Quota's, stress and employee suicide

["George Cloughley" <cloughley@telegnosis.com.au>]

There is an article in an Australian newspaper today (unfortunately not
online) about a New Zealand coroner who has recommended that a bank
reconsider the practice of publishing the performance of individual
employees after the suicide of a bank officer two years ago. The coroner
also recommended that the bank explore ``in-house" how it might handle such
a case differently in the future. The coroner said the employee had been put
into an ``informal performance management" process in early 2000 but was
warned that failure to reach sales targets could lead to a more formal
process that could eventually lead to dismissal. The coroner said it was
surprising that his targets remained the same without adjustment for sick
leave and there was ``some justification" to his complaint of not receiving
a full set of customers. ``The case illustrates that for this particular
employee, stress at work was the principal precipitator of an on-going
recurrent depressive illness of some two years standing, that remained
unresolved at his death and resulted in his death,"  But he said: ``It does
not follow the death is the responsibility of the employer."

I wonder how long it will take for some of these toxic work practices to be
treated as just as dangerous as for instance, smoking in the workplace
nowadays?

Regards,

George Cloughley