For today’s post, I decided to
use a text from a famous author in 20th-century post-structuralist philosophy to critique
a flaw in the thinking behind perceptions of corporate wellbeing. As HRM students,
we already know that uptake into wellness programs, which are typically designed
to coerce seemingly unproductive employees into adopting “healthy habits”, is not
always 100% across the board – but also, we know that there are different ways
of measuring the power dynamics (referred to as “health nannyism” by one author)
and the ultimate success of such programs.
These two points are arguably dependent on a number of broader factors one of which is the conceptualisation of absenteeism. In Ronald J. Ozminkowski’s analysis, the view of absenteeism (a subject that I touched upon in a previous post) serves a particular purpose. What is the intended outcome? Well, because absenteeism is not defined holistically by Ozminkowski, absenteeism could feasibly be due to a very wide selection of causes - little attempt is made to distinguish differences between reasons for employee absence and indeed absence is taken as a given. A troubling view.
Another view here is found in the work of Hull and Pasquale (2017:207) in their article, “Towards a Critical Theory of Corporate Wellness”, which is worthy of discussion. Very rarely do I see the work of French poststructuralist philosopher Michael Foucault cited in conjunction with concepts found in dense non-epistemological topics, but Hull and Pasquale have attempted this. In The Truth of Wellness, Hull, and Pasquale promote the idea that there is a predominant, complete, and resonating “truth”, one which explains the how and why behind corporate wellness programs (and by extension, its causes) to the practice of delivering on corporate wellbeing. This is one that I find to be somewhat denigrating to the idea and definition of universal truth, in and of itself.
Having first been introduced to Michel Foucault by Dr. Sam Mansell (now of the University of St. Andrews) in a presentation Dr. Mansell gave during his time as a Lecturer at the University of Essex, I recalled a paper ResearchGate once suggested, authored by Lemke entitled: “Critique and Experience in Foucault” as being one of the first real excursions into pure philosophy that I was blessed enough to have read as a student.
Lemke (2011) famously translates the work of Foucault in Rarity: Problemization as a History of Truth where he supposes the question: “How do I have to be, in order to be"? Now, if we consider the nature of the question, there are any number of suppositions that could make the above argument concerning the truth of wellness programs by Hull and Pasquale (2017) seem contestable. Truth is something that resonates with us all and is something that we all identify with. So, it is not just a feat of epistemologically unquantifiable proportions to suggest that corporate wellness exists in isolation as a complete perception, but also it is very troubling that a human perception of this should be rendered as evidentially complete.
Just thought I would land that point.
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This post was written by Alfred Anate Mayaki, a student on the MSc in HRM, and was inspired by the work of Gordon Hull and Frank Pasquale (2017) in an article entitled “Towards A Critical Theory of Corporate Wellness” and the work of Ronald J. Ozminkowski as found in an e-book edited by Ronald J. Burke and Astrid M. Richardsen (2014) entitled "Corporate Wellness Programs"