Are there One-way Streets in the Professional World?

As promised at the beginning, my blog space is meant to express the less accepted, uncommon ideas around us that prevail as common in our daily life.  Sleep deprived and recently declared insomniac (surprisingly after all these years of being a sound sleeper), I couldn’t help but spend many of my nights meant for brain rest, abuse itself to find a rather convincing explanation to one of the most common situations that I and many of us face. It is an issue that one often comes across in our cultured, socially-conditioned and emotionally sentient human life. The puzzling but equally disappointing topic I am talking about is the pain of ‘walking the one-way street’!

Now, the phrase, 'walking the one-way street' is not just about the matters concerning the deflections of a broken heart or stories of the glorified, unrequited love that we read in the short story, Was it a Dream by Guy de Maupassant. To me, finding oneself in a one-way street in the middle of a journey, commitment or any meaningful association is an anomaly in human relationships and social behaviors. It is a place where professional ‘quid pro quo’ and fairness exists only as words.

It occurs quite frequently in our social circles, professional lives and other aspects of our personal lives. In this article, I wish to elaborate on the epiphenomenon of 'walking the one-way street' which has become a norm in the professional space and is often justified with a host of cultural, social, economic, personal and psychological reasons.

What are One-way Streets in Professional Life?

The one-way streets are the common crossroads that can appear between an employer and employee, entrepreneurs and customers or vice versa, and also between co-workers, business partners, friends, family members and even acquaintances.

There are a plenty of instances in an average working individual’s life that can be categorized as walking the one-way street. It includes stretching extra hours at work without fair compensation, lack of basic facilities, poor pay scales or future prospects for employees. And includes much deeper issues like gender discrimination,  negligence towards employees’ safety, health and personal growth, no increments or financial appreciation in return for quality services and tasks delivered and more.  

The realization of finding oneself stuck in a contract or  business commitment where there is no reciprocity in conduct, trust and the guarantee that their commitments would be rewarded can be tormenting and discouraging. This would surface despite us being conditioned to view them as petty disputes, organizational behaviour tactics, etc (thanks to a host of psychological and management theories). In fact, the impacts of being on a one-way street are as caustic to an individual’s morale and self-esteem as it would be in a failed, unfulfilling romantic relationship.  And let's not forget the level of damage it can cause in the moral, social, psychological and financial context.  

It's Effects on Organization’s Overall Health

An unappreciated employee, underpaid worker, or undervalued customers are bad for the overall health of a firm. Likewise, an unacknowledged leader or team member in a firm’s department would slowly find himself/herself amid work conflicts that may at first, appear somewhat petty and personal. But, it ultimately reflects on the workplace dynamics and efficiency at an individual level.

Also, any form of neglect and ignorance by the management of all tiers shown towards the employees at an individual level can catch up as a harmless trend, fostering an environment that is commonly dreaded and viewed 'unfavourable' for personal growth, job satisfaction and productivity. Time and again, it is essential to revisit an important chapter in organizational behavior, employee satisfaction and actualization from the Maslow’s Theory. Managers, better take note!

Workplace Harassment and Organization’s Insensitivity Push Employees to the One-way Street

One-way streets at inter-personal levels in the professional environment are mostly due to the absence of a system that strictly exudes the philosophy of respecting its workers and allows personal freedom while also ensuring a certain degree of control to curb negativity and malpractices.  Despite receiving orientation and a brief crash course on HR policies on workplace decorum, gender discrimination, workplace abuse and harassment, it is often observed that some employees definitely end-up become a victim at the workplace. 

According to a recent research by the Harvard Business Report that involved a qualitative study of 31 women working in male-dominated industries, about 75 percent claimed to have been sexually harassed at work. The shocking fact was that majority of them reported ‘physical attractiveness’ was viewed as the perceived cause for their experiences.  In most cases, the abused and harassed employees would refrain from making the issue known to the management fearing repercussions like loss of job, demotion and shaming.

Results from the 2015 survey conducted by the Cosmopolitan revealed that nearly 71 percent of the women who were sexually harassed did not report the incident and only 15 percent felt the reports were handled fairly. The surveyed participants were employed in different industries and the percentage of the harassed population was almost uniform throughout those fields. Another shocking insight from the research showed that only a negligible proportion of participants comprised of those who reported the incidents that they witnessed at workplaces.

Additionally, the people who were interviewed during the survey (published in the Harvard Business Report) said that most companies trivialize cases like sexual harassment and also lack systems that help prevent such unfortunate incidents at work. The absence of zero-tolerance policies towards such behaviors at workplace is one of the commonly thriving traits of most organizations that can leave employees to walk the one-way street.

One-way Streets Created by the Peer Groups

Other cases of driving employees to walk the one-way street are by their co-workers. Any average Joe would agree that it is possible to be falsely framed, sabotaged, bullied and discriminated for the religion, skin color, gender, nationality, socio-economic factors and personal issues.

Weirdly enough, these experiences and ill treatments from the peers, co-workers and bosses at the workplace can have a grave effect on an individual, driving the person to disengage from team activities. However, when such behavior brought into the light, it sure does raise concerns about their integrity and reliability. Organizations that value employees' psychological and professional well-being would take strict actions and their response collectively determines the firm’s stance on the overall issue.

One-way Streets in the Start-ups

 In the thriving start-up space, brimming with entrepreneurs and new business ideas, the case of walking the one-way street has been the norm that is mostly set by the party who always has the advantage of some sort over the other. Many successful entrepreneurs admit that walking the one-way street was a part of their struggle in their journey. After unrecovered debts, payments that are pending from the clients who suddenly go incommunicado and unfair treatment from VCs and harassment from customers, the start-up community provides us a wealth of information about hostility and negativity that can push people back to the one-way street.

 Already cursed with the low odds of survival i,e nearly  95 percent of start-ups are expected to fail, (suggests research, not my opinion), many entrepreneurs regardless of their high potential business idea are at the risk of encountering bad surprises.

Unlike working in an organization, women entrepreneurs or female employees in the start-up space also have very high chances of facing sexual abuse and harassment. It is mainly due to the absence of rigid HR policies, agreements or written contracts that cover the sensitive topic of workplace abuse or harassment. Besides, there are no whistle blowers and watch dogs to have the issue examined.

What the Freelancers Face on the One-way Street?

Freelancers who operate without a professional platform that promotes part-time or freelance services also complain about having to deal with unprofessional clients who dodge payments and fail to keep up their word upon receiving services or a product.

The absence of legal contracts and projects undertaken without documentation that covers important details such as remuneration, nature of service and deadlines add small business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs at a great disadvantage. Further, the lack of guarantee of receiving financial compensation for the services delivered force individuals to silently endure harassment and put up with inappropriate behaviors. Receiving lewd text messages or emails, threats and verbal abuse by customers are quite common.   

My interview with many women entrepreneurs and freelancers showed that unlike to their male counterparts, the customers conventionally view women in the start-up space as soft targets and ‘push-overs’ who easily budge. They were found to be more patient with customers who were bad mannered and dilly-dallied while clearing payments.  Incidentally, another portion of budding businesswomen said they had faced too many situations where their customers would doubt their ability to deliver, the quality of their work, merit and credibility.

And, the Solution?

One-way streets no doubt serve as brilliant plots in stories and poems that are melancholic in nature but in reality and particularly, in the professional segment, it is proven to cause irrevocable damage to individuals, businesses, professionals and economy at large. Victims forced to walk in these poignant streets need redressal that can start at both organizational and individual levels.

At this state, my sleeplessness was overpowered by somewhat philosophical but also pragmatic view on the one-way streets where we repeatedly set foot on. ‘Self-policing’ and empathy are the only solution that I find very much apt and relatable. These when understood and practised scrupulously at an individual level and exercised with resolve at a collective level (organizational, managerial, departmental and legal level) can curb the instances of forcing people to tread on the one-way street.