Workquilibrium: A Word About What Employees Really Want

Written By Brad Topliff

In boardrooms, zoom rooms, conference rooms, and bathrooms, HR leaders, consultants, executives, managers, and (of course) employees are wrestling with thoughts about what employees want. They think (or argue) about in-person vs. remote vs. everything in the giant word bucket called “hybrid.” They talk about work-life balance, engagement, connectedness, and so on. Oh, also snacks. Employers know that figuring out what employees want is the holy grail of the post-pandemic and possibly-recession world. Employee turnover costs a lot, upwards of tens of thousands or 1.5-2x salaries.

Of course, turnover was an issue before the pandemic, but with more remote work possibilities, many of today’s employees have more options. The balance of power between employee and employer took a significant pivot in the last two years toward the employee. Of course, economic forces (I’m lookin’ at you, inflation and recession) will continue the shift back and forth, but we aren’t going back to the type of lock-in we have seen in the past.

Here are some of the things that employees want, say they want, consultants say they want, and maybe they really want:

Where do we start? Where do we stop? What kind of snacks are we talking about?

I have the answer, and it is beautiful, intuitive, true, and…frustrating…

It depends.

It depends on the person, the situation, the location, the season, the day, and any number of variables that make up the chaos we call life (and work). There is no way for employers to nail down all that employees want because employees are individuals in life and at work.

We have oceans [trigger warning: extended metaphor ahead] of data but no one-size-fits-all answer. No matter how many data scientists we throw into the data ocean, they will never surface with a complete answer to what people want. Eventually, they will become statistics because diving into that ocean (or being thrown in with data bricks tied to their feet) is their job. They have good days and bad days; they might even be looking for another job with a better work-life balance. They will create an increasingly detailed, cross-referenced, demographically-indexed set of data that is extremely useful in understanding people’s attributes but less useful in modeling the human condition. So, how do we talk about this abstract concept of the human condition? We do what people have done since the beginning of language…

We make up a word.

I took the liberty of inventing one for you. You know, to save time. You’re welcome. Here it is:

If you have ever been scuba diving, you’ll understand the concept of neutral buoyancy. If you haven’t, here’s how it works…you suit up with a belt of lead around your waist, heavy steel tanks on your back, and an inflatable vest. After awkwardly jumping into the water, you let the air out of your vest until you begin to sink. While descending, you keep a hand on your controls to ensure you don’t go too fast. When you reach the target reef, rock, shipwreck, or data scientist, you add just enough air (floatation) into your vest to keep yourself from hitting the bottom. You float. Then, you move forward and enjoy the view.

You’re hired! Aka: Neutral buoyancy

Imagine a spectrum of job contentment from OMG, I love my job! all the way down to F#$% this, I quit! with My job is fine somewhere in the middle. You might also say My job…will do, …is good enough, …is ok, etc.

What people want in their job is simple: they want to stay between fine and love. They want to be “in Workquilibrium”. They want stability. They don’t want wild swings on their personal contentment spectrum. Volatility is mentally taxing. Jobs are important, so constant, sudden, or extreme perspective changes have 10 times the mental tax. Who wants to question their life choices on a weekly basis. I love it! I love it less! It’s fine. Why am I here? I’m going to quit! Maybe I’ll stay…I mean…It’s fine.

The relationship between a person and their job, is a lot like relationships between human people. Yes, we have personal relationships with managers, teammates, executives, etc., but those are only part of the relationship we have with our job. A job is special. Most people only have one job at a time. Their job may give them money to live, it takes up a lot of their time, it connects to our future, it may be long-term or short-term. A job is an amalgamation of many things: the humans we work with, the goals we were hired to achieve, the company (including its values, policies, programs, benefits, brand, trajectory), the hopes we assign to it, the compensation we get for doing it, challenges and opportunities it provides, the impact of working from home or the office. All of these (and more) are stuffed into the living, changing, amorphous blob we call our job. Like a human relationship, this one involves emotions, conflict,

Jobs: love ‘em or leave ‘em?

Does anyone really love their job? Love means something different to everyone. Some say love, it is a river. To others, love stinks, yeah yeah. Love is a battlefield. Love is blind. Love, actually, can also mean a temporary state of being like loving a vanilla latte or the latest Tom Hanks movie (A Man Called Otto, at the time of writing…loved it). So yes, people do love their jobs, but they aren’t in love with them. They can also hate their job. They can also leave their job, even though they love a lot about it.

According to a study by Culture Amp the 3 common reasons that people leave their jobs are:

  • Career growth: “I believe there are good career opportunities for me.”
  • Role expectations: “I am happy with my role relative to what was described to me.”
  • Inclusion: “I feel like I belong here.”
©Culture Amp

But, why do people stay in their jobs? Inertia.

According to researcher Vincent S. Flowers and Director of Personnel and Organization Development at Texas Instruments, Charles L. Hughes in this Harvard Business Review article waaaay back in 1973…in a magazine…made out of trees, “Employees tend to remain with a company until some force causes them to leave.”

They go on to say that, within the company, inertia is strengthened or weakened by job satisfaction (i.e. Career Growth and Role Expectations), company environment and the degree of comfort an individual employee feels within it (Culture, Values, Inclusion).

Outside the company, inertia is affected by perceived job opportunities in the current job market, and by self-imposed restrictions and personal criteria like location (which, in 2023, includes remote options).

There are also non-work factors that affect inertia, such as financial responsibilities, family ties, friendships, and community relations. Research subjects said they would never leave their companies because they were born and reared in their present locale. Others said they stayed because they could not afford to quit, or had good friends at work.

So, people don’t leave their job just because they can, they are likely missing something important or want a big change. Conversely, some people stay in their job even though they lack growth, role alignment, and/or a feeling of belonging, simply because they don’t want to leave or they don’t think they can.

The middle ground

We have people at the job satisfaction extremes, but we can ignore them for now. They are either so in love with their jobs they want to marry them or they are in the honeymoon period.  Or they are so far, or so often, below the “everything is fine” line that they heading for the door.

For Workquilibrium, we care more about the people floating around the middle. Everything is fine. But sometimes it isn’t. A work day or week or month includes many ups and downs. Buoyancy is never 100% neutral. Imagine you are fine, you are in the flow of getting things done. Boom. You get an email from finance…the people that review expenses. You miscategorized the $21.99 book (that your manager told you to buy) as a meal, and now they are holding the whole expense report until you get approval. You would rather eat the book than take time to deal with this, but you don’t get the reimbursement until you do! Now, you are out of the flow and irritated. Maybe you think that department is run by buffoons so you dash off a snarky email. Now it’s a thing. There goes the flow. That person in finance, who was “just doing their job,” is having a crap day too. Let’s all just take the day off!

Most people float high enough above the fine line to absorb small negatives without dropping below it. I hope no one is going to quit over a minor inconvenience. Most people will roll their eyes and carry on or find it absurd and laugh.  However, negative feelings can accumulate, and actions people take based on those feelings can amplify the downward impact on their (and others’) workquilibrium.

These people in the middle are the opportunity. Whether they are drifting up or down, they are most affected by what their company, coworkers, managers, HR, IT, Finance, Legal, and Executive teams do, say, provide, and take away. They can be saved, and they can be lost. The first step is to recognize that what we do to, for, and around them…even the little stuff…floats them higher or pulls them down. Sometimes, it’s both.