How has Employee Engagement Evolved?

Chapter 3: The Goldilocks Team

“In my day, we just got on with it.”
–my dad, whenever he heard an excuse he didn’t buy.

We understand that meeting basic human needs drives engagement, but why does there seem to be greater demand for meeting these needs now, more than ever before? Are the newer generations just a bunch of snowflakes? No, they’re not.

The Engagement Evolution

There are two forces driving the demand for meeting our basic human needs at work: 1) what employers require from employees has changed and 2) what our culture requires from employers has changed.

How Employers’ Requirements Have Changed

Let’s zoom out and consider the history of work and how it has evolved – and continues to evolve.

Over thousands of years, there has been constant adaptation to changes worldwide based on resources, technologies, political systems, etc. Very interesting, but far beyond the scope I can cover here. In broad strokes what we see are shifts in demand, oscillating between: unskilled and skilled labor; generalist and specialized workforces; and more and less hierarchy.

If we were to time travel about 250 years back to the start of the Industrial Revolution, as factory workers where in demand, we would see an overwhelmingly rural population abandon the apprenticeship system and take jobs in cities. We would witness labor needs shift. There was increased demand for unskilled labor, increased specialization and more hierarchy compared to rural, mostly agricultural environments, where the masses previously worked.

Fast forward to today’s developed nations where automation and offshoring are increasingly taking over repetitive jobs and what we have are more jobs than ever before in the service sector. These jobs in first world countries require less physical labor and demand skilled, specialized workers who bring creativity, innovation, and customer service. Employers no longer just need warm bodies, they need engaged, motivated, and committed people, who bring their hearts and minds to the workplace.

How Cultural Requirements Have Changed

As the work landscape has changed, what employees require from the workplace has changed, too, especially in the developed world. Not only because you get what you give, and greater demands from employers mean greater demands from employees, but also due to dramatic societal changes.

While our basic human needs have always been there, over time workers have started to expect these needs, once met by family, community, and faith, to now be met by the workplace. This transformation has been many years in the making. Already two hundred years ago, when people went to work in bleak factory towns, away from their extended, rural families, Henry David Thoreau famously wrote that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” People in those factories yearned for more.

Generally, as societies prosper, their perspective changes from working primarily to ensure safety and certainty to working to have growth and significance. Consider the TV show Mad Men set in thriving 1960s America. It wasn’t just about safety and certainty anymore; it was about accumulating status, buying the new color TV and car, keeping up with the Joneses.

Sadly, bleak factory jobs still exist all around the world and that feeling of quiet desperation is still present there. It’s also present among corporate jobs in the most polished looking companies. As Jim Collins echoed Thoreau a few decades ago when he wrote, “it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.” Collins was talking about our fundamental need for more than a paycheck. Unfortunately, most companies have taken that to mean that they should have lofty, polished corporate mission and vision statements plastered on walls and websites. They aim to get buy-in on the buzz-word-filled rhetoric from all employees and even those just interviewing. The truth is: very few people are going to care about and share your corporate values and purpose. Everyone already has their own. The work needs to be authentically meaningful for each individual employee.

Over the years you might have felt the change to an ever-more purpose driven culture. I remember, when I was growing up, adults asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up,” focused on individual growth and significance. Today, young people are asked, “what are you going to do when you grow up?” focused on contribution and purpose.

There is talk of contribution and purpose everywhere. Oprah’s “Live Your Best Life,” the rise of TED Talks focused on purpose and meaning, and the growing conversations about mental health and wellbeing are just some examples of the change in what we demand from workplace culture.

It’s no wonder every new generation is raising the bar on what they expect from their companies. In return, they’re expected to deliver more of themselves. And who they’re at work and what they do is the biggest part of their identity. And the demand on workplace culture will remain as quality of life continues to improve on a global scale, with individuals having more possibilities to bring their talents, more freedom to choose where they give their energy and consider more closely which company they align themselves with.

Before we get into what we can do to meet the demand of top talent so they want to spend their limited currency of time with us, let’s talk about the basics of what not to do in the next post.

Or if you don’t want to wait click the button bellow to checkout The Goldilocks Team.