The new office epidemic

Type "France Telecom" in Google, and the first item on the list of the search engine's "suggestions" is "France Telecom suicides". It is strange, and the question is, how did a telecommunications giant come to be associated with such a morbid issue? Could it be another case of mischief by hackers, like the one, a few years ago, that saw George Bush's name rise to the top of the results of Google searches for the word "failure"?

But no, this one involving France Telecom is not the handiwork of hackers. Neither is it fiction. Over the past 20 or so months, more than 20 employees of the company have taken their own lives, mostly prompted by stress and unhappiness experienced at work. In 2002 and 2003, more than 50 workers committed suicide. Renault, Peugeot and EDF, all French industrial giants, have also not been left out in the suicide spree.

The anxious, unhappy workplace

The United States Bureau of Labour Statistics said in an August 2009 report that workplace suicides in the country rose by 28 per cent in 2008, compared with the 2007 figures.

Recent reports and news stories from across the world show that unhappiness in the workplace is now an epidemic of sorts. A lot of this is of course attributed to the global recession, which has seen millions of jobs wiped out worldwide.

Nigeria of course is not left out. Nigerian banks have been quietly laying workers off since the Central Bank of Nigeria's banking audit commenced. Manufacturing industries as well, especially in sub-sectors like textiles and tyre products, have been closing down or relocating to neighbouring countries, because of infrastructure challenges, and an inability to compete with cheap imports.

The cable TV station, MSNBC, quotes Gary Chaison, a US-based professor of Industrial Relations, as saying: "Those who are at places where there have been substantial layoffs are trying to cope with survivor's guilt. I also think there's tremendous anxiety in the American workplace. It's not just being anxious; it's being depressed."

It is safe to say that this "tremendous anxiety" is prevalent in the Nigerian workplace as well. The absence - or ineffectiveness - of protective labour laws, the kind seen in developed economies, means that most Nigerian workers will get the short end of the "benefits" stick when laid off.

A former employee of Zain, one of Nigeria's leading telecoms firms, told NEXT a few months ago, when she was laid off, that "In Kenya, when Zain did their restructuring, some unions protested. They almost took away Zain's licence. But in Nigeria, we don't have a union."

There are also the pressures of performance evaluations, and the inexplicably huge performance targets set by many firms for their employees. The banking sector would serve as an excellent case study for this.

And then there's what Mr. Chaison refers to as "survivor's guilt" - indicating that even survivors of layoffs are mentally and emotionally affected by what happens to their less fortunate colleagues.

Other outlets for stress

The absence of accurate data means that even if workplace fears/unhappiness start to push Nigerian workers to suicide, it would be difficult to discover a pattern. There are many that would argue that the chances of that (the kind of suicide epidemics witnessed in France) happening in Nigeria are very slim - Nigerians are simply not given to suicide, they would argue. While the debate on this continues, it should be noted that the fact that Nigerian workers might hesitate to go the the way of suicide, automatically means that people are resorting to other means to deal with workplace pressures and stress - alcohol and other chemical addictions, workplace affairs, or plain bottling it up - all of which have marked effects on quality of life and productivity.

Presenteeism

The increasing sophistication of workplace unhappiness has given rise to a new medical condition: "Presenteeism". Psychiatrist Gabrielle J. Melin says it "means that you are physically at work, but at the same time, are ill." In other words, it's a condition that does not prevent you from showing up at work, but is more than capable of preventing you from performing optimally. She goes on to add that "presenteeism can have a significant negative impact on performance, yet can be difficult to measure."

It's a case of present yet absent. And everyone, and everything - from affected the individuals to HR, to company bottom line - will pay for it.