Linked: Making workplaces better for people struggling with mental health will make work better for everyone
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Linked: Making workplaces better for people struggling with mental health will make work better for everyone

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

The reality is if you allow people to be flexible and get their work done in the way that makes the most sense for them, individually, they will all benefit from that decision. There won’t be a fairness issue because of some accommodation because everyone is getting the accommodation they need to do their best work.

What’s wrong with that? Isn’t that what management says they want?

Linked: The Term ‘Bullying’ Doesn’t Easily Fit the Workplace
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Linked: The Term ‘Bullying’ Doesn’t Easily Fit the Workplace

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

It’s true, what we define as bullying among school children with no option to simply leave school doesn’t really fit when talking about the workplace, though it is the height of privilege to not recognize that many low-paid workers don’t necessarily have that same level of freedom to do so.

But, as the quote points out, it doesn’t matter what we call it, unprofessional behavior that hurts coworkers and employees has no place in the workplace:

Linked: Crowd-Sourced Suspicion Apps Are Out of Control
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Linked: Crowd-Sourced Suspicion Apps Are Out of Control

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of years. We tend to think of the “Big Tech” apps and social networks as being the problem in the digital world, but really it’s all these little places too, because, as they describe, they don’t just keep us informed of actual events in our neighborhoods, they keep us informed of every single instance of something that someone finds suspicious.

This, in turn, makes us go from living in a relatively calm neighborhood to believing we are just one or two days away from the Purge.

Linked: Women in the Workplace
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Linked: Women in the Workplace

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

This is an acute problem for many of us, who want to participate in doing the work of promoting diversity and inclusion but are still getting measured by everything other than that. And, as the survey points out, it is oftentimes women who take on this work, in an effort to help other women and minorities achieve.

But, as much as the C-Level folks talk about the importance of this work, it is not a part of the job performance, nor is time and effort really allocated for it.

How many of you volunteer to take on this work, running an employee resource group, putting together presentations, leading group discussions, often at the behest of top management, and then when it comes times for performance reviews, the only thing that matters is time spent on bringing in revenue?

The message seems to really be, “It’s great that you want to do this work for us, but make sure you do it on your time because your productivity will be measured against the people who don’t spend any time at all doing this work”

Linked: Will mental health resources evaporate post-pandemic?
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Linked: Will mental health resources evaporate post-pandemic?

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

It just goes to show what I’ve always said, your company is not your family, it’s not even a friend, and it will always do what is good for itself first, second, and always. If something also happens to be good for you, great, but that’s never been the goal, so you have to make decisions based on what is good for you, not the company.

If you think that’s an overly negative thing to say about CEOs and upper management, go read those percentages again, and consider how many of those same people expect your loyalty, and your dedication during difficult times, without offering the same in return. Also, consider how many HR people have proclaimed themselves as being there for employees, and yet also think employees expect too much. It’s not overly negative when it’s true.

Linked: We’re still making terrible choices with passwords, even though we know better
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Linked: We’re still making terrible choices with passwords, even though we know better

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

Most people do the right thing with passwords for financial accounts, but all the websites that make them create an account just to read an article? Who really cares if that account gets hacked? Why not just use the same password for all of them? What’s the hacker going to do, read USA Today as them? Who cares?

That is all just normal, human, behavior. The thing that should scare the hell out of security professionals is how many people view their work access the same way. They don’t care. It’s not their data, it’s just the place where they happen to work, for now. This shows in the low number of people creating a strong password for their work accounts. (It also shows how making them change it every few months really just backfires.)