Around 15 years ago, an employee received an award from a renowned company in Bangladesh. The woman was providing customer service over the cell phone when she was literally taken to the labour room to give birth to a baby. The organization awarded her as the best employee for demonstrating enormous dedication towards the profession during a critical moment in her life.
Perhaps there are many such stories in the corporate sector of Bangladesh. The examples demonstrate what is expected and valorized as organizational commitment in our country. However, a question can be posed regarding this so-called “professional commitment” based on moral or ethical grounds.
Providing greater attention to that particular story can be helpful in critically understanding the problematic view regarding professional commitment. Through the award, the organization recognized and celebrated the employee who performed professional responsibilities despite a critical crisis in her life. Simultaneously, it emphasized and encouraged others to place the organizational activities before their personal or family obligations.
Rather than only concentrating on the organization’s role in recognizing the responsibility of the employee, a question can and should be raised regarding its responsibility towards employees. The woman rewarded for her commitment was not saving the lives of others nor was the activity so sophisticated that no one in the organization could perform it. Hence, a question can be raised: Why did she still feel responsible for the duty?
The scenario raises the question -- did the organization treat the employee in a way that her subservient approach left her to carry on work during that stage? While an employee was awarded for this activity, it can be inferred that the organization stimulated an unsupportive environment to work under stressful conditions for its own benefit.
The questions can also be posed from the family perspective. Whereas some family members of the employee might not consider the issue a normal one during the instance, some others might feel proud of her sense of organizational commitment. Later on, the award might give them a chance to boost their pride. Thus, the award helped to gain societal acceptance to work for the profit-making of the organization in the name of professional commitment, while humanitarian issues were overlooked.
The example demonstrates that organizations expect employees to perform work without considering their personal or familial crisis. While the issue might be questioned on the grounds of ethical concern, organizations rather legitimize their positions by heroically portraying self-sacrificing employees.
The issue gets such social acceptance that, sometimes, even the close family members of the employees feel proud of the negligence of familial responsibilities. People are familiar with many other instances that clearly prioritize professional issues before personal or family crises for the sake of professional commitment.
In general, it is taboo to bring personal and family problems to the workplace. There is a clear division of work and private life. It is expected that personal or family issues should not be placed as an excuse to reorganize, if not avoid, professional duties. The reason is that it sounds non-professional.
Consequently, some employees struggle to continue their professional responsibilities during private crises. If we consider the daily routine, many people have normalized their activities by prioritizing their professional lives. They even feel proud that they are too busy or dedicated to their professional activities that they cannot pay attention to many personal or family issues.
It cannot be denied that some employees place lame excuses about their personal issues every now and then to seek sympathy from colleagues so that they can lessen their workload. Nevertheless, the concern is regarding those who are sincere and genuinely have problems in managing their personal issues to comply with the standard of professionalism.
While the concept of professional commitment has already been established in society, researchers, working on organization studies, have attempted to dig into it. Research unveils that this notion of professionalism is the product of a capitalist society. The term - professional commitment - is promoted to gain work from employees while neglecting their other important duties.
Researchers contend that, practically, the primary reason people work is not for the organization; they work for themselves or their families. Therefore, there is no point in placing professional commitment over personal or family obligations.
People need to rethink professional commitment. While organizations are not ready to redefine the term, at least people need to have a clear understanding of it. Employees need to realize that the fundamental issue of prioritizing work over anything does not mean professional commitment. This understanding can help them get rid of the dilemma they go through during their crisis period, beyond the professional issues.
Once employees know the illusion of professional and non-professional concepts, they can raise their voices about their rights. They can place arguments regarding work in relation to humanitarian aspects. While overnight changes cannot be expected, employees in organizations can try to develop a comparatively better working environment.
Let organizations not make fools of their employees in the name of professional commitment. When employees are free from the illusion of professional commitment, they can try to figure out a balance between their work and personal or family life and prioritize the latter. They can further foster a healthy working environment which is moral and ethical in nature.
Dr Jasmine Jaim is a Professor at Institute of Business Administration, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh. Email: [email protected]
