Having a good backup strategy involves being slightly paranoid. What are the risks? What happens if…? You need to look at the worst-case scenarios and consider if there’s a copy of your important data that would still exist if it happened. It’s not a fun exercise, and if you suffer from anxiety, it can be a bit exhausting to invite that in, but in this case, it could save you from a data disaster.
Here’s the interesting thing. When workplaces have made people ill, we’ve done little to hold them accountable. We have done some things, though. (Asbestos lawsuits, for example.) It hasn’t amounted to much in the broader context, but we do acknowledge that working in an environment that causes health issues is generally frowned upon. We have not reached that point with mental health. We’ve not started thinking about the poor health outcomes for people pushed to the brink and beyond by their managers.
We should, and businesses should be leading the charge, because this is costing them a ton in health insurance premiums.
Honestly, I think we all know where this is coming from, and it’s gross. It’s also harmful to your business. You don’t recruit and retain the most talented employees by limiting your choices. You have to expand the choices to attract a wider range of people. It’s common sense and basic math. When you decide to deprioritize the career development of the women who work in your organization, you limit your choices and take some very talented, driven people out of the equation.
I can see why publicly proclaiming that you’re being innovative with new technology to reduce your headcount is a better alternative to admitting your firm isn’t doing well or to publicly blaming US policy. It might not be the whole truth, though. Usually, when there are large layoffs, the truth is a questionable idea anyway. AI just created another way to stretch it. In this case, Baker McKenzie may see a path in which new technology reduces the need for 10% of its staff. They may also be using that excuse to cover up failure, too.
Either way, 700 people are out of a job, and it’s become so routine that I fear it no longer raises an eyebrow. That’s the truly scary part.
Mora’s advice is to slow down, pause after someone finishes speaking, take a breath before coming off mute, and slow your speech.
I think those are great ideas that I plan to spend a little more time on and bring to the meetings I host in order to bring calm to the whole team. But then I started thinking about the many meetings I take part in each week, and how few of them feel anything like that. They ooze anxiety, tension, and focus on “getting through” the agenda at lightning speed before the next meeting comes at us with even more of the same.
They make us feel more distracted and uneasy, not less.
It’s exhausting to go to work every day for people who refuse to stand behind you as a human being and treat you like an expense they would do anything to be rid of.
Sadly, that is the state of the workplace for many people. It’s not just at the library, and it won’t be fixed by pizza, yoga, or any other lunchtime activity.