Some Companies have whistle-blowing portals that encourage staff to report practices that go against Company policy.
Whatever the situation, you must remember that work stress is expensive to you and your employer in that it causes poor productivity, increased accidents as well as high medical expenses.
QUESTION: How can one combat the nasty feeling of not having to relate normally with your co-workers simply because you are their senior in terms of job ranking? The HR department at my workplace insists on this segregation which I find rather inhumane.
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A look at the organisation of the life of bees for example will convince you of the need and power of teamwork in that different bees contribute different skill sets to make the beehive the efficient machine it is in making honey for themselves, but for humans, theirs is to be the indispensable agent for pollination of crops.
It is no exaggeration to say that without bees little or no food production would be possible in the way we know it today. It is, therefore, important for you to show interest and concern about the health of the bee colony nearest to you.
Just for your information, the worker bee is responsible for general housekeeping, and is the servant of the hive, in keeping it clean and attending to the young. The queen bee is also looked after by this specialised group.
Other bees go out to work collecting nectar while others are guards. The queen is not a worker and cannot perform the duties of the worker bee and similarly, the worker is not the queen. Efficiency at the hive is attained by specialisation.
In an analogous way, ants are social in their organisation of life and in this regard, three castes exist. Like the bees, there is a queen, workers, and drones, with each performing tasks that are specific to itself and thus contributing to the survival of their collective genes.
Experts have described the social rules that keep the colonies in optimal functional states.
Fire ants are known to link their legs together in their thousands to make a floating raft with great agility and can float in any flood as a unit that can withstand the force of any flood.
When together they reach dry land, they get back to their lives and build a new life on dry land. Alone, none of them would survive but together they live.
Humans have over time evolved and have developed diverse types of specialisation. Some started off as blacksmiths with skills of making tools later used for hunting.
Others developed hunting skills, which enable them to track and kill animals for food, while still others became expert farmworkers able to look after crops and tend to the newly domesticated animals.
In time and with evolution, not only do we have experts in medicine and teaching, but others have also subspecialised in computing sciences and others in neuroscience and research.
Like the ants and bees, specialiation has enabled society to increase in complexity with each member of the “human colony” performing a different family enhancing function. At your place of work, there are those who are senior and those, like you who must contend with other functions of the “colony”
This, therefore, is the simple answer to your question. For any society to survive, there must be rules of engagement, and all must follow them, stay in their lanes if survival is to be guaranteed.
That said, however, there are instances such as yours where all is not well and some adjustments to the order of things demand special attention and adjustments. That is both normal and common.
If in your view as a faithful member of the team who genuinely believes that the team would function better as a team that is arranged differently, then it is your duty to let the head of HR know in as many words. Silence in this instance is evidence of disloyalty to the organisation.
There are, however, some dangers in speaking out and you must be acutely aware of them. It is for this reason that you might want to consult your peers just to be sure that the challenge you are going through is institutional rather than personal in the sense of differences in opinion between you and the boss. Others may hold a different view; it might be the case that you are the problem.
Some Companies have whistle-blowing portals that encourage staff to report practices that go against Company policy. Such reports go directly to the board and do so anonymously. This might be another route available to you.
Whatever the situation, you must remember that work stress is expensive to you and your employer in that it causes poor productivity, increased accidents as well as high medical expenses.
