Humanism and management

Workplace relations have deteriorated considerably in economically rich countries, as the social pact underpinning them has been transformed.
Wage labor based on hierarchical relationships, as we still know it, was organized with industrialization and the liberal system; it's a paternalistic system, where everyone found a place as long as they accepted to be dominant, the boss, or submissive, the employee. The contract was based on an exchange between time, which the employee devoted to his work, and security, offered by the boss in return.

However, for a variety of reasons too numerous to describe here, the evolution of systems has meant that the safety clause has been called into question, and very quickly, in less than 50 years, which is not very long in terms of man's capacity for change: our “submissive” can no longer find his way, because everything can change, and performance and profitability demand constant adaptation to ruthless global competition.

But this evolution has also led to the dilution of the notion of the boss, who has been transformed into a manager, meaning that everyone is more or less someone else's boss. The notion of the personalized boss has been diluted by that of the hierarchy, a somewhat vague concept that justifies all decision-making, since there is no longer a clearly designated person in charge. On the other hand, everyone has become responsible, if not for their own actions, at least for what happens to them: not fast enough, not trained enough, not young enough, not old enough, in short, not profitable enough.
So, in the short space of half a century, relationships within organizations have changed, with all that this entails, both positive and negative.

On the positive side, we're moving towards the empowerment of men in the workplace, albeit slowly and by force. In fact, the submissive profile has tended to disappear since he became a manager, making him gradually aware that he can make decisions. He no longer really wants to devote his time to a high-pressure professional life. However, his need for security remains, and he is no longer subject to his boss, but to the objectives set for him. He still has the same fear of exclusion from the group. And the higher you go in the hierarchy, the greater the level of fear and submission. Probably because the feeling of losing so much is so strong. And yet, some of them, the “alternatives”, tired of being subjected to a pressure whose objective is economic performance to the detriment of human values, are precursors of what is slowly taking shape: more autonomous individuals, unafraid to marginalize themselves, who have created living communities.

The result is increasing stress in organizations where individuals are self-monitoring in order to achieve objectives that are either changing under the pressure of the environment, or ever more restrictive.
So what could be the way out? Evangelism would consist in thinking that humanist values could be re-established in organizations; but beyond the merits of this thinking, it remains utopian, since organizations are only what people make of them.

The solution lies in the individual's ability to move from a search for security to the construction of his or her own autonomy. This is not an easy evolution, as fears abound of failure, rejection and social exclusion, and this approach certainly relies on faith and self-confidence. Schools and education certainly have a role to play in this approach, so that this evolution is no longer undergone but accepted for what it is, ie inescapable.