to metaphorically shake off their stress is vital. People need to feel safe to think freely, speak freely (even more so when that involves telling difficult truths) and to create and innovate.
Time to shake off some old ideas maybe?
The subjects of inclusion, allyship and psychological safety will all feature on the agenda of the Women and Diversity in Tech Festival on 5th November along with inspirational speakers like Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and former sub postmistress Jo Hamilton. Click here to secure your tickets.