Gaslighting in Employee Remuneration As an Element of Management Culture in Modern Russia

Abstract

This article analyzes the management culture of Russian companies, especially one of the methods of managing employees’ labor behavior — gaslighting. Gaslighting is a manipulation of human behavior based on psychological violence. To get the conclusion that gaslighting has become the norm in the management culture of Russian companies, the author analyzed the term “gaslighting” and compared this phenomenon with the situations in the corporate management strategies of various company managers. The purpose of the article is to analyze elements of the management culture of Russian companies, identify destructive manipulations of labor behavior, their impact on the level of staff remuneration, and assess the consequences of gaslighting in staff remuneration on the company’s viability and stability of its management system. Based on the generalization results, the author concludes that the use of specific techniques in company management causes significant harm, although, at first glance, one can talk about a positive effect, especially about saving financial resources. The regular creation of failures in the form of setting tasks that cannot be completed, due to the lack of real and objective opportunities, forms employees’ “learned helplessness syndrome”. Often, gaslighting is used when calculating employees’ salaries and is integrated into the payment system. The inability to get the desired remuneration reduces employees’ self-esteem, resulting in a loss of interest in the work. In this case, the situation when the employee is informed that the reason for his or her failures lies in himself/herself is especially harmful and dangerous (he or she did not try hard enough, did not make enough effort, and did not have the right qualifications or experience). The employee is convinced that something is wrong with him or her, comparing themselves with others who achieve and earn. In this case, the manager loses control over the situation with such a team member. When such employees become critically numerous in the company, one can talk about the loss of control over the company, which can lead to its degradation and decline.