The Deal with Corporate Hymns

Corporate hymns can help reduce absences and motivate employees; many corporations use them to reinforce loyalty with the employer. Grand gestures go along with pathetic pop melodies and more or less appropriate lyrics, and they are belted out, always carrying the same message: “We love our work.” Thomas Ebermann uses this bizarre modern phenomenon of cultivating a corporate image as the source for a comedy about excesses in the contemporary workplace. The customary office jargon, influenced by self-help books and self-realization seminars to improve performance, quality management, and creative efficiency, clearly raises the suspicion that something is definitely wrong here.