Can you “point” an employee under a no-fault attendance policy for a coronavirus-related absence? For example, an employee sick with COVID-19 or awaiting test results, quarantined because of an exposure, or at home because a child needs care?
For the uninitiated, no-fault attendance policies operate by having workers accumulate “points” for missing work, arriving late or other attendance-related issues; after the accumulation of a pre-determined number of “points,” employees face discipline or even termination.
During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, these policies are not only unnecessarily cruel, but they also might be illegal.
Generally speaking, if a law protects the absence (i.e., the FMLA or the ADA), then it is unlawful under such law to assign a point under an attendance policy for the absence. While there have not been any such cases decided under the FFCRA, one can safely assume the same logic applies. Thus, for employers with less than 500 employees, it would be illegal to assign no-fault points for absences related to:
A federal, state, or local quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19;
Self-quarantine or isolation related to COVID-19 based on the advice of a health care provider;
The seeking a medical diagnosis for COVID-19 after experiencing symptoms;
The caring for an individual subject to an order described in (1) or isolation/quarantine as described in (2); and
The care for one’s child whose school or place of care is closed (or child care provider is unavailable) due to COVID-19.
Even if the FFCRA does not protect an employee’s absence an employer must still consider whether some other law, such as the FMLA, ADA, or GINA, offers similar protection.
In other words, pointing employees for COVID-related absences is fraught with risk. It’s also unnecessarily cruel. We are all trying to do our part to halt the spread of this rapidly accelerating virus. This including isolating, quarantining, and taking care of others who are at risk or unable to care for themselves. This pandemic needs compassion and flexibility, not strict adherence to rigid policies.
As I type at 6:30 a.m. on the morning after, we still don’t know who won the presidency. There are nine states and 87 electoral votes undecided, and few of those states (Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania) will ultimately determine the winner.
Yet, in the wee hours of the morning, Donald Trump took to a White House podium and stated his clear and unambiguous intent to go to the Supreme Court to stop the counting of outstanding votes, which he says is “a fraud on the American public.”
Let me make this as clear as possible. This is not about left/right, blue/ ed, or Biden/Trump. This is about the legitimacy and future of our democracy.
We need to make sure every vote that has been lawfully cast is counted. Otherwise, we will never know who legitimately wins this election. Whether it’s a Biden win or a Trump win, we need to know who actually wins. Otherwise, why have an election at all? If we can’t trust the results of our election as the will of our nation, why bother?
If you care about the future of our democracy and the future of our country, then we must count every single vote. Period. The fraud here isn’t in uncounted votes. The fraud is in not counting them at all and declaring a winner by disenfranchising millions of voters.
There are some functions that are so elementary to an organization that without them, there is no business.
People need to show up for work. From the single-person hair salon to a 10,000-employee utility company, time and attendance is mandatory for a business to function at its most basic level. And those workers must spend a requisite amount of time to get the job done.
Digitally pairing the perfect couple
Like Abbott and Costello, salt and pepper and peas and carrots, some things just belong together. For employers, time and attendance and employee scheduling software are two workplace basics that fit hand in glove to make an organization go.
Like many HR functions, tracking how long employees work each day has evolved from pen and paper to a digital process. Today’s time and attendance solutions reach far beyond a punch clock with employees merely clocking in and out. They typically provide employers with everything needed to track and manage all aspects of their employees’ time.
The value of time and attendance systems
These systems record when employees start and end their day, display their weekly schedules and provide a tool to manage time-off requests.Â
Employees can no longer round up the hours they’ve worked or buddy punch their co-workers in and out. Employees are held accountable for the hours they have worked. Many time and attendance systems will offer other values, including:
Payroll accuracy.
Simplify paid time off management.
Time and attendance mobility features.
Accurate pay
You want to track employee hours and streamline your payroll processes. But youâre stuck in a paper-based payroll system. Save ink and save a tree by taking payroll digital. Organizations typically want to adopt a time and attendance management system that can integrate with payroll systems, and it has never been easier to make sure all employees are paid accurately and on time. Digital time and attendance systems let supervisors expedite timesheet review and approval.
They can also quickly and easily track that the right person clocks in for the right shift through electronic photo verification and unique pass codes. These, along with payroll add-ons, lets employers do away with lengthy steps and potential errors in computing payroll.
Time and attendance software often allows employers to record paid time off â sick time, vacation time and other types of paid time off. In addition, employees can use the software to request time off,and managers can either approve or deny those requests. Workforce.comâs intuitiveleave management system makes it easy to manage time off by automatically applying changes to schedules and timesheets.
Time and attendance mobility features
Perhaps most importantly, employees have the ability to clock in and out from their mobile devices. A mobile time clock app automates how the staff clocks in while improving the accuracy and efficiency for every manager. Every internet-connected device essentially becomes a time clock. No one has to touch a communal device or handle paper time cards. Spreadsheets and calculators are no longer necessary since a mobile solution streamlines cumbersome administrative tasks. More than a time clock in their pocket, the multi-tool mobile app lets employees use their phones to clock in and out and allows managers to monitor in real time where and when the punch in or punch out occurs.
Time and attendance and employee scheduling software systems offer a huge benefit to your employees as well as their managers. They simplify an employeeâs time-keeping responsibilities via clock in using a computer or mobile device.
Investing in digital time and attendance also benefits a business in many ways. Having a system to accurately track an employeeâs time simply saves money. It eliminates manual recordkeeping, which reduces errors and more readily demonstrates compliance with labor laws and other regulations.
Simplicity is a key component to efficiency. Make yourtime and attendance process seamless for employees, and allow your managers to be more effective and focus on the needs of the organization.
Paying people properly is crucial to workforce management. But it goes beyond releasing pay on time. Itâs about compensating workers according to the work they do and adhering to all the wage laws that apply â and there are many that organizations need to navigate.Â
Andrew Stirling, head of product compliance at Workforce.com, sheds light on what companies need to know about complying with wage laws, the real cost of failure to comply and the different ways organizations can meet requirements under varying rules and regulations.Â
Setting a compliance strategy
âTo have a compliance strategy, you need to start by knowing what the rules are. That might sound trite, but you need a system for keeping current as the rules change,â Stirling said.Â
Businesses are generally good at evolving their practices in the face of law and regulation changes. While thereâs a level of adjustment when new laws are implemented, companies tend to adapt efficiently, he explained.
Identifying the type of employment relationship a business has with its workers is crucial to getting the rules right. This has become more important as the types of work relationships have multiplied.
âWith the gig economy growing, more and more workers are being engaged to work in nontraditional ways. Generally, a worker in your business will be either an employee or an independent contractor. Businesses need to be careful to assign workers to the right category, because getting this wrong means that they may not meet all the wage laws that apply,â said Stirling.Â
Once the rules are known, itâs time for the business to assess and implement solutions to comply with those rules. The solutions can be more than just the obvious.
For example, employee scheduling can play a key role in wage compliance. When creating schedules, managers need to be aware of when overtime will apply and how much the business must pay for those hours when it does. This becomes challenging for managers with a group of employees under different working arrangements. Without good solutions, things can fall through the cracks, resulting in underpayment or higher labor costs.
The real cost of noncompliance
Noncompliance can result in crippling financial repercussions, but it also can cause reputational damage.
âThe financial costs of noncompliance are obvious,â Stirling said. âFor example, if employees have been underpaid, the business might have to make large amounts of back payments in one hit. You need to have the cash on hand for that.â There are other financial costs, like penalties and legal costs to contest a court case.
But thereâs also the real potential for reputational damage. Thatâs often a more significant motivation for employers to comply.
âAn underpayment scandal can bring companies to their knees. Customers can decide to take their business elsewhere. People are less likely to visit a restaurant or shop that has been reported for underpaying their people,â he said.Â
Aside from a less favorable customer perspective, companies with underpayment issues can risk losing in the labor market, he said. When looking for a job, people tend to sort out who the good and bad players are, and wage compliance can be a huge factor.
Ensuring compliance at all levels
While wage compliance may mostly be seen as a job for payroll teams, HR and managers also play a crucial role. Payroll teams would primarily be responsible for the final pay outcome.
âFrom a payroll perspective, I would be focused on two things. One is making sure that I understand the complex wage rules that apply. The second thing is making sure that I have the correct data. Am I getting the information that I need to properly calculate pay? Are we capturing time and attendance accurately? Yes, knowing the rules are important, but the inputs need to be correct, too,â Stirling said.
HR has a leading role here. They need to have a good understanding of the business and the particular wage rules that apply. Itâs also their responsibility to ensure that the right systems are in place for wage compliance.Â
âIn my experience, HR will often document the duties of a position and then help to assign those duties to a particular minimum wage,â Stirling explained.
Managers, meanwhile, have a role in ensuring that all inputs are correct. They monitor that employees are recording time correctly and that there are no discrepancies.
âIf rules in a particular jurisdiction require employees to be paid more for doing particular types of work, managers are the ones who will know,â he said. The extra payments might include allowances, commissions, bonuses and tips to the extent that they are relevant in a jurisdiction.
Managers generally play less of a role in ensuring the amount on a paycheck is correct. Still, they follow processes and systems that ensure all the information passed on to payroll is accurate.Â
Compliance challenges per industry
Different industries face varying compliance challenges. A lot of this difference comes from meeting customer demand or expectations.
If customer demand comes in after standard business hours and on weekends, thatâs when employees need to be at work. Working outside standard business hours often will entitle an employee to overtime or other financial obligations.
âIf youâre in retail or hospitality, youâd miss out on opportunities if you just open from 9 to 5. Efficient workforce management can meet these demands with cost-effective shifts without compromising service and wage law compliance,â he said.Â
Similar issues arise in industries that make use of machines and equipment that are most efficiently run 24/7. Mining, oil and gas, and manufacturing companies often run this way. Stirling said that this scenario also puts businesses in a space where they pay different penalties that come with varying shifts and work hours.
On the other hand, there are many industries where working standard office hours is still the norm. âCalculating pay for people who get to work at 9 in the morning and leave at 5 in the afternoon is usually relatively easy,â he said.
Ways to stay at pace with labor law changes
There are many moving parts involved with wage law compliance, and staying on pace is crucial.Â
âGoing to the source is always best. Thatâs a good start,â Stirling said. He advised signing up for government websites that explain what the law is. Businesses can often sign up for alerts to be updated should any of the laws change.
There are also subscription services to stay abreast of the labor law, including publications and journals. Another option is to join employer associations that can help keep track of changes as well.Â
Overcoming wage compliance challengesÂ
Having the right people, implementing the right systems, and investing in the right technology â Stirling believes that these things can help businesses comply with wage laws.Â
Computers are binary and will give an output based on the input. Automated compliance is more efficient and effective than human-driven compliance. Companies must implement the right systems to make sure that both people and technology can function effectively.Â
âIâm a big believer in technology as a solution to a lot of these problems,â he said. âThatâs where the future is. As technology becomes more powerful, the types of work that people are doing will change. Theyâll spend less time crunching numbers, for example, to make sure pays are right and spend more time checking that the inputs into the technology are right.â
The Society for Human Resource Management describes itself as “the foremost expert, convener, and thought leader on issues impacting today’s evolving workplaces.” Physician, heal thyself!
According to a recent lawsuit filed against SHRM (as reported by The New Yorker), SHRM may have a huge whistleblower retaliation problem on its hands.
Here are the key allegations, which SHRM denies:
Bailey Yeager, a former director-level employee with a history of glowing performance reviews and promotions, expressed concern when the organization asked her in May for feedback about its proposal to return employees to the office after two months of working from home.
Expressing concern about potentially infecting her two daughters, she requested that she be allowed to continue working remotely “until returning to work is both more widespread regionally and there is a decline in the metrics regarding cases/hospitalizations.”
She also asked to see SHRM’s plans for reopening safely.
Two weeks later she, along with three other employees who had expressed similar concerns (including two with pre-existing medical conditions), were fired.
According to her OSHA complaint, SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr. held a conference call during which he outlined plans to “outsource” job functions in departments in which employees had expressed resistance to returning to work in person.
Yeager’s complaint also alleges that Taylor bragged that he had spoken to his friend Eugene Scalia, the Secretary of Labor, and that an OSHA representative contacted Yeager to implore her to withdraw her complaint. (To be fair, it unclear if there is any nexus between Taylor’s call to Secretary Scalia and OSHA’s call to Yeager, but it is definitely implied in her complaint).
If you fire employees who reportedly dare ask for the ability to continue working from home, and potentially wield your influence with the federal government in an attempt to leverage the dismissal of the resulting lawsuit, while at the same time holding yourself out as the “foremost expert on issues impacting today’s evolving workplaces,” you might be the worst employer of 2020.
Over the weekend I got into an interesting discussion on Twitter with a couple of my favorite musicians, Brendon Benson and Caitlin Rose. Here’s the question:
I’d like to expand this topic further and ask, Would you boycott a business based on the candidate whom it (or more accurately, its owner) supports for president in this election?
A well-run internship program often enables college students to gain skills they wouldnât otherwise attain in a university classroom.
Typically interns draw a new perspective on work while in a structured corporate environment, learning the processes, strategies and plans that lead to organizational and personal success. If properly executed, an internship can provide experience, inspiration and potentially an entry-level job as they embark on their budding career.
Perhaps the most valuable aspect of an internship is building relationships with mentors and executives while observing an organization first-hand from the inside. But since the pandemic took hold, many internship programs have been suspended or even eliminated.
Rather than abolish its internship program, Progressive Insurance Co. gave its interns a dose of corporate reality in a pandemic-stricken global workplace. Rather than intern inside its corporate offices, the insurance giant quickly created a program of remote out-of-office-terns.
Going to a virtual platform
Mayfield, Ohio-based Progressive employs some 40,000 people and like many organizations immediately pivoted to a largely remote workforce in mid-March. Gabe De Leon, Progressiveâs program manager for collegiate and MBA recruiting, said that their approximately 100 hourly interns were among those suddenly cast into a remote-work environment.
âWe needed to spend extra time ensuring our interns felt like they were a part of the Progressive family given these circumstances,â De Leon said.
Time was actually an advantage since the new round of summer interns hadnât yet come onboard. Executives made the remote work call with interns in mind, De Leon said. âOur interns were thrilled to know that we were going to honor our commitment to their internships,â he said, âalbeit, 100 percent virtual.â
Progressiveâs summer internships run from May through August to mirror university schedules with roles in data and analytics, IT and accounting business groups, De Leon said. Progressive interns are there to do more than just get someoneâs coffee or stuff envelopes, he added.
âOur interns are assigned unique and necessary problem-solving projects that allow them to work closely with company leaders and foster their professional development.â
Learning to use remote technology
Emily Holroyd, who studies actuarial science at Ohio State University, recalled the uncertainty as she transitioned to being a remote student at Ohio State University and simultaneously finding out her summer 2020 internship in Progressiveâs claims department would be fully virtual as well.
âGoing into the summer it was very clear that my internship was going to be virtual, but I do remember being a little nervous about what this was going to look like,â recalled Holroyd, a data analyst intern. âI was hearing stories left and right from my peers about losing their internships or even just having weeklong programs as a substitute. I knew how important to my career this experience was going to be, so I was relieved to hear that Progressive was going to allow us to partake in the full 12-week program virtually.â
De Leon said that interns typically get the opportunity to work alongside industry professionals, receive career advice and mentorship, and attend educational, networking and social events. They also incorporated virtual events including a roundtable with Progressive President and CEO Tricia Griffith.
Interns received a working experience as if they were on site, De Leon said. Besides one-to-one mentorships and networking with peers as if they were in an office, they learned the new realities of working during a pandemic.
âOur interns learned new virtual technology to accomplish their job responsibilities,â he said. âLearning how to navigate a large remote conference call is also a valuable skill.â
Remaining in a remote environment
The vast majority of Progressive employees will remain remote until 2021, De Leon said. Still, the internship programâs future is bright. The fact that they bring in qualified candidates through their recruiting process even in the middle of a pandemic is reassuring, he said, adding that they have made some adjustments and created a robust virtual college strategy for the fall recruiting season.
And some interns, like Holroyd, who never set foot inside Progressiveâs offices, are offered full-time positions as their internship ends. Holroyd is set to begin a full-time position in the analyst development program beginning in June 2021.
âI quickly learned that I was only going to get out as much as I was willing to put in, and this motivated me to try and talk with as many other analysts as possible,â Holroyd said. âI think the fact that I was able to submerge myself into the Progressive culture, even remotely, speaks volumes about the people that work for this company. This year has thrown a lot of curveballs with school and work, but I hope to look back on 2020 warmly as I remember my internship at Progressive.â
What will Holroydâs âI remember when âŠâ recollections be decades from now about her pandemic-influenced internship?
âMy story will definitely be, âI remember when I spent an entire summer working for a Fortune 100 company from the basement of my parentsâ house.â â
Itâs a common headline this time of year: Retailers and distribution centers staff up as holiday shoppers begin their quest for the perfect gift.
While the news is a huge relief, particularly during a time of record unemployment, 2020 brings new challenges for companies that sell and ship sought-after holiday gifts like Fingerlings, ugly sweaters and smart gardens (yes, itâs a thing) across the country. Recruiting and training tens of thousands of new employees is one thing; doing so in the midst of a pandemic is compounded with an extreme new level of health and safety risks.
Radial Inc., which provides multinational e-commerce services to retailers including Dickâs Sporting Goods, Keurig and GameStop, announced in September it is adding 25,000 seasonal employees to its fulfillment and call centers this holiday season. The Pennsylvania-based company emphasized the safety measures it is implementing in its 20 distribution centers and eight call centers, five of which are in North America.
âThe executive team has been proactive about addressing COVID-19 safety concerns since the very beginning of the pandemic,â said Eric Wohl, Radialâs chief human resources officer and senior vice president. âWeâve revamped processes and procedures and researched and tested numerous types of emerging technologies to enforce social distancing and maximize safety.â
Since the annual holiday shopping crush comes as a surprise to exactly no one in the retail industry, Radial is skilled at scaling its workforces four to five times the normal size every peak season to handle the increased demand in e-commerce.
âWe expected that there would be even more e-commerce demand this holiday season as the impact of COVID-19 has made shoppers more comfortable buying online,â Wohl said. âWe developed hiring projections and safety protocols to account for that going back to the second quarter.â
Wohl said that all seasonal employees being hired for the holidays are hourly workers. Of the current Radial employees, the hourly population represents around 75 percent of its workforce. Including the seasonal staff already onboard, hourly workers account for over 85 percent of all workers at Radial. In peak season, that percentage is even higher, he added.
Implementing mobile tech on a large scale
Technology is aiding Radialâs safety measures for current employees and new hires. Radial has thermal temperature devices and Instant-Trace Contact Badges, Wohl said. The badges utilize Ultra-Wideband technology for proximity measurement to help enforce social distancing requirements by alerting the wearer if someone else is within six feet.
âAs we scale for peak season, these technologies are incredibly valuable to ensure safety procedures are carried out in traditionally high-traffic areas, such as training groups,â he said.
Enhanced robotics in distribution centers utilizes autonomous mobile technology to assist employees who are packing and shipping orders as they comply with socially distanced headcount capacities and reduce interaction with one another, Wohl said.
Visual camera projection systems at certain sites are also helping onboard new hires with mobile training stations that optimize training layouts and processes to ensure safety. Wearable microphones and speakers also help workers more easily hear their managers across the warehouse while remaining socially distant, he said.
âRadial is offering more work from home positions than ever before and moved to proactively transition the majority of our team to home in March and April,â he said. âWe are looking to have 50 to 70 percent of our customer care workforce work remotely this holiday season, which is over 2,500 employees nationwide.â
Radial also has implemented changes to the interview and training process for call center employees, including virtual formats to reduce the need and number of seasonal workers in previously onsite-only training classes.
Training for COVID-19 and the holiday rush
Still, training 25,000 new hires not only in how to do their new jobs but also in how to act in a COVID-19 work environment can be a challenge. Wohl said thatstarting with the interview process, they have worked closely with staffing companies to provide low-contact, socially distant interviews at agency offices, drive-through job fairs and other interview formats.
âWe have also invested in socially distant interviews and virtual training so customer care and fulfillment workers are set up for success on the job,â he said. âEach site has the resources to ensure socially distanced training of new-hire groups through several voice and visual training projection solutions for trainers, along with Instant-Trace badges.â
Distribution and call centers have their own dedicated training teams for seasonal and full-time employees, he said, retooling their entire process and technology platforms to manage COVID-19 impacts.
Radialâs human resources department, which consists of 47 employees as well as 13 employees on the HR Partner team, also has played a pivotal support role ensuring that training teams and new hires have what they need to be successful, Wohl said.
âWe conduct regular assessments of training and onboarding effectiveness for continuous improvement and partner with our training teams to share best practices and collaborate on program development,â he said.
Support for all employees
Everyone has a role to play in slowing the spread by following basic precautions and looking out for one another, Wohl said. Radial has assigned a social-distance champion at distribution centers who regularly monitors the facility to help remedy problems through coaching or procedural changes.
âWeâre also continuing to find ways to adapt perks to boost morale and in ways that fit in with todayâs new circumstances including flexible work schedules and enhanced support for employees dealing with the impacts of COVID personally or within their family,â he said. Boosting morale also is important, he said. Trivia contests, raffles, quarterly awards and dress-up days have helped, he said.
âWe try and maintain a family-like environment in all our sites and teams,â he said. âWe listen to our employees. We ask for regular feedback on how we are doing to support their needs during COVID and adjust our plans when we can.â
Retailers still must hire seasonal workers to help ramp up for the holiday season. Data shows that despite the impact of COVID-19, shoppers wonât significantly change their holiday spending compared to 2019. With this high level of activity in mind, employee health and safety must be the top priority for every retailer right now, Wohl said.
âIf they canât keep their employees safe, they canât deliver on their promises to customers,â he said. âFulfillment and customer care centers are where the behind-the-scenes holiday magic happens. Dedicated employees are behind every package, phone call or text.
âFor retailers to meet their holiday goals and make sure packages arrive on time, safety needs to be the mantra at every single store, warehouse, customer care center and delivery center.â
Whether you have 10 or 10,000 employees on staff, make building schedules an easier and faster process withWorkforce.comâs scheduling app. You can optimize staffing levels, forecast wages and manage shifts with ease.
According to Deadspin, NFL players are terrified of COVID but are afraid to speak up for fear of angering the NFL.
“I looked at my son. I looked at my family, and I just didn’t think it was worth it,” Jaguars player Lerentee McCray, a seven-year veteran, told me this summer after opting out. “I could catch it and bring it home to them. Or I can get it and even if it doesn’t kill me, it could destroy my career long-term. I feel really weird not playing football right now, but can’t. I can’t risk doing something so dangerous and maybe hurting the people I love.”
In the end, most players decided the money was worth the risk. So, they play.
Yet there’s been a definite shift in that attitude over the past few months and even weeks, several told me in various interviews, as the virus spreads through locker rooms. Most requested anonymity for fear of angering NFL owners and the league office.
Players add that they feel that the safety measures the league and their union promised pre-season were meaningless.
One of the things players tell me thatâs changed their thinking from the summer is the ballistic pace of the infections. One moment the virus isnât there, the next itâs calling plays in the huddle. As a virus spreads through a locker room thereâs a sense of helplessness. Players now think of football during the pandemic era not as a calculated risk, but Russian roulette.
All of the outbreaks have left a player base more scared than ever before. Thatâs the word Iâm hearing the most: scared.
This is awful. Yes, they make a lot of money to play a game, and yes, they all had the ability to opt out before the season started (as 67 players chose to do). But they also should have an expectation that their employer is doing everything within reason to keep them safe and the ability to air their grievances if they perceive that their employer is failing in that mission. The fact that players believe that the NFL is failing on both counts is galling.
Employers, you have one primary obligation to your employees during this pandemic â keep them safe. If your employees are terrified to come to work, you are failing, period. It’s time to look inward. Are you doing your part?
Are you mandating masks?
Do you require a minimum of six feet of physical distance at all times?
Are you promoting hand washing and other good personal hygiene habits?
Are you regularly cleaning and sanitizing work and common areas?
Have you eliminated gatherings of employees?
Are you mandating self-screening for COVID-19 symptoms and sending home anyone with symptoms until cleared by a doctor?
Do you have an open door through which employees can walk, without retaliation or fear of retaliation, if they feel you are not meeting these obligations or their coworkers aren’t following the rules?
Unless you can answer yes to each of these questions, it’s time to take a long, hard look at your pandemic protocols and decide what you should be doing differently. Your employees, their families and friends, and the general public are counting on you.
If you and I are connected on LinkedIn or Twitter, you may have noticed that my headline describes me as a (the?) “Master of Workplace Schadenfreude.”
I’m often asked, “Jon, what the heck does that mean?” Today, I have the answer.
The episode discusses the moral conundrum some felt with upon learning of President Trump’s recent COVID-19 diagnosis. In doing so, it takes a 2:45 deep-dive into the moral philosophy behind Schadenfreude. Being a college philosophy major who, 26 years ago, dabbled with the idea of continuing those studies in grad school instead of going to law school, the discussion made me giddy.
Vox reporter Sigal Samuel discussed four different possible meanings of Schadenfreude as seen through the eyes of four different philosophersâ
Arthur Schopenhauer, who defined Schadenfreude as a moral failing or diabolical cruelty, calling it “an infallible sign of a thoroughly bad heart and profound moral worthlessness.”
Charles Baudelaire, who thought of Schadenfreude as a sense of superiority, taking delight in the fact that you’re smarter and better than the person whose suffering you’re enjoying. He used the example of watching someone slip on the ice: “I donât fall, I don’t; I walk straight, I do; my footstep is steady and assured, mine is.” It’s not cruelty for the sake of being cruel, but instead, an unconscious boosting of your self-esteem, albeit through the failings of others.
Michel de Montaigne, who likened Schadenfreude to one’s own vulnerability. You’re not celebrating someone else’s calamity, you’re celebrating the fact that by comparison, you’re safe.
If I had to choose where I fall on this moral spectrum, it’s somewhere between numbers 3 and 4. I take joy in seeing someone getting what they deserve because of who they are or what they’ve done, combined with the celebration that I’m not in their shoes. I’m definitely not diabolically rejoicing over someone else’s failings or failures.
There you have it. Wonder no more about why I call myself the Master of Workplace Schadenfreude.
Tomorrow, back to your regularly scheduled COVID-19 workplace updates.
âIn my experience, HR will often document the duties of a position and then help to assign those duties to a particular minimum wage,â Stirling explained.
âOur interns are assigned unique and necessary problem-solving projects that allow them to work closely with company leaders and foster their professional development.â
