Toxic City Culture is Killing Men

* An edited version of this posting (Yes, I've blogged about it before &; I'll continue to do so) was published in today's Independent.

Yesterday, a JP Morgan employee died after falling from the roof of the European headquarters in Canary Wharf. On Sunday, a former senior executive at Deutsche Bank was found dead in his home after an apparent suicide.

Last week, a communications director at Swiss Re died. The cause of death has not been made public. In August, a 21-year-old Bank of America intern died after reportedly working consecutive all-nighters at the bank's London office.

In the same month, the finance chief at Zurich Insurance Group committed suicide and it was reported that he left a note blaming the company's chairman for creating an unbearable work environment. It’s time we started joining up the dots. The City’s culture is killing people.

On a couple of occasions, whilst advising some of the UK’s largest organisations on ethics, I came across coded data I wasn’t supposed to see. There were secret budgets ring fenced for law suits in relation to discrimination (mostly sex and race). In amongst stats breaking down staff attrition along gender lines, I once came across a column marked “deaths”. In one of the organisations there were 6 in the past 12 months (globally). All of whom were men.

I was told the information was “classified” but gleaned that it related to deaths suspected to be work related. In one global behemoth I was told that an executive had committed suicide while on assignment overseas. Apparently he got extremely stressed before making presentations. Rather than ease up, his manager forced him to “man up”. Unable to cope with the stress, away from his family, the night before a presentation he threw himself off the balcony of his hotel room.

Elsewhere, I was told that an executive who worked notoriously long hours dropped dead of a heart attack. He was in his 30’s. The corporation’s response? Invest in a gym for employees to “de-stress in”. It was spun, by HR mind, as a fitness issue, completely unrelated to his being pushed by his employer to breaking point. It’s not HRs’ job to look after people, it’s their job to optimise their productivity. In my experience though, people are far more productive when they’re alive.

It was bonus week at JP Morgan last week. Men earn approximately £150,000 more than women on bonuses alone. Given most decisions about who should stay at home to take care of the kids, is finance driven, it’s hardly surprising it ends up being predominately women.

The career penalties for women relating to the gender pay gap are well documented, though little is spoken about the burden this puts on men. As primary bread winner, there is increasing pressure to work ever longer hours in order to garner favour with the boss. HR departments like to hold up stats to show it’s only women who avail of flexible working polices. Men, they say, love the cut and thrust of long hours. Really?

When I carried out research on the long hours culture, I asked men with small children (mostly in their 30’s) why they didn’t request flexible working arrangements to spend more time with their children. They all concurred that it would be career limiting. One said he took a promotion to compensate for the loss of his [more qualified yet less paid] wife’s income. He was promised his travel would only increase by 10%. It increased by 70%. He was struggling to cope with the stress and actively looking for a job elsewhere.

It’s detrimental to society and the economy to reduce fatherhood to a walk on part, whilst at the same time driving women out of the workforce when they become mothers. Families need fathers as well as mothers and UK plc needs women as well as men at the helm. After all, they’ve got plenty of practice cleaning up after other peoples’ mess.

Organisations are structured around the indoctrination of its workforce. The more malleable the better. Conscience and values to be left at the door. The Milgram (electric shock) experiment highlighted the power of blind obedience, which saw 80% of participants continue to administer the maximum shocks despite the screams of pain from those they believed to be genuine recipients. It’s in this context that decent people can be persuaded to make unethical decisions. Like sanctioning polices that discriminate against some employees, whilst working those who aren’t driven elsewhere, or off sick, to despair and sometimes death.

Despite working the longest hours in Europe, the UK has the lowest productivity rate. Not surprising, as all the studies show that, most people are not motivated by greed but by quality of life. Most people would rather sacrifice some pay than time with their family and friends. Most people think their wellbeing is too high a price for work. Most people, that is, except the testosterone charged dinosaurs that dominate the City and whose recklessness and depravity is unravelling the fabric of our society.