An Aspiration for Nothing or
If Psychosocial Health Matters, Stop Hot Desking
There’s no point in having an aspiration or wish for a safe workplace if it’s just ‘pie in the sky’.
There is no point in wishing for nothing, that’s what Zero does (https://safetyrisk.net/book-launch-zero-the-great-safety-delusion-free-download/).
So, after all the hullabaloo about psychosocial (hazards) health, what is the point if the fundamental structures that harm people remain the same?
What is the point of a mining company pontificating about zero harm then destroy people through FIFO and DIDO?
What is the point of parading around some sanctimonious faux care about health (you know that middle letter in WHS) from a workstation in a hot desking environment?
If you interested in hot desking here is a comical satire about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwZkHC9KNGM
and, I have written about this before.
The research is clear, hot desking harms people, injures people and brutalises people:
- https://safetyrisk.net/hows-the-hot-desking-going-covid/
- https://safetyrisk.net/selective-safety-and-well-being/
- https://safetyrisk.net/sick-building-syndrome-and-the-problem-of-uncertainty/
- https://safetyrisk.net/the-safety-of-space-and-place/
Never mind, we don’t count those forms of harm so we can keep the delusion of zero in place. Nothing like a good delusion to keep safety unprofessional.
Dr Rob Long
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Rosa Carrillo says
Couldn’t agree more–hot desking is a travesty. If you let the accountants make these decisions, you are on the road to perdition. How many times does something have to shown not to work before business leaders will listen? How many times must an employee speak up? The irony is that companies spend so much money on psychological safety training and them make dumb decisions like this one!
Rob Long says
Rosa, in many ways this is not a ‘decision’ and not dumb. The duplicity of Safety is extensive. Just read the language, listen to the discourse. Its game playing to hide underlying methodologies to enable brutalism, in the name of good. This is enables by an inductry that can’t think critically and demonsies critical thinking as anti-safety.
What has to be assured is compliance to the engineering/behaviourist paradigm that doesn’t question the dominant worldview. This is because such a worldview is invested in the power structures of safety.
The reality is for business leaders is that safety is a tokenistic accessory that deserves lip service and nothing more. That way the discourse of ‘the good’ is maintained for the non-discerning and brutalism thrives under the radar.
BRENT R CHARLTON says
I have never been more stressed on a daily basis than when I worked for a Japanese owned company that believed in the open office concept. There were about 20 of us in an open room – tile floors, cubicle walls only desk height. Try focusing with conversations and phone calls happening on all sides of you in a room where there is not much to absorb sound and see what that does to your mental stress! I lasted about 3 months before I moved on. Worst work experience of my nearly 40 year career.
Rob Long says
Brent, has many similar experiences. So much for psychosocial safety.