In her 1995 best-seller Danger in the
Comfort Zone,1renowned consultant Judith M. Bardwick wrote brilliantly
about the problem of workers who feel so entitled to their jobs and secure in
their employment that their performance suffers.
Now, because of global competition and
the relentless migration of jobs to lower-cost providers, that sense of
entitlement has largely disappeared and has been replaced by the opposite
problem: Today, many employees are so worried about becoming victims of
downsizing, outsourcing, and off-shoring that they work in a state of perpetual
insecurity. And, because they feel their employers no longer care about them,
they have stopped caring about their jobs.
In The Conference Board Review,2 Bardwick cites surveys that reveal that
as many as two-thirds of U.S. employees are either actively looking for new
jobs or merely going through the motions at their current jobs. Even many of
the people who physically show up for work each day have quit their jobs
emotionally. In their minds, they already have one foot out the door.
It used to be that companies could rely
on their employees to show up for work each morning ready to give their
employers their commitment, loyalty, and even passion. The reason: They
believed that the company was committed to them.
That feeling no longer exists. Over the
past couple of decades, labor forces have been downsized, and whole departments
have been either outsourced or off-shored. As a result, workers no longer feel
that the company values them, so they have lost their passion for their work
and their commitment to their employer. Now they feel extremely vulnerable and
afraid for their futures.
Bardwick calls this emotional state the
“Psychological Recession.” In this condition, people feel worried about the
present and even more pessimistic about the future. This is especially
relevant in the business world because chronically fearful people are too
exhausted to be creative and innovative. They expect the worst to happen, so
they see no reason to give their all.
This isn’t a problem that affects only a
few disgruntled employees. According to Bardwick, everyone is affected by the Psychological
Recession. Everyone personally...
