Suffering in the Workplace from a Philosophical View.

Individual, family, economic, and other forms of people suffering impact organizations. Suffering in the workplace is probably a more common occurrence than expected in everyday life, and opposite to health and employee wellbeing. According to the World Health Organization, 300 million people worldwide struggle with depression and close to 800.000 people die due to suicide every year. The European Survey on Working Conditions in the European Union gathers the most varied aspects of working conditions, such as the duration of the working day, relationships between collaborators in organizations, or healthy work habits. Among the results of that survey it is noteworthy that almost half of the close to twenty-two thousand workers surveyed in the 27 member countries stated that they felt uneasiness due to the conditions of their work.post-print2190 K

Suffering at Work: A Challenge for Corporate Sustainability in the Spanish Context

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that world leaders committed to fulfilling by the year 2030 include the protection of labor rights and the promotion of a safe and decent workplace under acceptable health and well-being conditions. The private sector has a critical role in achieving these goals. There are many very good practices in modern organizations to prevent and avoid pain and suffering among workers, but there is another challenge that has guided this research: What happens when the suffering has already occurred? The objective of this research is to explore how the private sector organizations in Spain deal with their workers’ suffering. This study used discourse analysis, extracted from eight in-depth interviews with human resources managers, as well as a discussion group of twelve leaders from various national and multinational companies. It has been found that there is a clear awareness of the existence of suffering in their organizations, but there is also a general reluctance to confront it and address it