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Changing dynamics at the workplace and stiffer economic demands are
pushing Kenyan workers to extremes that make them seem more married to
their jobs than family. PHOTO/FILE
The IT firm where Brenda Ituma works is facing very stiff competition.
There
are many more similar companies coming up in the market. Being a
salesperson, she has to skirt around all the competition to bag business
for her company. That hasn’t been easy.
Ms Ituma is
feeling the pressure from the ever rising targets set by her employer.
The little increment to her salary can hardly assuage her agitation.
“I
am always on the run. By the end of the day, I am worn out. I get home
and I can barely do homework with my son or have a sensible discussion
with my husband. In fact, it is as if most of the time is spent
arguing,” she points out. “I think sometimes I am so irritable that it
rubs off them,” she adds.
Employers, both in the
private and the public sector, have become much more aggressive about
restructuring work in ways that push for higher productivity, aided by
an array of technologies and management strategies, say experts.
HIGH PERFORMANCE
The relentless drive for more at the workplace in pursuit of higher market share has created a new harshness in the office.
The
imposition of rigorous performance quotas has not helped matters as
employees are forced to put in extra hours, whether paid or not, to meet
the often brutal deadlines.
Ituma says she, like other
employees, is often expected to work overtime as her employer would
rather the existing staff take over extra loads than hire more workers
to fill the gaps.
“We are stretched to our limits.
Many times, work spills into off-hours. I sometimes find myself meeting
clients in the evenings when I should be home.”
And
with improved technology, where the boss, associates and clients are
constantly peppering one with email messages at night and in the
weekends, employees couldn’t have asked for worse times.
Be prepared for such when your office offers a smart phone and a laptop programmed to give you access to your desktop.
Add
these to a life that has become more costly and tense through rising
prices and persistent threats for more taxes, and the average Kenyan
workers feels overwhelmed and stressed.
For a majority
of the working population where there once existed “permanent and
pensionable” employment, now meaner, leaner companies are opting for
contractual jobs, admits Charles Otieno, a human resources consultant.
Then there is a psychological dynamic that only raises the anxiety among staff.
ECONOMIC PRESSURE
Consultant
sociologist and senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi, Prof Paul
Nyaga Mbatia, says the fact that there are so many unemployed people
out here disadvantages the employed in such a way that the employer
figures if one employee is lost, there are plenty more looking to fill
the vacancy.
“Wages are stagnant, jobs are less secure,
work is more intense,” notes the professor, who is involved in work and
employment research.
What compounds the problem even
further, he argues, is that staff unions don’t really work, especially
for those in employment with private firms.
Because of
these insecurities, they are frightened and depressed, says Patricia
Nyokabi, a consultant organisational psychologist.
And because they have been asked to produce more at work, people have less time and diminished concentration at home.
“The
more demanding and unstable jobs become, the more the time that people
would have devoted to their families and friends take a hit, and most
especially their folk upcountry,” says Nyokabi.
“Work
stress makes a profound difference in how people behave at home and with
their loved ones,” she says. “One always suffers; work or home”.
It is all tied to the work environments and economic pressures Kenyans are facing.
Nyokabi
explains further: “We have parents spending too much time at their
places of work and they still cannot afford proper child care for their
children.
Their children are busy watching TV instead
of doing other developmental stuff like taking up piano classes and
other extra-curriculum activities that contribute to their positive
growth, all because parents who have jobs - but bad ones - lack the time
to raise their children in the proper way.
“And then
because of all the stress that the spouses are bringing home from work
plus the economic stress, domestic relationships get strained and the
home environment becomes hostile.”
MARRIED TO THE JOB
According to the organisational psychologist, many are individuals who in practical sense are married to their jobs.
If
they are not staying in the office late, they are bringing work home
when they should be giving their undivided attention to their family.
“The
partner starts to feel the emotional deprivation,” says Nyokabi.
“Others don’t even believe their spouse is actually at work in the
night, so the suspicion kicks in and trust wanes.”
Such
scenarios contribute to the high rates of unhappy unions, separation
and divorce, particularly among younger couples, and Nyokabi connects
the dots to work related stress in many of them
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