Life You Love Laboratory: The Human Cost of Profitable Business

This message is aimed directly at the humans in America who are employed. Maybe you wake up each day and head to an office, or maybe you work from home. You might work in the service industry, or perhaps for a big corporation. You probably have a boss or a supervisor to report to, and your relationship with that person is somewhere on the line between “absolutely awful” and “completely amazing.” You agreed to do a job, and they agreed to pay you for your work. Whatever it is that you do, you are one of the just over 158 million employed Americans. Whether you know it or not, you are the driving force behind the business structure of our entire society.

And I want you to ask yourself this question: Is your life made better because of where you work?

Read that one more time, please. Is your life MADE BETTER because of where you work? Does the relationship between you and your employer help you build a life that you love?

Relationship

When you were hired for the position you currently hold, you entered a relationship with your employer. There is an ever-present exchange going on in this relationship and it must be continuously balanced — you give to and get from your employer, and your employer gives to and gets from you. The most obvious commodities exchanged in this relationship are probably time and money, but there are other elements at play, too. Consider things like safety, security, joy, passion, growth, and development — all of which are possible in an employment relationship.

Take time now to consider your relationship with your employer. Is it balanced? Do you feel that the disbursement of your time, energy, and talent is equivalent to what is supplied for you in terms of pay, benefits, and security? Have you taken the time to articulate for yourself what exactly it is that you need from your employer?

Profitability

To speak in broad terms, we live in a world where a business exists to make money while providing some sort of service or good that people need or want. Profit is generally the biggest indicator of success for a business. This is due in large part to an American economist who, in 1970, made the bold, reckless, and incredibly irresponsible declaration that profit is the highest responsibility of business. (If you know, you know. If you don’t know, look up Milton Friedman.)

It is a fairly common assumption that if a business is profitable — that is to say that it generates revenue greater than its expenditures — then it is a successful business. Conversely, if it is not profitable, it is unsuccessful. I would like to challenge this notion by going beyond the dollars and cents of profitability. While there is certainly a component of business that is dependent on the bottom line, I believe that a business is only truly profitable if it is actively seeking to improve the lives of everyone it encounters. This includes customers, employees, vendors, and anyone else within the community where this business operates. And for all businesses, their first priority should be to improve the lives of their employees.

When considering only the balance sheets, for a business to be profitable, it must generate enough revenue to cover all its expenses and have something left over. The leftovers are the profit of the business. However, this equation fails to adequately consider the human element. Balance sheets and financial statements do not account for the quality of life for those who are doing the work that generates the revenue. For example, if a business turns a profit, but most or all of the employees are unable to meet their basic needs, is that business truly succeeding?

Is it possible to create a world where, in addition to revenue and costs, every single business in America assesses its profitability on the health and well-being of its employees?

The answer is yes. And that world needs to be created fast. Healthier workers will mean healthier businesses, healthier communities, and a stronger society.

Work-Related Stress

Why does the health and well-being of employees matter so much, and what kind of an economic impact could be created by improving their lives? Well, setting aside the fact that it is just a really great feeling to care for people in a dignified manner, consider the following statistics from the American Institute of Stress. (Let’s not even get into the fact that we live in a country that needs an entire institute for stress.)

• 83% of US workers suffer from work-related stress.
• Businesses lose up to $300 billion yearly because of workplace stress.
• Stress causes around one million workers to miss work every day.
• Only 43% of US employees think their employers care about their work-life balance.
• Depression leads to $51 billion in costs due to absenteeism and $26 billion in treatment costs.
• Work-related stress causes 120,000 deaths and results in $190 billion in healthcare costs yearly.

Americans face many challenges of varying size and scope every single day. Work-related stress can cause symptoms like fatigue, muscle soreness, insomnia, depression, anxiety, and heart palpitations. It can lead to aggressive behaviors, mood swings, and intolerance. It can cause people to turn to unhealthy self-medication practices like alcohol misuse, smoking, or drug abuse. In short, work-related stress can greatly reduce the quality of life for the average American employee.

Challenge the Status Quo

The story of employment in America could be easily distilled into a narrative about the greed-based machine that exploits and destroys the average worker in pursuit of the almighty dollar. This story will only end with more profit for those that have, and less of everything for those that have not.

There is a chance that you are one of the 83% of Americans that has experienced work-related stress in your life. You may also be one of the 57% of workers who do not feel that your employer cares about your work-life balance. Perhaps you are suffering from insomnia, anxiety, and depression which could be caused by your employment situation. If the 158 million Americans who go to work each day are willing to challenge the idea that business exists only to make a profit, we can and will break the unhealthy trends of our current employment system.

It will take time to change the way the system works. There is no silver bullet, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

But there is one thing that remains true about businesses: without people, business will not exist. I don’t know who said it first, but several wise business leaders have stated that the purpose of business is to find profitable solutions to the problems of people and the planet.

Are you working for an employer that is finding profitable solutions, or are they just finding profit?