COVID-19

In the shoes of others

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I have my two children at home with me at the moment. One is a 20 year old second year university student, the other turns 18 tomorrow and is/was in the final year of her A-levels. It is fair to say that both of their lives have been severely disrupted by the current situation. But they can’t agree on who has it worst.

Social comparison theory explains how we determine self worth by comparison to others. Those that we perceive to be better off than us and those that we perceive to be worse off. Whilst under most conditions we have the learnt ability to keep these things to our internal voice, under stress and pressure, the veil of social acceptability can sometimes slip.

That’s why my son thinks his lot is worse than his sister’s as he is dragged away from his home, his life and his friends. And she feels done to beyond compare, as her A levels have been snatched away from her.

In a similar way we can see this play out in the world of work. People who are at home bemoan the fact and long to be out and about and working. Those out at work long for the safety of the home. We point the fingers at football players and CEOs, whilst they talk about their tax and charitable contributions being greater than those of most.

Reactions like this are entirely normal, they’re part of our psychology. It doesn’t mean that the judgments we make are entirely right, or indeed entirely wrong. They are how we make sense of the world and allow us to find our sense of self.

“I am justified in my actions, because of xxx, whereas they are not because of xxx.” 

“They are a good human being because they do xxx, they are a bad human being because of xxx.”

But at the same time that these reactions are entirely human, they provide little benefit in a time that requires more social cohesion than at any point in my life. We can’t stop ourselves having these thoughts, but we can ask whether expressing them is truly helpful to the situation we are facing into, or is more about making us feel better about ourselves.

There will be time aplenty to assess the rights, the wrongs, the successes and the failures. We will all look back and ask ourselves what more we personally could have done. Until that time, we might be better stopping to think what it is like to walk in the shoes of others, rather than bemoan them for not walking in ours.

COVID- 19 provides us with a moral leadership question

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I’m genuinely loathed to write anything that might be seen to be riding on a sensationalist wave. At the same time, it is almost impossible to pass a day without stories relating to the spread of COVID-19 and the impact that is already having, and could have further on society and the workforce. Wherever we are in the world, whatever continent or time zone, this is a dominating event.

I was dismayed and a little flabbergasted  last week to hear a number of organisations suggesting they didn’t have an obligation to pay sick pay to people who were self isolating, to the point that the Government has stepped in to change the UK rules on statutory sick pay to ensure people who feel ill can stay off work. I know, from talking to others from around the world, the same debate is playing out in other countries too.

I’m not going to comment on the legalities, there are people better placed to do that, but I do want to talk about moral compass. Particularly those of the people who will choose to hide behind legislation rather than face into a moral obligation. In fact, the whole unfortunate situation shines a very firm light on the way in which organisations perceive their employees and their responsibility towards them. This isn’t so much about statute, it is about leadership.

If we believe that given the chance our colleagues will use this as an opportunity to get one over on the company, that they will be slackers, malingerers and wastrels then that says more about us than it does them. If our employees see this as a chance to not come into work, to avoid the workplace, then it says more about our culture and organisation, than it does about them.

Most of us will not have experienced an event of this kind before, this is unchartered water. We have a choice about how we look at the impact it will have on our workforces and that choice will pretty much define how we are as an organisation. We can see it as our responsibility to protect, to reassure and to look after our workforces, to work together to see this through. Or we can look at our ability to protect ourselves from the impact this will have on our workforce, to minimise their risk to our organisations and to only do what we are legally obliged to do.

Whilst we are in the eye of the storm, it will feel as if this will go on forever. But it won’t, time will move on and we will come out the other side, one way or another. And when we do, people will look at their employer, their organisation and they will judge them on how they behaved. We talk so much about social responsibility and doing the right thing and here and now we have an opportunity to demonstrate this is more than words. Good organisations with strong leaders will do so, those that view their employees simply as disposable resource will not.

Which side do you want to be on?