You’ve met this guy, or at least someone like him.
He’s the one who brags about his triumphs on the job when you bump into him at your kid’s soccer game or at a cocktail party. Ask a simple question like “How are you?” and you’ll get a detailed account of the obstacles he overcame to land a new client or deliver a tough project under budget. Once he gets warmed up, he’ll tell you about all the frequent flyer miles he’s racked up on business trips and the addition he put on his house with last year’s bonus.
George McDonald used to be that guy, but he’s not anymore. In fact he’s not that into his job these days.
“Going the extra mile no longer pays,” he says. He explains that the consumer products company he works for forced workers to take a pay cut in 2009. His bonus, which used to run upwards of $40,000, barely reached double digits last year, despite a stellar review. And on top of all that, his company expects him to shoulder an increased work load to compensate for staff layoffs.
“It’s not going to happen,” says McDonald (a pseudonym for a 41-year-old New Jersey man who asked that his real name not be used). “I’m going to set my cruise control and coast for a while.”
His sentiments aren’t atypical. At a time when workloads have grown due to cutbacks and opportunities for advancement have shrunk, worker disengagement is becoming an epidemic, say workplace consultants.
“Employees are not happy, and this is bad news for everyone,” says Catherine Hartmann, a principal in the talent and rewards practice at Mercer, a human resources consultancy.
According to a recent survey by the firm, nearly one in three American workers is seriously considering leaving their job (up sharply from 23 percent in 2005); an additional 21 percent are staying put, but discontented with their work and their employers.
And in a Gallup survey released last month, a towering 71 percent of US workers said they were not engaged in their jobs.
Experts say the root of the problem is that in a culture of belt tightening, employees have had it with things being taken away from them. They’ve lost pay, benefits, training, promotions, and faith in employers who have asked them to accept one cut after another.
Consider that this same set of workers has been forced to assume the work loads of laid-off colleagues and it’s no wonder their patience is wearing thin.
Given that an unhappy worker tends to be an unproductive one, it’s a problem that’s drawing a great deal of attention from employers. Worried about what Harvard business professor Teresa Amabile has termed a “crisis of disengagement,” a growing number are calling in consultants like Hartmann, conducting surveys and otherwise trying to figure out how to rally the troops.
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