The People

Integrated Dynamics is the talent of its people. What makes Strategic Integrations special? The people. Sound familiar?

“The people” refers to the collective labor identity a company promotes to distract its employees from the simple fact that any profit maximizing business seeks to hire the least “people” necessary at the lowest possible cost. However, most managers with a functional sense of self-preservation realize that highlighting this information would be disastrous for motivation, and even worse, might affect turnover rates. Hence “the people” were born.

From an internal marketing perspective, creating “the people” allows a company to advertise some of the personality traits it wants to encourage. Most companies accomplish this through posters and brochures touting the company’s “people” as hard workers, team players, or detail oriented. The underlying assumption is that your instinctual desire to “fit in” will spur you to hard work, thus negating the need for more legitimate incentives like a decent salary, stock options, challenging projects, bonuses, or overtime. However, the unintended consequence of fabricating a culture of false motivation was the creation of an environment that rewards it. Therefore, you can use this to your advantage by having loud, public conversations detailing your lack of free time.

From the perspective of morale, a fictionalized “people” helps prompt delusions that your company’s unwieldy corporate bureaucracy provides an intangible benefit that other companies can’t. Accordingly, you’ll discover that “your people” are creative, independent, and above all, smiling or laughing. After all, would you want to leave an ethical environment that thrives on creativity, independence, and smiling/sense of humor? If any of this sounds vaguely familiar, you’re right. In the outside world, this is termed propaganda.

(CAUTION: It is worth noting that these personality traits—creativity, independence, etc.—typically reflect the exact opposites of those expediting corporate advancement. As such, it is recommended that despite the photos of creative people adorning your office, you shun these virtues in favor of obedience. Be careful not to be too overt in your rejection; most of your coworkers have worked hard deluding themselves and will find your attitude disturbing even if they “can’t put a finger on why”. Doing so will result in fewer invitations to happy hours and less opportunity to hold loud, public conversations detailing your lack of free time.)

However, the silver lining in these effronteries to your intelligence is that their very existence proves your company values employee retention so long as it is less expensive than costs associated with turnover. It follows then that until robots render you obsolete (or conversely, ape labor becomes viable), you’re pretty safe as long as you keep producing average work and don’t rock the boat.