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Half of All Tech Workers Surveyed Think Their Workplace Is 'Unhealthy' (wfaa.com) 117

Posted by EditorDavid from the TGIF dept.
"Half of tech employees think their work culture is toxic," reports one Texas news site, citing a new survey by Blind: Blind, an anonymous work talk app, asked more than 12,000 tech staffers to respond to the statement: "I consider my current workplace a healthy working environment." Slightly more than half, 52 percent, said the survey statement was "false," versus nearly 48 percent who responded with "true."

Intel was named the tech company with the least healthy work environment, by 48.5 percent of its employees, followed by Amazon at 46.5 percent, and eBay at 44.5 percent. Employees who consider their workplaces healthier work at LinkedIn, where 17.3 percent responded true, followed by Google, at 23.7 percent, and Uber, at 29.7 percent.
It depends on how you define "unhealthy," of course -- but it'd be interesting to hear how Slashdot's readers respond to the same question. So leave your own thoughts and reactions in the comments.

Is your work environment unhealthy?
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Half of All Tech Workers Surveyed Think Their Workplace Is 'Unhealthy' More

Half of All Tech Workers Surveyed Think Their Workplace Is 'Unhealthy'

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  • The question is, "I consider my current workplace a healthy working environment," so a high percentage of true responses means the workplace is healthy. Yet the summary says:

    Employees who consider their workplaces healthier work at LinkedIn, where 17.3 percent responded true, followed by Google, at 23.7 percent, and Uber, at 29.7 percent

    If a low percentage of people are responding true, then, contrary to what the summary says, that means they find their workplace unhealthy.

    I get "Access Denied" when I try to look at the article so it's not clear if the summary has simply been worded wrongly or if Google is the toxic shithole we all thought it was.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's not just the summary. The article is equally confused. What's more, even if one flips a few signs, the maths doesn't look right: the average of a distribution that ranges from 17.3% to 48.5% is not going to come out as 48% OR 52%.

    • It is directly copied from the article, so not an error in the summary.

  • Unless they are working on a clearly ill-suited environments or they are experts, how can they know?

  • Define "unhealthy" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Sunday December 09, 2018 @05:28AM (#57774228)

    If by unhealthy, you mean:

    "Our bosses are insane, and keep mandating inhuman and inhumane hours, while simultaneously cutting pay and benefits. They tell us that this is just the market responding to industry pressures, but somehow our quarterly reports remain stellar, and our bosses bring home multi-million dollar bonuses every year."

    then yes. That is epidemic. The only real solution is the Pyrrhic option of unionization. (Yes. I know it has real bad sides. There really isn't a valid alternative without legal enforcement from the feds, and face it-- the suits have more money than you do, and will never support such an initiative without a shotgun pointed at them.)

    If you mean "There is an unhealthy sexist culture that makes me feel uneasy or victimized."

    That is somewhat supported, but it also goes the other way-- "I am afraid to even so much as mention the word "sausage" at the office, lest I be fired for being gender insensitive." This is a situation where a carefully balanced degree of enforcement is the ideal, and management needs to resist the urge to over-enforce to placate vocal minorities at the expense of silent majorities.

    If you mean "The building is literally toxic. There is fucking asbestos hanging out between the ceiling tiles, falling on us every day."

    that too has a surprising incidence rate. (It combines with the first interpretation, where "employees and their welfare are not worth spending investor money on!" is the pathology.) However, it is ALREADY illegal to provide such a work environment... which brings us to--

    If you mean "My employer is abusive, and threatens extraordinary consequences for addressing grievances of any kind. Shit is real here, but if I speak up, I will not only be sacked, but never work in this industry ever again."

    That too is a thing, especially in the hyper-connected world we live in today. Sadly, this would require sweeping changes in how HR approaches social media and how it automates its hiring practices in order to prevent abuses in the employer/employee relationship of this kind, as well as stronger penalties for industries that defacto engage in it. This suffers the same problem as the first interpretation; the solution requires the individuals with all the political momentum to work against their own interests, in favor of those with little to no political or financial power.

    This is still a useful question to ask, but it needs the followup to clarify. Of course, I dont think industry or government really want to know.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 )

      And don't forget that today's various deplorables may define "unhealthy" as "This company is taking claims of sexual harassment seriously, promoting women, Jews, and brown people, is allowing itself to be infested with 'SJWs' while doing nothing to promote 'diversity of thought,' is supporting a culture which makes me feel uneasy about releasing the numerous and lengthy 'scientific' screeds I have prepared which address these issues, and is otherwise making its workplace hostile to toxic shitgoblins like my

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        Note that there are indeed 'shitgoblins', there is plenty wrong in professional cultures both ways.

        People are absolutely discriminated against. I'll always remember one time faced with a few candidates the obviously best candidate happened to be a woman. She didn't get the job, because everyone else was so skeptical as to not recognize that fact that she was the best.

        On the other hand, I can also recall being in another company and generally we'd go through many rounds of candidates before we found a fit.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shess ( 31691 )

          In both the first example and the second example are prejudiced against certain groups, the first by not letting them work and the second for not believing any could qualify fairly. Part of the problem is that circumstances leading up to the professional world are imbalanced (our culture, our educational system) and particularly culture is hard to fix balance. Many diversification initiatives at professional levels are forced to ignore the other problems not getting fixed and pretend they are and target balances of the general population when a given niche has the deck stacked a certain way.

          The problem is that people are biased jerks. In one circumstance, they are biased against minorities and unwilling to inspect that bias. So you show stats and everything, prove there's an issue, and the command comes down from on high "We need to do better". So now people decide "More minorities is the goal" and become biased in the opposite way and are again unwilling to inspect that bias. In neither case do the majority of people do what you _really_ want them to do, which is to look past the most obv

      • And don't forget that today's various deplorables may define "unhealthy"

        Did someone sneak some acid in your Redbull this morning?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        The reason tech places of employment tend to be unhealthy, the lack of older employees who would stabilise those environments and teach younger employees how to socially interact by older, I do mean much older, so plus 50. Without that older demographic the younger staff have been winging it without much success, depending upon the age and experience of management, which can somewhat balance it.

        Want better tech work environments, figure out a way to squeeze in plus fifty employees who are not burnt out hac

      • Found the anti-working-class racist sexist nazi asshole! Punch a nazi!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by markdavis ( 642305 )

      +1 exactly. They need to define "toxic" too. Typical nonsense "reporting" by the "mainstream media":

      >"Half of tech employees think their work culture is toxic," reports one Texas news site"

      So not agreeing with a statement that the workplace is "healthy" means it is "toxic"?? I might not agree that chocolate cake is "healthy" but that doesn't make it "toxic." I fact, in moderation, as part of a balanced diet, it isn't "unhealthy" either.

      This is meaningless junk news. As for why someone might not agre

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Reading the article, if Blink had any context in the survey, then they clearly intended the 'unhealthy sexist culture' as well as discrimination and micromanagement. I would wager that the respondents in that case would have also considered 'too much inclusion' dysfunctional, so the only way for a workplace to get a good score is for everyone to be like-minded, otherwise the workplace is damned if they do, damned if they don't.

      If they didn't provide the respondents context, then it's useless and needs to b

      • If they didn't provide the respondents context, then it's useless and needs to be ignored

        It's junk no matter what as you can't rationally generalize all tech workers by the opt-in responses by people subscribed to this Blind app. It would be like generalizing to the general population the results of a survey by the Ann Landers column. Legitimate statistics doesn't work that way.

    • Or, "I sit in a chair 8 hours a day staring at a screen & typing". My cushy tech job may beat digging ditches or working in a coal mine, but it has its own set of health hazards.

    • The only real solution is the Pyrrhic option of unionization.

      That is not the only option. Here are some others:

      1. Go work somewhere else. If no one else is willing to pay you more, then maybe you aren't worth as much as you think you are.

      2. Work for yourself.

      3. Buy company stock. Then you can directly benefit from all those profits and stellar quarterly reports.

    • I'd guess not a few of them mean "This workplace doesn't live up to the utopian idyll that I came to believe I am entitled to by my puerile 'advanced education' - I mean, for god's sake they DIDN'T hire me for a 6 figure sum out of school, they expect me to show up on time, and (ha!) complain that I spend half my day texting my friends instead of working. It is LITERALLY like a fucking slave galley. They might as well chain me to my desk."

      I don't think the ardent professional whinging-class online really

    • They really mean none of the things you mention.

      What they mean by "toxic workplace", is people are are too negative. It only takes a handful, and about 30 days they can turn everyone there negative - like a really slow acting zombie plague.

      The reason why workplaces have gotten somewhat more negative over the years is that managers have gone a bit soft overall and are not willing to fire people everyone that works there wish would be fired.

      It's one of the things that moved me into consulting, after many yea

  • The survey asks for a healthy environment. If the answer is negative, is it necessarily 'unhealthy'? Or could it be 'not healthy', i.e. neutral?

    • No. If your workplace is "not healthy", that means something is wrong.

      • Do you agree that there are different degrees of unhealthy? Common sense suggests that there are.

        Then it's not a boolean choice, is it?

  • Surveys are very often phrased so vaguely and inaccurately that it's virtually impossible to answer them in a meaningful way. Which is a real problem when trying to interpret the results. At other times surveys have leading questions.

    • Which is a real problem when trying to interpret the results.

      It's no problem at all when all you're trying to do is generate page hits.

  • Worthless random answers (Score:3)

    by petes_PoV ( 912422 ) on Sunday December 09, 2018 @07:20AM (#57774352)

    It depends on how you define "unhealthy," of course

    It sounds to me like a more generalised level of dissatisfacton. Whether specifically with the work environment or the company, or the boss, or the pay rates or the amount of holiday.

    Or even the weather on the day the question was asked, indigestion, the quality of the coffee, the distance to the car park or any of a multitude of other potential issues.

    In short, asking people how they feel about anything is neither a reliable basis for a professional study, nor a robust measure of the actual question asked.

  • Find a normal job and then reevaluate (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I work with criminals and lawyers in the judiciary. It's rape, murder, drug dealing and bad parenting everyday. People in the tech industry are too affected.

  • What is meant by "unhealthy?" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Sunday December 09, 2018 @09:10AM (#57774546)
    I mean really. The question itself is designed to give non-meaningful results. Why waste the time of /. readers with something so flawed?
  • ... is probably to get more people to download their app.

  • is someone who assembles smartphones in a sweatshop a tech worker? How about someone who works in a cobalt mine?

  • Especially if you combine it with eating while working with computers all day

    Like "King Size Homer" https://youtu.be/-VHlwcxUUnE [youtu.be]

  • Many of the buildings I've worked in with my company over the past couple of decades have had levels of mold, damage and inadequate upkeep
    that ranged from elevated to downright ludicrous.

    Like many large companies, they have their own Health / Hazard / Safety teams that we are supposed to contact about any concerns.
    When we did complain ( many times ) about the mold growing on everything ( walls, floor, desks, chairs, etc ) in the locked room next door to us,
    they would simply send out a cleaning crew to vacuu

  • ... and the answer is, "yes" and "no."

    "I consider my current workplace a healthy working environment."

    Yes:

    I worked 18 years at a law firm and my coworkers and I had a good time, laughing and protecting each other from management. When the network fell down, they expressed sympathy instead of bitching and I worked hard and fast to get them back up. We respected each other and the socialization was healthy.

    No:

    Management was fraught with pure assholes of the idiot kind. Those dumb goddam son of a bitches thought they were being treated with respect when it was actually fe

  • It is stressful and something you do not do of your own free will. No surprise it is generally not healthy.

  • I've loved the internet for a while, but am frustrated by the current limits of many major text based services...including slashdot.

    Why can't we focus our comments on a word, or section of words, to clarify where our comment is directed? Then people could say what their unhealthy comment s directed at.

    Or link our comments to a direction of replies that seem similar? Instead of just "all replies"? Down is only one direction!

    OK, another "million dollar idea" gone to waste as not implemented, but this seems

  • According to WaPo Amazon is much better with employees who just cry at their desks instead of dying.

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