10/10/2024
More and more people are coming to the conclusion that work is a waste of their time!
And businesses who respond to their employees deepening yearning for meaning, are those who over the next 5 years, will thrive.
Work is a social construct. Homosapiens only ventured into ‘work’ around 7.5k years ago. Considering that our species is thought to be around 200k years old, it’s obvious that work isn’t necessarily what we are born to do.
Work arose from our desire to settle in one place. To do that, we had to til the land. Enter the agricultural revolution. Then of course, the Industrial Revolution, and now, the digital revolution 🤷♀️
What homosapiens do seem to be made for, is sharing stories and narratives. No other species of homo had managed to do that. Or so we believe from the evidence so far unearthed.
But work? It’s optional, which is why each human has a different, rather than a standard, tolerance. There isn’t a universal principle that governs just how much work a person can tolerate, but what does appear to make a difference, is the meaning and purpose a human makes of the work.
As more and more people are opting out of the workplace, it’s clear that meaning and purpose is going through its own cultural revolution. It’s being shaped and being shifted at an extraordinary speed and is I suspect, behind the recruitment crisis, not to mention the ‘mental health crisis’, which is in fact, an existential crisis.
Personally, I feel that becoming a workplace of choice, is not an option but a necessity if you don’t want your workforce to feel that work is a waste of their time.
With more and more humans waking up to the fact that they can find meaning and purpose in other ways, our workplaces have to evolve in order to provide an environment and work, where meaning and purpose can be cultivated ❤️
Because business owners are so passionate about what they do, it’s easy to believe their employees will be just as passionate, but in reality, this doesn’t always translate. Each employee though, really would love to be inspired, feel motivated and would love to be busy doing something that matters to them. We believe there are reasons to be hopeful and we love helping businesses get this right.
It was really good to share insights with businesses today at Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce business expo, ‘Let’s Do Business’ and to hear some success stories from people who are running their businesses and managing work and employees as best they can ❤️