The Rise of Engagement Fatigue

Source: PeopleImages com - Yuri A/Shutterstock

"Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit." — George Carlin

In the world of employee assistance programs (EAPs) we are often called upon to address how employees relate to, and therefore perform, their jobs. The current buzzword in many workplaces is engagement. The Gallup organization defines employee engagement as “the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace.” Engagement has taken the place of job satisfaction—the level to which workers are happy and content at work—as the go-to measure of an employee’s commitment to their company. According to Gallup's 2022 survey, the majority of the U.S. workforce (65%) is not engaged.

That number suggests that despite diligent efforts to hook employees into their jobs, workers are finding an increasing number of ways to disconnect from work. This disengagement goes by many names, including burnout, rust-out, compassion fatigue, moral fatigue, silent quitting, and presenteeism. This ever-growing list of ailments led one of my colleagues, a professional trainer often tasked with addressing these issues, to comment that she is suffering from “disengagement terminology fatigue.”

Ever since the days of the Protestant work ethic—when work had a religious importance—it seems that Americans have struggled to find meaning at work and those in charge have struggled with motivating workers to perform at their highest level. The field of social psychology has a long history of exploring what motivates American workers, focusing both on improving personal satisfaction as well as a company’s bottom line—best summed up by the maxim “A happy worker is a productive worker.”

In a classic case of “catch me if you can,” the American workforce has become the slippery bar of soap that resists management’s attempts to make sure they are invested in their work. This should come as no surprise; our love/hate relationship with work is so engrained that the song “Take This Job and Shove It” could very well be our national anthem. Or as Drew Carey once noted, “There’s a name for people who hate their jobs; it’s everyone, and they meet at the bar.”

None other than Sigmund Freud said, “Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” English poet Charles Lamb asked, “Who first invented work, and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down?” So, which is it? Does work make us human or steal the very joy that lifts the spirit? Are the disengagers simply the latest generation of souls who find that work leaves them longing for those precious hours of downtime?

The simple answer is that it is both, and the push/pull between workers and managers is just the externalization of an inner conflict that most likely arose when it was clear that a good portion of one’s adult life was going to be spent doing someone else’s bidding.

For those who find themselves in the disengaging camp—working desperately to find new ways to not have to work so hard—there are a few basic tips for pulling this off while still collecting a paycheck:

1. Avoid office sarcasm as a defense mechanism. While laughter is good medicine, laughing at someone else’s expense or using it to mask anger has the boomerang effect of lodging negativity in one’s psyche. Not only are you unlikely to win employee of the month with this method, but you also increase the chances of being asked to take your “talents” elsewhere.
2. Don’t use “anonymous” surveys to vent your frustrations. The cathartic effect aside, in most cases those reviewing surveys know very well who is behind comments like, “We need to fire the entire management staff and institute a communal system of leadership.”
3. On days when you’ve had enough and are ready to hit Send on the resignation letter, take a deep breath and ask yourself, “Has my job changed, or have I changed?” In most cases, you will realize that it is you and that that same person is going to be showing up at a new job with the same problems.

For managers tasked with getting the most out of employees:

1. Forget trying to get employees to engage in their work, and you engage them. Don’t underestimate the power of your presence. Invest your interest in them and you will get a return that will balance out the cost of occasionally having to put aside one’s ego.
2. Rather than focusing on boosting their morale, practice not busting it. Avoid meeting for the sake of meeting, setting up win-lose scenarios, or treating them as if they were all the same. Offer praise rather than tokens of appreciation, reward positive behavior rather than negative, and foster cooperation rather than competition.
3. Measure your own engagement on a regular basis. Managers who are simply “mailing it in” seldom inspire others to go above and beyond.

There will always be a disconnect between living one’s life and earning a living. There is no need to coin more syndromes to describe the gulf between one’s work and nonwork life. The tug-of-war between managers and the managed is wired into our DNA. The human spirit craves growth, creativity, and freedom. The tension created when one’s job hinders these experiences gives rise to hobbies, leisure pursuits, second careers, early retirement, self-employment, etc. It’s the classic Zen example of the obstacle being the path and it is within one’s nature to find these paths whether we are burning out, quietly quitting, or rusting.