You being bored at work is probably the least of your employer’s worries
Let’s be honest – if you’re reading this it’s probably because you’re bored at work. Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
Take a moment, however, to consider the plight of the Frenchman whose own crushing workplace ennui has led to him taking his former employer to court.
We all get bored at work. We all manage to find weird and wonderful ways to procrastinate at our desks. Don’t pretend you haven’t already perfected the “trying-to-look-busy face” when your boss strolls by.
But here we have the curious, and quite alarming case of Mr Frederic Desnard; a man suing his former employer for £280,000 for being forced to quit his job after four years of menial tasks, which left him “depressed, destroyed and ashamed”.
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Mr Desnard told French media the experience was a “slow descent into hell”, leaving him no other choice to leave the company. We’ve all felt like that during Monday morning meetings, right?
According to reports, this is France's first ever legal claim for a term they have coined in English jargon as a “bore out”, and employers should be worried that it could set them an unwelcome precedent.
The way in which employers measure and improve their workforce’s collective happiness has changed dramatically in recent years. New measurement techniques, metrics, and big data allows employers to find out exactly what makes you tick, what motivates you, and ensures you perform at your best.
It sounds like Mr Desnard’s former employers could learn a thing or two about the power of employee feedback. They certainly should not have allowed this to end up in court. Whether or not you believe in the authenticity of Mr Desnard’s debilitating boredom, employers need to recognise that in the white-collar job market, today’s average employee values things like accountability, recognition, and autonomy. Gone are the days when you could throw money at an employee to make their problems disappear.
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This last year has seen a huge trend of forward-thinking companies – including Deloitte, GE, and Accenture – shifting towards new, more frequent, performance management and engagement technologies. These technologies allow them to have a much more continual dialogue with their employees, and catch any management problems early, hopefully before it becomes a legal issue.
The era of annual performance reviews is numbered. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a job where you don’t completely detest your co-workers. The pay is OK – enough to get you a holiday a year (if not a deposit on your own home).
The thing that sets the best employers today from the rest is how they listen to their employees, and perhaps more crucially, where their employees know that they are being listened to.
This is where Mr Desnard was failed by his former company, and where other companies should take note.