No one wants to work anymore

"No one wants to work anymore."

Have you heard yourself or someone you know say this?

Have you noticed a lack of engagement or accountability on a team you are on or one you lead? Maybe you’ve experienced an overall drop in customer service when you are trying to get something you need.

If you are nodding along, you may be wondering what’s going on. Perhaps you have a theory. Does anything below sound familiar?

• People are using COVID as an excuse for everything; they just don’t care.
• Government handouts have removed the incentive for people to work. Because most people are lazy, it’s a perfect storm.
• Supply chains and systems have been so affected by dramatic global changes, it’s impossible to deliver anything of value.
• People are burned out, exhausted, and mental health issues are affecting performance and quality.
• Economic pressures and inflation make life unaffordable, and no one can get workers to apply themselves.
• Environmental conditions have created so many risks factors that it’s impossible to deliver good services.
• Societally conditions have thrown the world into chaos and we just cannot get back to normal.

These are just some of excuses we at Strategic Play have been hearing.  We are not going to debate this list, but we will offer a few insights that might help to illuminate the current situation. You’ve probably heard the term silent quitting, where people continue to work but only do the basics. 

Here is what we discovered:

1. Before the pandemic, way back in 2016, Gallup Poll Research conducted globally discovered that only 13% of employees were actually engaged at work and that 23% were sleep working, watching the clock, or silently quitting, while 64% were sabotaging the work of others. Now that’s frightening if you are responsible for payroll.

2. Even though we discovered worker engagement was low in 2016, it really started to drop in 2021 when people were working from home and quitting their jobs in search of work they felt would be more fulfilling. This research discovered that only 40% of remote or hybrid workers under the age of 35 had a clear understanding of their expectations at work. Most failed to see a connection between their tasks and the organizational mission or vision. Again, in this article we found the lack of engagement is connected with a lack of clarity regarding expectations and opportunities to learn and grow at work.

3. In 2022, Harvard Business Review identified that workplace engagement has dropped to such an all-time low due to how people feel emotionally about their work-life relationships. Here they found many people simply do not feel valued at work and they don’t have trusting relationships with co-workers or their leaders. 

Many issues, including the pandemic, economic conditions, and global factors appear to have made an already bad situation much worse.  So how can we turn things around? 

When was the last time you:

1. Brought your team together to create a common vision where all stakeholders were engaged?
2. You had the entire team meet in a nonjudgmental environment that provided psychological safety and helped everyone to build trust?
3. Leveled the playing field and listened to everyone, giving them equal time to speak and listen, honoring everyone’s ideas, time, and efforts?
4. Created space to work together to examine the current situation and set goals and priorities, with everyone participating equally?
5. Asked open-ended questions to allow people to share their ideas, thoughts, and views to add to the understanding of the work in progress and to create an accurate mental map of the work?
6. Openly asked everyone for help in co-creating a future where they could actively see themselves participating?
7. Provided people an opportunity to work on their own plans and goals and to connect how they can accomplish these while moving the organization forward to its stated strategic goals and objectives?
8. Had hard fun while creating amazing results?

Contact us if any of these apply:

• You are you looking for engaged, inspired, aligned, and activated workers.

• You are ready to transform your team so people stop seeing themselves as work prisoners, trading their valuable time away from the things and people they love in exchange for too little money.

• You really want to create a team where people see themselves as connected and excited about the future while co-creating and building their amazing careers.

We are on a mission to engage the world through the power of play!

We know how important this is, so get in touch and we’ll respond ASAP:

hello@strategicplay.com