How Should Employers Handle Activist Staff? (Ft. Jaco van Zyl)

What happens when the workplace becomes a moral battleground, a group therapy session, or a political rally? And how should disruptive employees be dealt with?

In this darkly funny, unsettling, and sharply insightful episode of This Isn’t Working, clinical psychologist and culture critic Jaco van Zyl takes us deep into the psychological underworld of modern workplace activism.

Before empoyers can find solutions to emerging issues with increasingly demanding and unreasonable staff, they must first understand the problem - which Jaco argues has a large psychological component.

From moral grandstanding and identity performance to power, status, and the strange emotional rewards of self-appointed judges of what (and who) is 'good' and 'bad', this is a conversation that goes far beyond people policies, and into the human instincts driving today’s office conflicts.

As co-director of Critical Therapy Antidote, Jaco brings a clinical lens to what happens when ideology, therapy culture, and corporate life collide — and why HR often finds itself stuck playing referee (or 'Mum') in battles it was never trained to fight.

We ask:

- Why has activism become such a powerful source of meaning, belonging, and even excitement at work? Who is drawn to the idea of taking their identity and political views into the professional space, and why?

- Have employers played a part in encouraging bad behaviour - for example, by creating internal staff networks, pandering to demands for speech policing, and embracing flawed ideas like 'bring your whole self to work'?

- What are the psychological payoffs of calling out, cancelling, or 'educating' colleagues — and who really holds the power in these dynamics? What do disruptive colleagues actually want?

- When and how does a drive for 'inclusion' slide into aggression, coercion, and control - and why can't activist employees tell when they've overstepped the line?

- How will problematic employees respond when employers finally push back towards a more grounded, professional working environment? What strategies can they put in place to mitigate explosive reactions from troublemakers who have become accustomed to getting their own way?

By turns disturbing, witty, and uncomfortably familiar, this episode offers a rare psychological look at the hidden motives, emotional currents, and unintended consequences shaping today’s “values-driven” workplace.

Enjoy the episode!

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Critical Therapy Antidote https://criticaltherapyantidote.org/

Freedom in the Arts https://www.freedominthearts.com/