Opinion piece by Josep Conesa Sagrera. This article on psychosocial risks in the workplace was published in the newspaper Expansión on 10 November 2017.
Written by Josep Conesa
Employment and insolvency lawyer
THE CORPORATE NUMBERS GAME:
"I see it more and more every day, what I call the corporate numbers game.
It means stripping away every trace of human feeling and treating clients and employees as figures on a spreadsheet. They have to be profitable! The numbers have to add up!
This phenomenon revolves around setting targets, setting targets, setting targets… and systematically exceeding the working hours limits set by the Workers' Statute through uncompensated overtime.
Most of the workers who fall ill as a result of this numbers game are, in fact, the high performers, the unsung heroes. Yet our society refuses to recognise it as a work-related illness. Instead, people say "they had some kind of breakdown", "they're drowning in debt", "they're weak", or "they must have problems at home".
The real heroes are the parents, those who work and work for a greater purpose: building a family. Their children grow up without a mother or father by their side. Their hero or heroine rushed off to work early and missed their yawns. They weren't there to pick them up from school and missed their little triumphs. The weekend came, and they were still tethered to work.
The toll on workers' health is devastating, stress, anxiety, insomnia, anguish, depression, and more. The people I have seen with these symptoms are like a burnt-out light bulb.
Then there is another type of employee: the institutionalised worker. These are people whose entire life is work, they either have no children or live as though they don't, and they are permanently switched on.
But there is a third type of employee, one who neither reduces themselves to a number nor burns out. This is the superhero.
These people replace numbers with feelings. They listen to their instincts and have a clear sense of both their personal and professional priorities. They perform better because they know where the boundaries lie. They achieve a genuine work-life balance. They are more productive because they have clarity about what matters, both at home and at work. And they sell far more, because they treat clients as people rather than figures on a spreadsheet. They understand that numbers have no soul, but clients do, and that soul is what drives them to prioritise and choose the product being offered to them.
I strive to be a superhero myself, and to help my clients and employees become one too. Whether they are businesses or individual workers, what matters is having soul. What matters is replacing the equation profitability = targets + excessive hours with a new one: profitability = priorities + people.
And I am optimistic. There are many tools available to become a superhero."
Josep Conesa Sagrera
Lawyer
