Nobody Cares About Work Anymore! - The Great Detachment
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Everyone says people don’t want to work.
But the real problem? Work stopped working.
In this episode:
✅ Why employees don’t care anymore
✅ How leadership is making it worse
✅ What to do before your team checks out
This isn’t burnout. It’s something bigger.
Drop a comment if you’ve seen it happen.
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📌Timestamps:
0:00 – Intro
0:18 – What this episode is about
0:43 – If your team is quiet quitting, here’s why
1:04 – Why Listen to Us
1:48 – What “The Great Detachment” means
2:38 – Why people stop caring about work
19:22 – How burnout hurts your business
27:28 – How to actually fix work culture
34:46 – Simple steps to re-engage your team
41:55 – Remote vs office: what really works
47:33 – Final thoughts: what leaders need to do now
➡️ Go ahead and hit that like button!
Transcript
Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast. Quiet quitting is back. This time, it's louder than ever. Welcome to the era of the great detachment where workers aren't just checked out, they're done. They're emotionally done.
Is this burnout or is this a sign of something bigger that's broken?
[:And so today, we're diving into why employees everywhere have stopped caring and what's causing this collective shrug. And most importantly, how can both companies and employees snap out of it to make work not suck again?
[:By the end of this episode, you'll understand the real causes of workplace apathy, how it impacts the bottom line, and actionable strategies to reengage everyone from burned out employees to overwhelmed executives.
[:So spicy take. And this is one literally from a leadership team, off-site I had in Atlanta last week.
[:Mhmm. And it
[:was so apparent. If your team is quietly quitting, your leadership already loudly failed. You are lousy and failing as a leader if your people are quietly colluding.
[:That stings, but I think it's true.
[:Alright. If you're wondering why you should be listening to us, I mean, me personally, Ryan Hodges, I've spent decades helping, companies navigate culture crisis, burnout, disengagement. I love the employee side of the equation. If you don't have solid teams and how these businesses gonna grow, I've seen firsthand how workplace culture can either make or break a business.
[:And I'm Daniel Steer. I've been leading teams and training leaders and coaching executives for over fifteen years, guiding them out of toxic workplace dynamics and into environments where people actually want to work. So if it's one thing we've done whether being in a leadership role or advising and coaching and consulting those leaders, we know how to make work not stop. Right. So Gallup just reported the lowest levels of workplace engagement in a decade.
31%, only 31% of employees feel engaged, which means 69% are either meh or actively disengaged. Right? That's that's scary. But I'm not actually surprised. I mean, 31 is probably where I would have guessed it to be.
I would have guessed around a third of employees are actually engaged.
[:That feels about right. I mean, you think about 17% are actively disengaged, being they're not just checked out. They're literally working against the company. And this trend is hitting the younger workers and the hardest hitting it's hitting the younger workforce the work the worst. Yeah.
So which is what's behind this? Why why are we so disgruntled, and why are we so disconnected and detached from work? If two thirds are disconnected, that's a big problem.
[:But I think this is the the result of what we have seen and what we've been talking about so much on this podcast. Right? If you don't have a compelling why for your organization, right, If there's not clear processes, clear accountabilities, if you don't have a culture of respect, and then you take all of those problems and you put people remote and so they're not in an office together where they're able to at least feel some sense of community. Like, what did you expect was gonna happen with employee engagement? Like, I'm not at all surprised that that this is what's happening, nor am I surprised that it's worse among the Gen z employees.
I think workers 35 are showing the lowest levels of engagement, and I think it's because they've they're not used to it. Right? They've they're newer to the workforce and realizing it's just not worth it.
[:So I'm gonna I'm gonna challenge you there. What's interesting Okay. Is I have a handful of both millennials and gen xers that are on the disgruntled side and the I've got Gen z's that are on the engaged side. Now they're fairly younger into the organization, and they're trying to make their claim. But Okay.
My most disgruntled people right now are actually the older Gen z's, the millennials, and the Gen xers.
[:Yeah. I don't think it said that they're more or less. I just think it's percentage wise. I'm sure you can find exceptions. But I think the greatest levels of disengagement are for workers under the age 35.
[:Yeah. Well, I think you you think too. You think 35, especially in the twenties, people in their their mid twenties right now. Right. They came into the workforce during COVID.
[:Oh, yeah. It's brutal.
[:You you literally went from one norm to another norm, kind of back to the original yet hybrid of the new norm.
[:I mean, it's getting so bad that this almost isn't quiet quitting anymore. It's like a quiet rebellion.
[:And why is it a quiet rebellion? I have a theory that connects all this together. I wanna hear your take. What why quiet rebellion?
[:I just I think about it like a waterfall. Like, I think if you start with everyone who is under the age of 30 let's just let's just pick that. Say you're under the age of 30. Alright? A lot of these people had a difficult time through college, through COVID, many you know, let's say they didn't even graduate from college.
Now you're out in the workforce. Your options if you didn't graduate college, you you just don't have as many attractive options. You do let's say you so so you got a a section of people that just didn't graduate college and the options that they have after this are not great. Then you've got a section that did graduate college. They get out in the workforce, and they're working and they're making money, but because of inflation and because of other things, they're not able to pay their bills.
So they're working hard, but not still not able to make ends meet. Like, I would be pissed if I had, you know, gone through all of this effort to get into a job, and I'm still not able to make ends meet. And then you've got maybe some people that are in really high end jobs where they're making a ton of money. You know, you think about the investment bankers and the consultants and and people like that. But you look at what's important to this emerging generation.
People 30, they want purpose. They want community. They want life work life balance. And if you're working eighty hour weeks and making hundred and $5,200 a year, like, sure, you got plenty of money, but you have no life. And so it just doesn't look like the system's working for anybody right now.
[:I get that. But why quiet rebellion? Why is it quiet rebellion as opposed to just flat out loud rebellion?
[:Well, because you gotta pay your bills. Right? You gotta eat. I like living indoors. And so you gotta you you can't quit quit, but you're also not gonna give everything you've got because it's not worth it.
What's your take?
[:I I think it's the fact that we're such a remote environment now. I think companies are still trying to operate like they were pre COVID, and there's just this big massive culture hit. If you didn't evolve your culture to be hybrid or fully remote, and you're still trying to operate your old paradigm, you've made it a lot easier for people to detach. It's easier just to, like, kinda zone out at a meeting. Turn off your camera.
[:Yeah.
[:You know? You as soon as you close the meeting, I'm gonna go watch Netflix, or I'm gonna go hunt for another job, or I'm gonna engage with another community. I think what's making it partly as a quiet rebellion is in this work in in this remote environment, you can be quiet. You can hide behind the Zoom meeting.
[:Yeah.
[:And and I think it did then you asked the question of why. And I think that gets back into I don't think companies have I think they're still trying to run, you know, yesterday's playbook on today's environment. I mean, the stat. Right? We're at the lowest since 2014.
/: [:Right. And then
[:all started, boom. We had COVID happen. The economy crashed again, and we're trying to come back out of it. We're literally seeing the unsaved, almost same rinse and repeat cycle. Now in the February, we didn't have everybody working remotely, you know.
It wasn't a pandemic. It was just a financial crash. So I think it's a different dynamic. But I think I think what we have is there's so much disruption into the workplace. Why there's so much dis engagement in the workplace right now, is we haven't figured out how to do our work remotely well in a way that connects people to purpose and culture that gives that community.
I think people as a as a community, as a body, as the human race, we have figured out how to have interconnected relationships online with people around the world. I mean, look at the younger generations in playing video games. You know, they're playing games. They've got friends of people all around the world that they play games with and socially interact with. This isn't a problem we haven't solved as a species.
It's a problem we haven't solved in the work environment because the work system is is legacy. It's old. It's not built for today's society.
[:Yeah. And and just doing the return to office mandate doesn't seem to be the answer either. Right? Amazon tried that. Other companies have tried that.
And it's generally not gone well. So even if you admit that you don't have an evolved playbook, trying to reverse time and just force everyone back into the office doesn't seem to be working for many companies either.
[:No. I mean, I think that's a that's a trying to go to a legacy legacy work model when you've already given people a taste of a different work model. And I'm not saying one or the other. I'm not saying you need to go full remote or full in the office. I actually think a hybrid solution is feasible or if you can facilitate means for people to get, to collaborate together.
Again, why do I fly around the country doing face to face on-site? Because you can't replace a a strategic planning session remotely. You can do it, but it's it's painful. It's mind numbing. You just get way more done and way more collaboration, and way more strategic value by getting everybody in a room.
But it doesn't mean everybody needs to be in a room, you know, every every day of the week. Right.
[:And so
[:I I think it's this this, work environment, this paradigm where operating work is is finally reaching a boiling point. And I think, I mean, like you said, two thirds of two thirds of people are disengaged. Or what was it? It was one third's engaged, one third is disengage completely disengaged, and then everybody else is in the middle.
[:Right.
[:We need a new paradigm.
[:Yeah.
[:And I don't I think this is just the the rebellion of it is just the pendulum swinging so far to the, you know, pick a direction left or right.
[:Right.
[:And and that it's time to balance the equation. So I think it's the great detachment is all of the rebound from COVID finally catching up to us.
[:Yeah. Which makes me think that this great detachment isn't really a worker problem. I think it's more of a leadership problem. Right? If employees feel detached, it's because the leaders have failed to attach them to anything meaningful.
And that points back at the leaders of why should anybody care besides a paycheck? Why should they care? Why should they come to work? Why should they bring more than the bare minimum to to work?
[:Well, I think I think even agree. It's this is entirely a leadership problem.
[:Yep.
[:If if the organization is not being well led, then you're setting everybody else up for failure at 1000%. I think this comes into, like, I was I asked on Odysee yesterday. We're doing the the Odysee, the Odysee call.
[:Mhmm.
[:I asked people, like, what is preventing people from getting connected to purpose in work? And we got great answers that were like, oh, you need a good mission vision statement, and you gotta have good core values, and you gotta have the jobs that align, and you gotta hire and fire to it. I'm like, that's great. But companies do that every single day, and companies do that well and still don't have an attachment to purpose. Mhmm.
And, again, I think if we break it down into using kind of some of the Simpli method, that's a great vision and a great journey for it. But what's the social emotional connection of your people inside your organization? And I think in this remote environment, we just haven't cracked that code. I mean, you look at the the great studies. Right?
Like, Rich Carlton.
[:Mhmm.
[:Phenomenal culture.
[:Right.
[:That was designed around people interacting with other people in person. Yeah. Show me an example of a remote company that has a thriving culture that's phenomenal. There's a few out there.
[:There's a few out there. I don't know I I don't know anybody who has worked there, but Matt Mullenweg's company, WordPress, was known for having a good culture. And they were completely distributed organization. I don't know anybody who works there personally, but I've heard very good things about it. But that's honestly one of the only companies I can think of that is known for having a good culture and is a remote distributed team.
Who do you know?
[:I'm honestly struggling to think of a good example.
[:Yeah. It's I
[:know I know I know there's a few out there, and I know they they exist, but I'm struggling to find a purely remote. Now most of the companies I know that do have a remote workforce that has a good culture also has a very, systematic or frequent in person collaboration. And the key to that is is actually the the in person sync up.
[:Yeah. I've got a client I'm working with right now who is a distributed team, but they have kind of a critical mass in the Atlanta area. And I think they've got a very good culture, but they also kind of facilitate regular in person working events and quarterly, in person events. So so even the people that aren't in the Metro Atlanta area are still getting face to face every 90 days. And I I think that's probably a good cadence for people to have.
I think if you don't see people four times a year, it's difficult to really build that kind of stronger relationship. Not impossible, but it's it's a lot harder and it'll take a lot longer if you're not getting eyeball to eyeball every, you know, three, four times a year.
[:A %. Right? But what do you do okay. So you get together four times a year, 52 in a year. What do you do for the other forty eight weeks of the year?
Right?
[:Right.
[:And I think, like, looking at the notes here, it says just 39% say someone cares about them at work. I think here's one of the problems, and this is where the old paradigm has has gotten, too far. We have been so IQ, and I think this is because of technology. I think this is this is, you know, I think AI is accelerating this. We have been so IQ focused in the business world, profits, results, KPI, systems, processes, just more, more, more, more, more work, more throughput, more value, more profit, you know, less overhead, that I don't think we've really invested in, you know, taking care of the people.
And you think about this, in a remote or sorry, in a in a physical office, you walk around, you can tell when someone's having a bad day. You can see it on their face. You can see it on their body language. You can see how they, you know, maybe they were chipper on a on a call with a client, and then five minutes later, they're, like, sitting zone you know, zombied off in their desk or, you know, like, you know, like, mindlessly kinda trudging over to the coffee machine to get more coffee to wake up for the next call. Like, you can walk up and say, hey.
Are you okay? In the remote world, you look all chipper for your for your client call or your team call. You go off Zoom. You still do the same trudge to the coffee machine in your kitchen, but nobody but your dog or your family sees you. And, you know, maybe no one, if you don't have a pet or, you know, you live alone.
[:Right.
[:And if we're so focused on productivity tools, what are we doing to actually understand how our people are? Oh, they're hitting their KPIs. I'm just gonna leave them alone. But Nick's having a bad day. Does anybody know Nick has had one, two, three bad weeks?
[:And and why? Right? Is it a work thing? Is it a personal thing? Did his dog die?
I mean, there could be any number of reasons why he's had three bad weeks.
[:How about
[:But how about Nobody knows him well enough to know why.
[:How about pulling up Nick's pulse score and going, man, Nick, you've had you've had some bad weeks. What's going on?
[:Mhmm. Yeah.
[:I've lost two of my top performers because of the situation the business is in. Mhmm. Wow. That sucks.
[:Yeah.
[:How can we help you? We need to get those hires pushed through, don't we? So we can get the backfill in. Yeah. That would be a huge help if you're not taking a real time pulse on your people.
And I don't mean a productivity pulse. I don't mean a how hard are they doing their job pulse. Just a how are you doing pulse. I mean, that's why it says right here. 39% say someone cares about them at work.
37% feel respected at work, and remote work is complicating the whole thing. 37% feeling respected at work. Well Yeah. Respect is an emotion. That's a human emotion back and forth.
That's like feeling equal. That's that's about, you know, mutual respect.
[:How do you feel that? It's about listening. It's about caring. Even if you can't fix anything, you can't just demonstrate respect.
[:When you're so focused on the system and tools, or you're so focused about the throughput, you're not paying attention to the respect or disrespect. You're providing to each other.
[:You know what's funny to me? I have a client who doesn't have a human resources department because he he's got a, like, a moral issue with calling them resources. They're they're people. They're not human resources. And as I'm listening to you vent about this, I'm kinda coming around to to agree with him of, like, if we're just treating our people like resources, oh, you know, factory's down, the engine needs to be repaired.
Ryan's not Ryan's only working at 70% capacity today. Like, if you just treat people like a machine, you you will get them to respond like a machine. They will not bring their heart, their soul, their passion. They will work thirty nine and a half hours a week because that rounds up to forty and they'll clock out. If you want people to engage with their heart and their souls and bring their creativity and bring the best that they have to offer, you can't treat them like human resources.
You have to treat them like people. And that means that they are bringing their mess from their personal life to work with them. And if you're unwilling or unable to engage with them on that, do not expect them to give you the best that they have to offer.
[:What is the cost of collect burnout?
[:Oh, man. It's expensive. Like, you can't afford it. Burnout is expensive, and it's not just turnover. Right?
It it's not just absenteeism. It's presenteeism. The best thing I've heard on this is that it's not just the people who who quit. It's the people who quit but don't leave. Like, those are the most expensive employees are the employees who quit but don't leave.
That's what the quiet quitting is all about. That's what the great detachment is all about. It's about people who have quit but not left.
[:Well, I think you're you're right to your earlier statement because, you know, inflation and things have gotten more expensive. It's hard to. Job markets gotten more competitive. I mean, you can just look at the government jobs, if how many government jobs are being cut out right now.
[:Mhmm.
[:So we've got an imbalance. I mean, this this is a not a this is not only just a US problem. It's a global problem. I mean, US president what did you say it was? Prezism?
Prezism? Presenteeism. Presenteeism. There we go. That's a fun word.
Cost a hundred and $50,000,000,000 a year Mhmm. US. If you go on a global level, there are currently 2,000,000,000 workers worldwide that are disengaged, and it's a $2,000,000,000,000 global problem.
[:Wow.
[:$2,000,000,000,000 for 2,000,000,000 people being disengaged at work globally.
[:Right. And that's lost productivity, that's, lost opportunity, like, the it's it's it's a very intangible number, but I think I absolutely believe that it's that big. The the easier one to measure maybe is the cost of replacing employees. Right? That's generally about a 50% of their annual salaries.
Right? So if you've got somebody who's making a hundred grand and they quit, finding the next person is gonna cost you a hundred and 50. What's worse is that if you pay them a hundred and they're doing just barely enough to not get fired, you're you're probably losing money on that person because they are not contributing equivalent to the salary you're paying them. And so finding a way to engage them rather than firing them, Obviously, sometimes that's the right answer. But finding a way to engage them and to ignite their interest and passion in the work that they're doing, finding a better role for them, finding a better place in the organization, pairing them with the right mentor or manager, Anything like that that you can do is going to be significantly more valuable to you than having them just kind of zombie through the day or have to replace them with somebody else.
[:I think that's I think it's it's crazy because we think I'm using the the proverbial we. We think we can just keep pushing people to a limit, and they'll just ride right at that limit. And then all of a sudden, the burnout happens. And then we're like, oh, what? What would the what what why did you oh, oh, they're not a team player.
They don't get it. They weren't really bought into the mission. Like, if your mission is to burn people out, like, you deserve to go out of business. But if you think investing in mental health programs, employee success programs, and those things to make sure people are being successful, if you think that's expensive, try burnout and see how much it costs your business.
[:Yeah. I have seen so many key leaders in organizations that have just been held in the hot seat for so long, and they finally break. And the organization suffers and struggles because they didn't take good care of that person in the first place. And it costs them so much more to wait until that person snaps than it would have to hire some help, cross train. Like, there there's so many strategies, but the the businesses focus on results at the expense of the people.
It's an expensive strategy, and it just doesn't work.
[:I I mean, I got an example for you. I mean, this is literally something that's being lived at a at a company right now. And it's frustrating because it's it's there's a lot of everything we're saying don't do and everything. Right? And it's one of those, like, the the individual.
You know, my two best people are burned out and and left. I mean, the they're they're looking at three to four major clients churning because they burned out a few individuals.
[:Yep.
[:And at the end of the day, the solution wasn't that expensive. And there were good margins on those individuals and the clients, healthy margins, and it would have been very easy to solve. Now it's gonna impact more jobs. It's creating more disruption. I mean, I think the the real one is is the presenteeism costs far more than absenteeism.
[:Yeah.
[:Absenteeism is a lot more easier to manage with. It's much more apparent versus this is like a silent killer. And burnout related turnover is extremely costly. You you may think you can have a revolving door in your business and just fine. We'll burn them out, and we'll hire a new person.
But there's a cost to get that person onboarded. Also, how much are you pissing off the customer because you you don't have people to manage the work, and then you've either gotta give discounts or the client's gonna churn. So if you if you think it's just, they're not a hard worker, they don't they don't deserve it, these programs are crap, just squeeze more out of them.
[:Mhmm.
[:Quite frankly, you deserve to go out of business.
[:You've seen this on Wall Street. I've heard of stories of extreme burnout in Japan, China, other economies as well where, you know, suicide rates start becoming a real problem. Like, if your industry has a suicide problem, you're you need to look in the mirror and ask how you need to be managing differently because that is a tragic sign that things are not going well.
[:You call it a a good point because I think for one thing is there's a level of us in the Western countries that, you know, we experience a level of burnout. We're frustrated and pissed off with it.
[:Mhmm.
[:And and I'm not trying to justify and say, oh, we're we're babies because of it, compared to other other places. But then you do go back. I think it was it 2010, '20 '15, somewhere in that time frame. Wasn't it like Apple gave employees in China, like, a $2 an hour raise? Because so many people like, they had to put nets around the buildings because so many people were trying to jump off of them from burnout.
Right. So I I I think I mean, I dear lord, I hope we're not getting anywhere close to that where we need to put nets around people's houses so they don't try to jump off of them. But I I think I think pushing it further, you're gonna see more and more stuff like that where you're pushing people beyond the breaking point, and that's a dangerous place for us to be in.
[:Yeah. Even if it's not suicide, I've got clients that are struggling with just the mental health issues where where employees are having mental breakdowns, you know, mental health issues at work in front of clients, in front of customers. And it's becoming a real problem because the pressure is just greater than some of these employees have been equipped to handle. Right? And whether that's a business problem or an employee problem, different situations, probably different root causes.
But I'm hearing this more and more from clients around the country and across industries. It is harder and harder to get find people who can handle stress, and fewer and fewer people that have healthy work environments that people wanna work in.
[:Let's make work not suck. Let's use the Vision Journey Culture Results wheel and see if we can help work not suck.
[:I think it's gotta start with vision. Right? And and it always does, but I think it's it's so important here. The the question of why. I I said this to a group of people.
I was presenting to a group of executives. You can't get world class performance without passion, and you can't get passion without purpose. Right? So we all want performance, but performance has to have passion and passion has to have purpose. The companies that I have seen that are not struggling with this, the companies that are actually succeeding and attracting top talent, not only have a very clear vision, mission statement, whatever you wanna call that, they've got a very clear reason for existing.
But they have then spent the time and energy to connect their corporate purpose to each individual's purpose and said, working here can help you become a better version of you in these ways. Right? And that's a lot of work. It for some managers, they're like, that feels too touchy feely. I'm I'm not interested in having that conversation.
I just need you to do your job. That's not gonna be good enough going forward. Like, you have to be able to help people understand how coming to work and working for your organization, no matter what you do, how is it helping them become a better version of them? And if you don't have an answer to that question, you're gonna struggle to attract and retain top talent going forward.
[:I get that from a, like, a culture or from, like, a purpose alignment. But I think it if I'm reading this right, 46% of workers say they don't understand what's expected. Like, let's just get clear on the expectations. Like, I get aligning the goal to the job to purpose and and the mission of the company and their independent growth. Like, I I I I get that.
But if 46% of workers, like, don't understand what's expected of them, like, that's a more fundamental problem of what the hell are the goals
[:and what's their job, and what do
[:you expect of them? Because I think the big thing is there's a lack of vision clarity creating the, like, the the disconnectment, the the detachment.
[:You know, it's interesting you say that. It's probably that there's a there's a lack of vision clarity at multiple levels. Right? For some organizations, the lack of vision clarity is at the organizational level. Right?
We don't have a good reason for existing as a company. We're just here to make money and that's not good enough. But then there's also the question of at a role level, why does this job exist? How will I know if I'm doing a good job? What are what's expected of me?
And I've actually seen organizations where all of those things are fuzzy. We don't know why the company's here. We don't know why you're here. We're just all trying to make money as best we can with no rules, and no guiding principles. And so I I still think you have to start with vision, whether that's at the company level or at the individual role level.
[:Oh, a %. Alright. Let's go to journey. I think this is I think not having clear expectations is is you know, start there. Right?
And it drives me insane when I see this. It's the whiplashing of the team of the constant policy and SOP changes. Oh, yeah. If you are constantly whiplashing this process, that process, oh, we dropped the ball. Let's modify it.
You one, you're only surfaced deep and you're not solving the root cause. You think you're solving the root cause, but you're you're honestly just wasting everybody's time. That goes back to a lack of vision. Right? Like, go back to vision, get clarity, then make a journey that's consistent.
And culture wise, leaders need to demonstrate genuine care and respect for their people. They are not a number. They are not a piece of machinery. They are a human being that is equal to any other human being on this planet.
[:Yeah.
[:And if you're a leader, you need to be a leader and lead them, not dictate, not micromanage, but lead them by giving them that clarity and giving them that consistent journey. And the results, well, they'll take care of themselves. They'll just come naturally.
[:Yeah. When you improve engagement, you see better quality, higher safety, stronger profits, better revenue, better customer sat, better employee sat. All the results move in the right direction.
[:Here you go. Spicy tape. The great detachment ends when leadership stops treating people as expenses and starts treating them as investments. Invest in your people, and you will see genuine change within the business. It doesn't matter.
You could be a business leader. You could be a manager. You can be a team lead. If you invest in people, it will yield return. I think the other thing too is you could put this on a peer level.
Just help your fellow man be a good neighbor. If you and your peers can work to better each other, serve one another, and make the job suck less, you'll be surprised the changes that can come. But if you wait for someone to do it for you, well, that's the whole spit in one hand and hope in the other and see which one fills up first.
[:You know, it's interesting. I have a client who works in the services industry. So almost all of his expenses are headcount expenses. I mean, there's there's not a lot of overhead, other than headcount. And when they look at the financials, they they look at revenue and investment.
They don't say revenue and expenses. They say revenue and investment. And everyone knows that that investment is payroll. Right? It's it's it's the salaries that we are paying, and it's subtle.
And it probably doesn't work for every business because there's a lot of businesses that have, you know, cost of goods and all the things like that. But I I like the idea of, look, this is the investment we are making in our people every two weeks. When we run payroll, this is the investment we're making. And I think it helps reframe that. Okay.
[:I like the concept of it.
[:Really making a wise investment here.
[:Yeah.
[:Right.
[:I I like the concept of it. Where where I struggle with that one is great vision, but I wanna know the social emotional connection to that because I can say I'm making an investment in my people, and I've worked with owners that do this. I'm investing in my people. They should be they should, be honored and proud that they get this investment from me, and and they should work hard for it. Yeah.
You're, like, 20% under the minimum average salary for this role. Like, you're you're not original if you think you're paying. So I like the concept in what you're talking about in the sense of you should invest in your people, but that investment actually needs to be a meaningful investment, not gratitude for screwing them.
[:Right. Yeah. Just because it's a big number in aggregate doesn't mean you're paying your people appropriately. What can leaders do right now to address the great detachment that they're seeing in their people? Couple ideas come to my mind.
The first one I would think about is just is all around mental health. This is becoming such a big deal, not just for senior executives who are under a lot of pressure and, you know, are are struggling to cope with that. I'm seeing it from there all the way down to entry level employees who are trying to deal with the stress of their first job. Mental health has a stigma in many, many places, and we need to find a way to normalize those conversations so that people can talk about how they're actually doing.
[:Yeah. And, let let's be clear on on mental health programs here, because I think this is this is one I both love and struggle with. Is I think there's a level of mental health theory, I'll call it.
[:Okay.
[:Where we think we know what people need and we invent these programs, and they don't actually add any value. It's it's like it's it's created in a vacuum. And so I'm not knocking mental health programs at all, not in the slightest. What I can't stand is mental health programs that are created in a vision that is disconnected from the reality of the culture and the need. So one, not only prioritize mental health programs, don't make it a check the box, and don't build it in a silo.
It needs to be genuine. It needs to really help the people, serve the people, and and serve the intent of the organization. You know, an employee pulse
[:Yeah.
[:That just gets a number that no one knows how to use, waste. Something that someone actually uses and figures out how people are doing or etcetera. I think another one, another great tool for mental health is PTO.
[:Right.
[:Mandate people to take time off. When you start to see people burning out, take time off. If you're an employee with PTO in the bank, take the time off. You've earned it. And I think this is where, I know I'm going a little rabbit trail here.
Like, we need to even team members.
[:Mhmm.
[:If if you're afraid that you can't take time off, then go to your colleagues and your manager and say, alright. I need some time off. You need some time off. Like, how can we work together here so I can get some time off, you can get some time off without us dumping on each other? That's another one is when people just like, well, I'm mentally burned out and they take time off, and they check out.
But what they did is they dumped their work on somebody else.
[:Right.
[:And so I think it's again, we we've gotta be a community around this. Employers help your people take time off that they need. Employees take time off, but work with your colleagues to make sure you're not burning each other out. And then again, all the other programs that are built around it are phenomenal programs that that should help.
[:Total health, I would say, it's important to just clarify expectations. Right? Clear roles, clear responsibilities, clear processes, clear expectations, clear cultural values. That that lack of clarity, I think, creates a lot of problems for organizations. It's not complicated, but it's not easy to get those things lined up.
It just takes somebody who's gonna prioritize it and focus on it. And most organizations don't spend enough time to do that, and they pay the price because of the lack of engagement in their employees.
[:You know, that's probably this one and the next one are probably the easiest two to action, but the most require the most discipline to start.
[:Right.
[:Red line, green line. It's easy to blow this one off saying I don't have time to do it. Find the time to do it to get the clarity, and it will yield dividends after you get it done. Take the time. Do it.
Get clear expectations. If you don't have clear expectations, ask for clear expectations. Ask if you can help clarify those clear expectations. It's only for your benefit.
[:If you're
[:a manager, a leader, you need to make the time to set those clear expectations. It's not it's not the hardest thing that we have on this list. It's just the one that takes the most discipline to do right.
[:Yeah. And I would say related to that idea of discipline is just fostering an atmosphere of respect. Right? The way we treat people, the way we communicate to them, the way we hire, the way we fire, the way we promote, recognition programs. Those are all great ways to improve the level of respect in your organization.
[:So what what's interesting on this one is I think this is again, this was, I'd say, the second easiest one to do, but most disciplined.
[:Mhmm.
[:We are all human beings. And there's a there's a meme I saw on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, and I screenshot it, and I sent it to my my wife and kids. And it's this guy reaching over a cliff. Like, he's laying on the edge of a cliff, and he's got his hand down, and he's holding, onto a woman on the edge of the cliff. Mhmm.
And what you can't see from her perspective is he's got a boulder crushing on him. Like, he can't move. And then for the woman that the the guy can't see is there's a snake, like, biting her from, you know, being held there. So, you know, he wants the boulder off his back. She wants to to have the snake stop biting.
And at the end of the day, the whole point is you don't know the perspective or you don't know because you always can't see. Right? So there's always something going on that you can't see in somebody else's life, so don't assume. And I think sometimes we do the, you know, I'll respect them when they respect me. Sometimes you just have to be the better person.
Now if they're doing something illegal or, you know Right. Something like that, like, let's let's take those off the out of out of the question. Those people or people doing that kind of stuff, that's a different problem to solve that needs to be solved. But I think sometimes just showing respect and recognizing there's humans on the other side
[:Mhmm. Will
[:actually get you there faster. I saw what I saw the other day is is if you are searching for your own happiness, you'll never find it. But if you search for somebody else's happiness, you will find your own along the way.
[:Oh, I like that.
[:I think that's the same thing with respect. If you want respect, give respect, and then you'll receive it.
[:Yeah. And that starts with the leaders. The leaders have to go first.
[:Right. Actually, I I I do agree it's leaders, but I think we confuse leadership roles with leadership capabilities. Even an employee, a frontline worker at any job in the world is capable of being a leader and going first.
[:Yes.
[:This works even parallel with your peers.
[:Mhmm.
[:Be the leader among your peer group or your peers in your office. Be the one that goes first. Somebody has to be the one that goes first. Somebody has to take a leap of faith. Somebody has to be the leader even if it's just at a peer level.
[:Yeah. Absolutely. Leadership doesn't necessarily correlate with titles.
[:Correct.
[:Another thing you can do to improve an organization that's struggling with detachment, I think finding the right balance for remote versus office work. It's a very, important conversation. I'm finding organizations landing in lots of different places on this, but I think it needs to be somewhat of a collaborative conversation amongst the leaders of what's the right balance for us. How much time face to face? How much time remote?
It's gonna be different by organization, maybe even different by season. But having a good answer there, being able to defend that answer, why we believe this is right for us in this season, and then giving that time to work itself out is gonna be an important tool in the tool belt of improving disengaged or detached workers.
[:Let's put a little extra context in there.
[:Okay. So if
[:you're a fully remote company, there is no hybrid approach. Right? I mean, maybe you decide to get an office, but that doesn't make sense. I would say that it's be intentional about connecting in person. If you can once a quarter, at least every six months, just to get people together.
If you do have a, a pocket of remote people in a city or given area, and you can have an office or you do have an office near this hybrid, I would say this, don't force people back to the office just to do work they could do at home. When you have people together, they need to be collaborative meetings, you know, idea sessions, strategy planning. They need to be meetings and gatherings that are focused around collaboration and not just, I want your butt in the seat two days a week so I can hold you accountable to make sure you're doing your checklist. I guarantee you, if you hold strategy meetings, planning meetings, you know, have the office lunch where everybody can get that community aspect together, you can still do work and hold community at the same time. It's a strategy meeting.
So the story workshop and ideation. Right? If you do those, one, that boost engagement, that connects everybody, and they'll get the work done at home because they feel engaged with their coworkers. They own a piece of the of the puzzle. It's just it's just common sense.
I hate to say it, but people don't think of it like that. They think about if I put them their butt in the seat two to three days a week, I can monitor their productivity. So when we say balance remote and office work thoughtfully, that's what we mean. If you're doing it as a gotcha, it's already failed you.
[:Those are great points. One or two that I would add is, you know, there's just not that many strategy meetings to have. Training and education is another good thing to do, as a group in person. It can help build community as is recognition. So if there's any sort of award ceremony that you wanna do, that's a great time to get people together and to recognize them in person in front of their peers.
So maybe even combine those. Right? Some strategy sessions, some recognition, some training. One of them by itself might not justify the the trip, but if you put a couple of them together, it starts to make more economic sense to bring them together frequently. Well,
[:I think that parallels with your your last bullet there. Right? Invest in leadership training.
[:Yeah.
[:And I think I think this goes in it's not just leadership training. I know the bullet says leadership training, but it's just invest in training, period. Anything we can do to bring more EIQ awareness to managers and leaders or even in the workplace, period. The more EIQ balance we can have, the better we will be socially, emotionally. We have swung the pendulum too far to the IQ side, driven mostly by technology.
This is side effect of technology. That's fine. But Mhmm. We, the humans, are in control and are the higher elevated beings. We can do this.
We just have to be intentional about it.
[:Yeah. For those of you who might not be familiar with the terminology, you know, IQ is very rational, very, logical, linear problem solving. EQ stands for emotional intelligence, and that is more about relationships, influence, and empathy, oftentimes correlates more creativity. And I would agree, I think those are the skills that are missing in most workplaces. We've overvalued the engineers and accountants, and I can say that as an engineer.
There's great things about being an engineer. But, if all you have is engineers and you have nobody who has more of those emotional intelligences, your organization is not gonna run as well as it could.
[:So I'm gonna add a I'm gonna add one extra bullet real quick. And I've got my Ted Lasso, cup here, which is what made me believe. If you haven't seen Ted Lasso, watch Ted Lasso. This is not a paid plug. This is just I like the show.
[:I love it.
[:Watch Ted Lasso or watch go to YouTube and do Ted Lasso believe. You have to believe this can change. You have to believe there's progress. You have to believe in the future can be better. Mhmm.
[:And I
[:think, again, it doesn't matter where you are in any organization. You have the ability and opportunity to take control of your own destiny and believe that you can do so. So I think just having a little, Ted Lasso belief can go a long ways.
[:Here's my spicy Jake for you. Stop worrying if remote work or in office work is better. Focus on clarity, care, and consistency, and your people will reconnect.
[:I like it. I like it.
[:I would say that the great detachment is not permanent. It's fixable, but leaders need to act with clarity, with empathy, and with purpose.
[:And I think if you've got stories of feeling detached or how your workplace is, reengaged, drop a note in the comments, help connect with others. Again, you know, we're on a mission to make work not suck. So if you can if you found this episode interesting, and can share it with a coworker or a family member or something like that, share it with them if it can help them. Like and subscribe, and follow for more episodes. We're on a mission to make work not suck, and so please, join and follow along.
[:Thanks for joining us. Make work not suck. Our podcast that talks about exactly that. Our process, vision, journey, culture, and results. We present real world business solutions that make the difference.
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