Why Do People Hate Their Jobs?
I saw a Gallup poll about a year ago that concluded 30 percent of U.S. workers are engaged with their jobs, another 50 percent are “non-engaged,” and an astonishing 20 percent “actively disengaged.” So people not only hate their jobs — they’re completely checking out.
My first response, as a CEO, was to follow the idiom “physician, heal thyself” and take a look inward at ETHIX360 and make sure that we had engaged employees, employees who are proud of where they work.
That started with an overall policy review. Our Chief Compliance Officer does a great job of managing annual policy reviews and updates to keep us all on the straight and narrow, and I’m sure that in your business, your CCO does the same. But this time I read them with a different lens – not, does this policy represent how we want employees to behave – but rather, does this policy define the kind of company we strive to be? Not only do they protect the company by defining standards, but do they protect the rights of individual employees.
That led me to think more about our people as individuals and what would instill their passion for our business. And it made me turn that on its head and ask, “what policies can we have that instill our passion for our people?” That lens made things different for me. Of course policies must reflect the regulatory issues we face as a business, and we owe it to our shareholders and clients to have rules to earn their trust. But just as important, we need policies that earn our employees’ trust.
And what that really means is breathing life into our policies. I’ll give you one simple example – we have and have had a policy in place that prohibits discrimination or harassment against people because of their sexual orientation. We have been clear on this since day one, and that matters. But what we did not do is contemporize that to support the rights beyond sexual orientation bias. It means being a welcoming and supportive company from top to bottom.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on gender expression. After all, I am a straight/white/male. But society has evolved to a point where gender expression is a right and not an assumption. So our policy not only now specifically includes language to be welcoming and supportive of people who’s gender identity or expression is not defined in terms of binary options. It was explained to me that normalization is often the first step to acceptance which is really what everyone hopes for no matter what group they belong to or how they identify.
So I took a step, maybe a small step, but I think the right step. I added my pronouns to my signature block. It’s just two little words, but to someone who expresses non-binary gender, it’s two huge words to see in print, under a CEO’s name. That’s putting the full intent of a policy to be non-discriminatory to people based on gender expression not just in a policy but in action. And just seeing that might make some people feel better about their employer and grow that 30%.
J Rollins
Founder and CEO
he/him
ETHIX360
The ETHIX360 blog brings you weekly updates on all things human resources and compliance.
MEET THE AUTHOR
J Rollins is the co-founder and CEO of ETHIX360. J is a well known leader and innovator who has served on senior leadership teams ranging in responsibility from Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, SVP of Product Strategy and Chief Operating Officer.
ABOUT ETHIX360
At ETHIX360, our goal is simple: to provide an affordable, flexible, and comprehensive answer to employee communication, policy management, corporate training and case management on issues related to corporate ethics, code of conduct, fraud, bribery, and workplace violence.
