After reading my fellow classmate, Aman Chhetija’s blog post[i] on how a co-founder of a company namely, Boston Beer Company, has implemented a strategy of conflict resolution in an attempt on improving his company’s organizational culture which enables his employees to use the phrase “f**k y**” while at work. The phrase can be used on anyone in the hierarchy as well.
I believe it is a bold move, but Aman gave points on how it can actually boost the morale of employees and make the workspace more open. Also, it enables employees to speak out and point out where their colleagues are going wrong.
But, the title of the blog, “Would saying ‘f*** you’ to your boss land you in trouble?” asks a very controversial question to every professional in the corporate world. I think the answer to which lies in every firm’s organizational culture. Most firms want their employees to be extremely professional and disciplined as the environment is such that allows professionalism to thrive. Whereas, new age firms nowadays hiring millennials in order to keep up with the changes in societal likes and dislikes adopt somewhat casual organizational culture practices such as video games at work, and no formal dress code.
This brings me to a conclusion that allowing that phrase to be used would probably land a professional in trouble at MOST firms across the world as professionalism is chosen over casualness by most firms as it retains the same business ethics that have existed since the beginning of the 20th century. Although, there is still a trade-off seen over the selection of the two; professionalism or casualness at the workplace. Too much of casualness may lead to callousness and carelessness from employees and too much of professionalism may lead to employees getting bored of their jobs and a fall in morale and increase in labour turnover.
Major companies lately have started following a more casual approach towards it employees as they have started believing the in “happy employees lead to happy customers” philosophy and it has enabled them to keep their employees content with minimal effort by just catering very little of their resources towards their employees, which leads to my final question. Is it worth it at the end of the day for the firm? This question is still widely debated and will be for years to come until one of the types of organisational cultures collapses.
[i] https://blogs.ubc.ca/amanchhetija