ComPsych Corp., a Chicago-based employee assistance consulting company, recently release some startling information based on a survey of nearly 2,000 workers. Since ComPsych provides programs for more than 17,000 organizations and 45 million employees worldwide, they are in a strong position to accurately read the pulse of the current American work force.
A couple key metrics that measured work priorities have changed dramatically in the past decade. Both highlight behavioral change that compares how workers felt during the economic boom to how they feel today.
These are:
- Performance improvement. Ten years ago, one-fourth of American workers said their number one concern was doing a better job.
Today? Less than one in five. Doing a good job is significantly less important than it used to be. - Being present on the job. A decade ago, only 15 percent found it a struggle to tumble out of bed and drag on in to work.
Now? An eye-raising 22 percent — a whopping 47 percent increase that is up three full percentage points from just a year ago.
Also a growing concern for employers is a tsunami-like wave of rising stress. An alarming 63 percent of workers cite high levels of stress, the spillover byproducts of which are extreme fatigue accompanied by a relentless feelings of being out of control.
The primary culprit of increasing stress is predictable: rising workloads. More and more is getting dumped on workers, often without the ways and means to deliver desired results.
None of us has to look too far to see examples of job enlargement — perhaps as close as a nearby mirror or across the family dinner table. Massive belt tightening moves such as reductions in force and restructuring have taken, over time, a predictable toll.
Workers were resigned to having to do more for awhile but expected it to be temporary. Now that accelerated expectations show no sign of retreat, workers running on fumes are now running out of gas.
The problem is most troubling for American firms who have tried to compete with nations offering similar marketplace alternatives with a lower cost basis. Businesses must sustain margins in order to survive, and cutting to profitability can only go so far. Top-line revenue growth is essential but that revenue must include profit dollars.
Going nose to nose with India or the Chinese is tough to sustain. Many companies have tried; and many who started out “doing more with less” as a temporary tactic have made it a daily way of life.
When this occurs, two things happen — neither of which is good:
- Worker innovation is squelched. Innovation cannot occur in environments of high pressure and inordinate workloads; and innovation is the key to strategic repositioning.
- The will to show up is diminished. As reflected in the numbers above, simply going in each day becomes increasingly difficult to do. The heck with doing better work. Better work has taken a back seat to simply getting there.
Workforces are comprised of four groups of employees: those who are fully engaged, somewhat engaged, somewhat disengaged, and disengaged. Every work force is comprised of some percentage combination that adds up to 100.
Without emotion equity in what a man or woman is doing for a living, the job is a pay check and nothing more. The will to persevere is diminished and the workforce, predictably, will slide from engagement to disengagement. Disengagement is infectious: It can pollute a culture to the extent it requires wholesale change to fumigate and fix.
More than half of all workers seek out coworkers to help manage the stress — which is counter-intuitive to peak efficiency — while barely one-third deal with it by knuckling down and working harder. More talking and less doing harms performance.
The residual effect of all this — a sad, demotivated work climate — is predictable: frustration, anger, fatigue, and hopelessness bleed from the office into “real life.” Relationships and family suffer, both of which accelerate a person’s wheel of stress.
Personal complications arising from work place stress now trump both medical and caregiver reasons for missing work. Heads are getting crowded, noisy, and unhappy.
When a company culture reaches the point where simply showing up is the number one challenge for its workers, business leaders must take action. They must address these things at the root cause level and problem-solve the heart of the issue — managing the emotional experience of the individual and collective work force.
Regardless how simple or fancy its headquarters may be, all a company really is is a collection of individuals ostensibly pursuing a common goal. An inspired work force can do great things. It will win the business it is supposed to win and some of the business it is supposed to lose. This is why some companies flourish while others falter.
Burnout benefits no one, so treat it with the respect it deserves. Work hard to eliminate sadness from your life, team, and company. Trust the trend — burnout is rising around us — and take the actions you must to re-energize your work environment.
Great workplace cultures don’t just happen. They are created, nurtured, and rigorously maintained.
By championing positive change whenever we can — at work, in the community, and especially at home — we can duck the burnout trend. We can feel better about who we are and what we do. This is much happier, healthier, and better place to be.