When a person feels isolated from his/her group of acquaintances, family, friends, society the person feels alienated. The experience of being isolated is dreadful. When a person feels ignored, or left out alone, his enthusiasm and spirit of working drops. Employees become emotionally separated from others and their own feelings when they feel alienated. Feelings of alienation can happen without the employees or their manager realizing it.
Parents often alienate one of their children; the consequences of severe parental alienation on children are well-documented. Teachers alienate their students which are also well documented. Alienation creates low self-esteem, self-hatred, depression, anxiety, lack of trust in others which leads to consumption of drugs and alcohol in young age. Studies show that alienated children go on to have conflicted relationships later on in life.
Workplace alienation brings down productivity. Employers must take strong steps in preventing those feelings in employees. Often when employees are transferred to another department or geographically positioned elsewhere. It’s often observed in some organizations a manager plays game of favouritism: he/she behaves partially with an employee, while others feel left out. When managers play different standards of accountability and performance for subordinates their behaviour becomes destructive and pulls down the employee morale. When managers refer to an employee as the star of a group, treating him/her inversely and constantly praising them, others feel left out or alienated and resentful.
Many researches have shown that when employers feel alienated it starts cumulative turnover. Workers feel disengaged when they are treated shabbily. Retention shouldn’t be a company’s only concern; productivity and customer service levels also suffer when employee morale goes down. All humans desire to have an emotional connection and attachment with those around them. And when they lack that emotional support, they feel deserted.
There are many factors that contribute to strong employee engagement. The main among them is the ability of staff to reach professional goals and understand how they contribute to the organization’s objectives.
Work alienation can happen for several reasons. Workers may not feel empowered to speak their minds because their bosses don’t let them know their feedback. Employees might be scared to speak up or think it’s incongruous to volunteer an honest opinion if their boss won’t take it in a good spirit. It’s often seen that unconscious biases impact our ability to be truly inclusive. Unconscious bias, or unspoken bias, refers to a bias that we are unaware of, and which goes beyond our control.
Furthermore, work alienation occurs if bosses are not paying appropriate attention to employees. A performance review once a year is not enough to evaluate and track employee performance properly. If an employee is working remotely while the rest of the team is in the office, they might experience work alienation and feel out of the loop.
Employers should treat employees like human beings, not just workers. People come with feelings. Everyone’s emotions and feelings are powerful. Emotions and feelings bring our needs; they are human requirements for survival. They strongly move us toward meeting our needs and desires. Our feelings advocate for our needs.
When a group of people discard an individual from their group or association, that person starts withdrawing and feels powerless. The person’s productivity reduces. Sometimes such alienated individuals become dangerously rebellious.
Conclusion
Feeling of alienation for a longer time can lead to serious consequences. People fall ill mentally or physically due to being left alone. We spend longer time in our workplace, if left alone employees find it difficult fighting loneliness. The feeling of alienation triggers some of the hormones which body produces when we are under stress. And that can dim the immune system too. Organizations must make sure to treat employees with modesty.
