When management harms the mental health of our employees, we typically respond by offering them yoga or meditation spaces or maybe a lunchtime session on stress management. We never look at the system. We offer them ways to better cope with the broken system, but we never take responsibility for what the workplace is doing to their mental health.
Every person you lay off from your business is ten times more likely to try and take their own life.
I don’t think senior executives think in those terms. I suspect many are thinking about juicing the bottom line, getting a little stock price bump, maybe making things more efficient, etc. I think large investors think about what is best for their stock values. That’s why CEOs announce layoffs of 10% of the workforce and are rewarded with $100 million bonuses.
We are seeing a demand to create jobs that don’t require ever-growing amounts of grit and resilience. It’s not the worst idea I’ve heard. It places responsibility where it belongs—on employers. Instead of pushing people to break and replacing them with the next person and repeating the cycle, it allows workers to have a career and a life outside of work. I don’t think that is too much to expect.