Manage Your Life
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Workers behave better during recessions
user
Yes, U.S. employees have been behaving better during the Great
Recession, according to the annual National Business Ethics Survey.
Surprised?
The survey found that measures of ethical behavior -- the amount
of misconduct observed, the willingness to report misdeeds, the
strength of ethical cultures and the pressure to cut corners -- all
improved since 2007, when the survey was last taken.
The Ethics Resource Center, which
conducted the research, noted a similar pattern from 2000 to 2003,
when the dot-com bubble and 9/11 affected most workplaces.
While this is good news, I'll bet most of us would rather
have no recession and more workers behaving badly.
For tips on how good behavior can help you get ahead at work,
try these:
Related: workplace ethics, recession
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Posted by PoetWithCancer Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:30pm PST
First, let me point out that--assuming the figures and observations are accurate--that still only means a CORRELATION has been established, which may not be causation. For example, there might be a third factor that mutually causes these conditions. Or it may just be a conincidence.
Some of it, however, I think is likely causative--for the same reason that when slavemasters put overseers holding whips over their laboring slaves, slave behavior got better, and they worked harder.
The desperation and the fear caused by the Great Recession (I like that name, thanks--I've been calling it the Smaller Great Depression) as workers scramble to get and keep a job amdist dwindling job opportunities, is bound to cause many of them to bow and scrape, to cringe and cower, to work overtime for nothing (like I was "asked" to do and did), to skip breaks and keep working when "asked" to, and to be super-duper careful not to piss off the overseer or those over the overseer.
Now that you have considered the effects of the Grreat Recession on the behavior of workers, perhaps a good look at the effects on the "ethics" and behavior of the overseers and bosses and owners and employeres would be in order. As they all rake in more and more, while the workers, the ones who are still working, get less and less, and yet are still so coweringly "thankful" and "happy" not to be outcast yet among the jobless.
A real slap-happy siutation, huh? Yuk yuk.
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Posted by jen Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:38pm PST
You may be right. Nobody wants to get fired ever unless they totally hate their job, but when jobs are taken away people tend to show up on time and do their work with minimal complaints
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