Re-Imagining the Workplace with the Individual at the Hub
There is much being discussed and written about the mass resignations at Twitter with Elon Musk at the helm and his relentless work “ethic” expectations. He prides himself on long hours and days-on-end work. That is his choice and his desire and perhaps also attributable to neuro divergences. There also may be a tinge of political protest in these resignations.
Regardless, the resignations are the collective expression against the unidimensional and industrial model of work in corporate America. We are living in a moment of great opportunities to reevaluate and assess the needs and the reality of old (actually pretty recent in the history of humanity) paradigms of organizational workplaces. The Covid shutdowns and the pivot to virtual workspaces allowed for this opening and re-focus.
For many, the “work from home” model opened up space and time to balance our lives, as well as realize that creativity and productivity are not strictly aligned with the number of hours required to be “at work.” And still for others, the work day, unfortunately, was extended because group calls and meetings became easier, and more were regularly scheduled, eating into the actual time to produce. For these people, work hours extended way beyond the norm. There were no boundaries.
As in all things, there were gains and there were losses. The greatest loss, of course, was human contact and in-person and spontaneous sharing of information and creative solutions.
And so we find ourselves, as a collective, re-envisioning the work environment, culture and structure. The mass resignations seem to imply a power to the people rising, at least personal choice is garnering greater strength. I feel this is a huge step forward in reclaiming our worth, our power, our free will.
For the past decades, human resource departments, academic and scientific researchers addressed the causes and consequences of employee stress, burnout and general health and wellness as systemic issues with organizational solutions. The underlying focus was always on system efficiency, even cultural improvement to buoy productivity. No matter the efforts to make the workplace more “open,” less hierarchical, more “communicative,” these efforts were always within the same paradigm of the split person: employee and other life.
With the Covid pivot of work from home as the norm, this rupture in personhood can be mended.. The resistance to return to “normal” is this spiritual awakening to the wholeness of our personhood- beyond the home/work identity, is the intersection of our spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical self.
As life and work do not require pandemic restrictions and limitations, what will we choose to change? What will we acknowledge we learned about ourselves? How we want to live moving forward?
This is our moment to garner the potential to restructure and re-envision — with the individual integrated as a whole person at work and at home. Corporations and organizations have a unique opportunity to recognize the core of the individual and the organization as the whole of all the individuals together.
The employee and the organization are inextricably interconnected. A spiritually grounded and integrated organization is one that is committed to the whole individual as expressed in its mission and purpose, the relationships within and without, the forms of communication, the design of the workday and spaces, as well as the overall culture of commitment and appreciation with clear, collaborative solutions and expectations.
My prayer is that we return to the workforce with greater awareness of ourselves, integrated and whole, as the core of the organization’s culture and environment.
