Stella's story

The story of Stella. A 24-year old girl, working with children with difficulties in their behaviour, ages varying from 4 till 12 years old. Finished her studies about 1,5 years ago. Loved her job.

Until something happened. One of the boys at work got in a fight with another child. To protect the other child, and because it is her job, she jumped in between and got hit on her shoulder. She needed surgery, but didn’t completely recover. Now she is not able to do her job anymore, since she can’t lift up the kids anymore, which is definitely necessary with her job. Besides, the day this happened, she was not only hit physically, but also emotionally. Sometimes she is scared, afraid a similar thing will happen again.

While she was very good at her job before the accident, she is not anymore, through no fault of her own. What’s changed?

Nowadays managers are always looking for the best. They only want to hire the best employees. Keywords are ‘professionalism’, ‘well-developed’, ‘success’ and ‘responsibility’. They want to reach their goal and expect their employees to give their best. In return they will reward their employees through wages, bonuses and a good working environment. They try to motivate their employees this way.

This all sounds good, but there are other factors influencing performance. Well-being, for example. Nice colleagues and a good working environment might help, but there’s more. Let’s get back to Stella. Nothing’s really changed in her work environment, but her well-being is not even close to what is was before. Shouldn’t managers take this into account as well? Instead of focussing on the performance and well-being of the organization as a whole, shouldn’t they also focus on individual performance and well-being?

This might be complicated. Especially in a large company, it might be difficult to discover personal problems, and ever more difficult to fix them. However, those drastic changes, like the case of Stella, are definitely noticeable. Besides, they definitely influence performance and thus the results of the company. So you’d say that the company should take the individual well-being of its employees into account. Still, you might question if this is taking the company’s tasks one step too far. The interests of the company and its individuals might be conflicting. Maybe, in Stella’s case, she should go looking for another job. It might be better  for both the company and Stella. However, she might never feel as good about her job as she did before the accident again. What do you think? To what extent is Stella’s case the company’s responsibility?