I came up with the concept of organizational codependence as a way to conceptualize an unhealthy dependency relationship with one company.  If your social, emotional, and identity capital are all stored in the company vault, you are organizationally codependent. Said more simply, if who you are is where you work, there is a lot more at risk than just a paycheck if your job is threatened.  Take the susceptibility to organizational codependency questionnaire to see how you stack up.

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Susceptibility to Organizational Codependence Index

1=Almost all/to a great degree

2=Most/to a large degree

3=Some/to an average degree

4=A few/to a slight degree

5=Very few/to an insignificant degree

1.    How much of my social life revolves around my business and organizational affiliation?

1     2     3     4     5

2.    How many of my friends are part of my organizational affiliation?

1     2     3     4     5

3.    To what degree are my recreational interests (golf, tennis, travel etc.) associated with my business or organizational affiliation?

1     2     3     4     5

4.    To what degree is my sense of purpose, relevance, importance associated with my title, level, and organizational affiliation?

 1     2     3     4     5

5.  How organizationally specific are my skills and how difficult would it be to transfer them to another organization?

  1     2     3     4     5

6.  What would be the impact on my self-esteem if I lost my job tomorrow?

 1     2     3     4     5   

7.  Do what degree are my support systems (people and resources that can help me through difficult times) centered on my organizational affiliation?

1     2     3     4    5

8.  To what degree is my job the center of my life?

1     2     3     4     5

9.  My spouse or significant other thinks I invest too much of my social and emotional life in my job.

1      2     3     4     5 

10. Who and what I am is where I work.

1     2     3     4      5

Total__________

10 – 25 High Risk

25 – 35 Moderate Risk

35 – 50 Low Risk

Pay attention to items evaluated as 1 & 2

If who you are is where you work, there is a lot more at stake than a paycheck when you are threatened by a layoff.  It’s not just your job that’s vulnerable; it’s your self-esteem, identity, sense of relevance, and purpose. The human resource strategies of tying employees in for the long term that evolved during times of stability and predictability have very bad unintended consequences in today’s epidemic of downsizing. We were seduced into a codependent relationship with our employers.  Organizations provided trinkets – key chains, bracelets, watches – to celebrate tenure.  Benefits, services, office size, parking spaces, all rewarded longevity. Recreational activities, group travel discounts, and employee clubs and associations served to channel employees’ social patterns into organizationally sanctioned outlets. The result is that many employees have put all of their social and emotional eggs in the organizational basket, and as the new short-term psychological employment contract between employer and employee unfolds, the basket has been dropped causing the classic survivor symptoms – anger, guilt, fear, anxiety – and triggering codependent behavior – control and manipulation.