By Mark Carey
Employnomics® is a term covering literally every aspect of working and the dysfunctional relationship between corporate management and all employees. The term is synonymous with corporate power and money, to the immediate disadvantage of employees. Employnomics® is the intention and often willful behavioral force, the imbalance of power or leverage, and the dehumanization of employees, all with the singular goal of making money for employers at any cost.
Discrimination pays in the system of Employnomics®. Whether at the individual manager or coworker level, discrimination can be used to increase the economic or political clout of each offender. At the systemic level, the organization benefits financially from discrimination. Our antidiscrimination laws are designed to deter economic gains resulting from overt and subversive discriminatory employment tactics, yet imperfectly.
The term Employnomics® helps explain why employees never get a benefit from entering into a non-competition agreement. Employees never asked for the agreement, and they cannot negotiate the terms of the one side adhesion contract. Employers use noncompete agreements as corporate chess pieces to fend off competition, stifle third party development and ruin careers in the process.
The term Employnomics® explains why employers push employees into forced arbitration agreements to hide their discriminatory and previously distorted sexual harassment cases (now illegal). It is the greatest corporate damage control instrument ever created to benefit employer reputations, especially in the internet age. Arbitration saves money for employers who will have to pay for discrimination and corporate abuse of whistle blowers; arbitrators are known to split the baby regarding judgments- some for employees and some for employers. Employees never agreed to or could negotiate these one-sided agreements. Courts and Congress have all but eternally sanctioned arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act. Arbitration pays and benefits only employers.
The term Employnomics® also explains how employers deliberately engage in wage theft under state and federal law. Billions of dollars are saved each year through the trickery of 1099 employment in full view of regulators with the lack of resources to combat them all.
The term Employnomics® helps explain why Amazon factory workers cannot take a urination break on the floor.
Employnomics® also includes the pervasive performance improvement plans used to build defense cases, not better employee performance.
The term Employnomics® is also synonymous with current management efforts to force productive remote workers back to the office because of the employer’s need to utilize office rents.
The term Employnomics® can also help explain why employers are shifting away from providing performance reviews and feedback to something even more vague and confusing HR language to make employees feel less anxious about getting performance feedback from their managers.
And here is my favorite Employnomics® concept of all time- the at-will rule; a legal term to conceal the vast majority of discriminatory and retaliatory behavior without legal consequence. Billions are saved each year under the guise of the at-will termination, as courts routinely uphold this prerogative. Employees face an enormous financial and emotional burden to demonstrate such terminations were illegal, which is exponentially more complicated when the termination is labeled as a reduction in force, mass layoff, and headcount reduction. Yet, employers still cannot understand why employees just don’t trust their employers and corporate culture is always nonexistent; employee engagement is at an all time low in 2025. Employers would financially benefit from hiring employees with a “for-cause” termination basis, which promotes a foundational trust between employees and the private governments they work for. Montana is the only state in the country that has successfully legalized for cause terminations and done away with the at-will employment rule.
The list of situations covered by the term Employnomics® is endless. Now we have a term or word to describe how employers adversely benefit from the imbalance of power over employees.
All we do is Employment Law and Employnomics® analysis for employees. Find out more by contacting Carey & Associates, P.C. call 203-255-4150.
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