“Workers, take a deep breath.” in.gr

“Wage increases? Fewer hours? Really meaningful jobs for employees? Who needs these?”, the report clearly asks Gazeta Wyborcza.

“Instead, sessions with relaxation breathing exercises and effective psychological stress management will be offered,” the Polish newspaper reported.

“Corporate wellness culture has entered, but as a caricature.”

He points out that although productivity remains a key issue in workplaces, a lot has changed with the Covid-19 pandemic.

More and more companies are showing interest in the mental health, well-being and stress levels of their employees.

The question is not just for whose benefit they are doing it, but whether they are doing it well.

The practices implemented are now the subject of severe criticism.

As the report notes, this aid comes mostly from younger members of the workforce.

At the heart of the debate is whether discussions and seminars on mental health in the workplace are truly aimed at employee well-being, or are merely a “smokescreen” against deeper problems.

Many are even using a new term to describe the condition.

They talk about “psychological washing.”

Something similar to “brainwashing”.

In this case, it’s psychological.

Boundary testing

“I was working in a Western-style company,” Anita says.

A young lawyer, she wanted to make a good impression on her bosses. He took on the cases willingly. He was working overtime.

They soon started giving her more work.

At the company, he recounts, “they talked a lot about employee well-being, the work environment and work-life balance.”

“But I was incredibly stressed and exhausted.”

At the same time, he often became the target of sexist comments.

“When I trusted my manager, she told me I needed to learn how to answer with confidence,” she says.

“I stood my ground and said that maybe it is others who need to change their behavior.”

Discussions with a workplace psychologist have already been organized.

One of the sessions was titled “What to Do When Someone Crosses Your Boundaries.”

Eventually, Anita outgrew her condition, and showed signs of depression, excessive fatigue, and excessive anxiety.

She asked to be assigned tasks appropriate to the position she holds and to reduce working hours. Her request was rejected.

“Empty promises

With 12 years of professional life, in different positions and companies, Malgorzata has had a similar experience.

The pandemic found her working as a paid event organizer.

While he had to pay the loan installments, he suddenly found himself without a job.

“I was afraid that I would be fired from my job,” he admits.

It didn’t happen.

She was transferred to another department, where – she says – she was “tortured at work.”

But he continued to be “detained” despite the company’s assurances that there would be no layoffs.

In fact, it offered webinars to provide psychological support to employees, in the midst of the pandemic.

“When I think about it, I want to laugh,” Malgorzata says bitterly.

“I was worried about my father’s health, whether I would be able to repay the loan, what I would do if I got fired from my job and someone was giving me instructions on how to breathe to be less stressed.”

Despite numerous sighs and assurances from the company, Malgorzata was finally fired.

However, they informed her that she could continue with the online self-improvement courses…

Corporate social responsibility…in the “fog”?

“Psychowashing” is not the first phenomenon to depict the way in which companies “capitalize” on social values ​​and topics popular in public debate.

Many of them are already accused of “greenwashing.” “Greenwashing” their environmental practices.

Others accused of “pinkwashing” support for the LGBTI+ community.

Of course, this does not mean that they do not all have sincere intentions.

But in the labor market in particular, “mental health has now become an institutional issue,” notes Tomasz Ohinowski, a psychology professor at the University of Warsaw.

But he notes that “today’s focus on mental health and mental illness at a narrative level is a way for companies to escape their other problems.”

“It’s easier to talk about mental illness than it is to talk about overwork, layoffs, or the effects of online work,” he comments.

The usual counterargument to this criticism is that corporations are not charities and that their goal is profit.

As the Polish professor admits, “therapeutic culture raises awareness of the existence of mental problems as a major challenge in work and personal life.”

On the other hand, he points out, “it also paves the way for folk psychology, or using very simplified psychological language, to talk about all kinds of problems.”

He describes entrenching “the belief that we can solve existential problems at work” as “not only wrong, but dangerous.”