There’s a situation happening right now that could have a long-term effect on the human psyche, and it doesn’t appear that too many people are concerned about it, at least not publicly.
If you’ve gone to a fast-food establishment lately, you may have noticed that some have completely replaced actual employees with kiosks where you order your food. Some of them have gone so far as to make you start an email account or you can’t order.
Supermarkets have gone to self checkout some time ago, but it appears that some of them are considering taking out the self checkout.
That would be a p
ositive step because if you talk to any psychologist, they will tell you that when the human element is taken out of an equation, it creates a skepticism of others.
I’m not going to blame COVID for this, but three years ago when it was pandemic, a lot of people were thankful that self help kiosks and self checkouts popped up as a way to continue to function.
In addition, Zoom and Facetime became household words in the business world as either of those allowed us to carry out our daily business routines without fear of getting sick, not to mention Zoom school sessions.
The disease is in the rearview mirror now but the Zoom and Facetime calls continue. It’s systematically removing human interaction outside the office and that could be where it’s most important.
No more jokes around the water cooler, no more advice at the copier, no more calls for assistance to get an old car up and running.
Instead, there are hundreds and thousands of people in office buildings all over that no longer communicate outside work and work-related issues.
Think about this! When you look at people who occupy office space in some of the nation’s largest buildings, how many do you think actually communicate or have relationships outside that setting?
The Sears Tower in Chicago, the Trans America Building in San Francisco, the Wells Fargo Center in Minneapolis, Republic Plaza in Denver and the AT&T Center in St. Louis all have the same thing in common.
According to Brita, yes the water cooler people, only 20 percent of office employees are currently engaged in the workplace. And management reports that because of that, it’s often harder to retain employees than it is to hire them in the first place.
If people have friends in the immediate work environment, they become more engaged in their work and there’s a heightened factor of satisfaction and production.
According to Gallup, engaged employees are “those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and their workplace.”
And better productivity means more to the bottom line and more to the workers’ mental state.
So let’s face it. We need that human element because without it, we often become less trustworthy, agitated and even angry at things we perceive rather than actual events that occur.
Five years ago, a young woman came here from New York City to work for us. She loved being out in nature every day and told us that she absolutely hated the New York business world because nobody talked to each other and it was as if hundreds of zombies were walking around the office building.
We only see the tip of the iceberg here in North Dakota, but imagine elsewhere, in any big city. Perhaps the most stressful part of the job is not having friends, or very few in the workplace.
