The Missing Part of an Optimized Workplace

I have been unfair to the organizations I serve. As an advisor and advocate for workforce and workplace development, I have been telling employers for years that they must build great workplaces to attract and retain the talent they need. I have implored them to create people-centered workplaces. I have shown them study after study that insists that without efforts to create great cultures, to make their people feel appreciated, and to ensure that they are investing in the development of their teams, they could expect a lifetime of crippling instability in their workforce. But I failed to recognize an equally important part of the equation.

Great workplaces are crucial, and most employers understand the need for supportive working environments. But what happens if you take great pains to build a robust environment and engaging culture and then you introduce people into that system with a poor understanding of work, who do not appreciate its value, and its far reaching benefits? That culture will struggle to survive – no matter how hard you work to sustain it.

Wake-up Call

“We cannot find people who want to work!” This was my wake-up call. I have been hearing it for years now after helping manufacturers work hard to improve their workplaces. And after this work, time and time again, I hear that people are not staying around long enough for these much-improved cultures to have any impact. It seems apparent that we need to broaden our approach.

There has been a lot of emphasis on work life balance of late. This is an essential element of consideration, no doubt. However, attitudes about work are also important. Having a balanced understanding of the need for rest and rejuvenation weighed against the absolute need for impactful work, can change the dynamics of the labor market.

Not a New Debate

Work has always been a hotly debated topic. Plato thought it was beneath learned people. Martin Luther counted all work, religious and secular, as sacred. Many are fine with work as long as someone else is doing it. Current attitudes seem to lean more toward a grudging acceptance if it pays well. We’d really rather talk about retirement. Preferably before the age of forty.

We need to work. Work is impactful in so many ways. Economically, when everyone that can work is at work, everyone benefits. Socially, when people work, society works. Spiritually, we were created to work and to serve one another. Individually, work can be a form of self expression. There are health benefits that come from work. Benefits that spill over into families and communities. And the list goes on.

Balancing the Approach

It is abundantly clear that we do actually need great workplaces; people-centered workplaces. But if we are going to engage more people in the workforce, we must appeal to something more. We must help people recover a healthy attitude about doing the work. About investing their efforts and time into something that is bigger than themselves.

There are many complex challenges in our efforts to develop a stable and vibrant workforce, and they will not be solved with simple ideas and solutions. However, if we include in those solutions efforts to reenforce the value of work and begin to shift societal opinions and attitudes toward a better vision of work, we can fill those people-centered workplaces with people who appreciate them.

Image by Richard Reid from Pixabay