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Whenever I read one of these HBR things on "optimal employee engagement" I feel like I'm reading some modern version of an ancient roman treatise on the care an

Whenever I read one of these HBR things on "optimal employee engagement" I feel like I'm reading some modern version of an ancient roman treatise on the care and feeding of agricultural slaves. Everyone who reads this and is trying to optimize their personal employee engagement should reconsider their life choices.

touristtam 7y ago
You have to remember we are talking about Human Resources here. Human are just another component of the business process no more, no less. In that sense it makes sense the point of view shown in the article is making you uneasy.
chadcmulligan 7y ago
In my experience, if you can produce results, there is little restraint from modern management to exploit you to the max, there is no concern about burnout, or anything, its a daily battle to reign in demands no matter how much you produce. From what I can understand it is taught at business school to exploit resources, you must look after yourself and push back, surprisingly hard, again in my experience. I find it abhorrent. It was the .com era when things changed, when the sharks realised the computers own the world, before that it was a bunch of happy engineers making stuff. Even worse many managers seem to be control freaks who can't measure results, and instead insist on micromanaging everything, looking over your shoulder, continually asking for feedback, and "checking in" to see how things are going. I've said for many years I produce results in spite of managers "helping". Software development is fairly easy I find, it does take time to produce results though, and because no one can see whats going on managers behave the way they do, there's a huge lack of trust on both sides. End of rant. P.S. I find it easiest to behave like plumbers, they know you need them to clean up your shit, and they have to pay you, so just do what you have to to survive. I remember one guy I hired years ago to do some plumbing at a place I was renovating, kept saying he was busy, yada, yada, went up to the shops he was wandering around having an Ice cream. Medical specialists are another great example I find, they have people making outrageous demands on them, literally life and death, they make sure that people can't find them outside office hours, they are very good at looking after themselves, as they should be.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
A lot of this is Personnel (HR) trying to increase their status in my opinion.
0xcde4c3db 7y ago
The amount of pseudoscience on this topic is staggering, and there's seemingly almost no thought given to adverse effects. Incidentally, a good rule of thumb is that anyone who claims that their preferred intervention (for anything, not just productivity/engagement) is beneficial and has "no side effects" or "only good side effects" is very nearly 100% likely to be full of shit. The only way to have no risk of adverse effects is to have no effects at all.

touristtam 7y ago

You have to remember we are talking about Human Resources here. Human are just another component of the business process no more, no less. In that sense it makes sense the point of view shown in the article is making you uneasy.

chadcmulligan 7y ago

In my experience, if you can produce results, there is little restraint from modern management to exploit you to the max, there is no concern about burnout, or anything, its a daily battle to reign in demands no matter how much you produce. From what I can understand it is taught at business school to exploit resources, you must look after yourself and push back, surprisingly hard, again in my experience. I find it abhorrent. It was the .com era when things changed, when the sharks realised the computers own the world, before that it was a bunch of happy engineers making stuff. Even worse many managers seem to be control freaks who can't measure results, and instead insist on micromanaging everything, looking over your shoulder, continually asking for feedback, and "checking in" to see how things are going. I've said for many years I produce results in spite of managers "helping". Software development is fairly easy I find, it does take time to produce results though, and because no one can see whats going on managers behave the way they do, there's a huge lack of trust on both sides. End of rant. P.S. I find it easiest to behave like plumbers, they know you need them to clean up your shit, and they have to pay you, so just do what you have to to survive. I remember one guy I hired years ago to do some plumbing at a place I was renovating, kept saying he was busy, yada, yada, went up to the shops he was wandering around having an Ice cream. Medical specialists are another great example I find, they have people making outrageous demands on them, literally life and death, they make sure that people can't find them outside office hours, they are very good at looking after themselves, as they should be.

C1sc0cat 7y ago

A lot of this is Personnel (HR) trying to increase their status in my opinion.

0xcde4c3db 7y ago

The amount of pseudoscience on this topic is staggering, and there's seemingly almost no thought given to adverse effects. Incidentally, a good rule of thumb is that anyone who claims that their preferred intervention (for anything, not just productivity/engagement) is beneficial and has "no side effects" or "only good side effects" is very nearly 100% likely to be full of shit. The only way to have no risk of adverse effects is to have no effects at all.