Are you comfortably unsatisfied?
Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash
In every company, there are both employees satisfied and dissatisfied with their professional situation. Feeling discontent is not necessarily a bad thing—it can provoke change. “Hate Something, Change Something” was the concept for a 2004 Honda ad, but it can also apply to other parts of life.
Sometimes we can’t change the company’s way of working, but we can change jobs. If we can’t change jobs, we can change our attitude toward our current job. Something needs to change, or we become an actively disengaged professional.
Actively disengaged professionals are not committed to the company’s performance. But, more than that, they are the kind of professionals that discourage others who are committed.
Last year, Gallup Poll introduced research called “State of the American Workplace.” It showed that, in U.S., 51% of employees are disengaged and 16% are actively disengaged. Only 33% are engaged. The results also provided suggestions about how companies can change this scenario by offering better opportunities.
During my entire career, I have been an employee. I’ve changed jobs many times, so my POV is not from an owner’s perspective, but from someone who has always reported to a boss, even when I have been a boss myself. There is something that we have full responsibility over—the management of our career—and we can’t delegate this to anyone.
Everyone that works as an employee knows that accepting a job offer means that both parties found an agreement that benefits employer and employee. It’s also true that many factors can change a job situation. The leadership changes, the promotion doesn’t happen, the raise doesn’t come. When a situation like that happens, two options appear: look for another job or keep the current one.
Keeping the current job brings three more options: change the current situation with a new strategy and attitude, become uncommitted and work in autopilot, or become resentful and poison the work environment.
The amount of job options is critical to any decision. But the choice to become an actively disengaged professional is not as easy to justify. It’s like finding someone or something to blame, and not taking responsibility from that point on. The result of this action would definitely be a worse professional. After awhile, no one would be able to say which came first: the company’s negligence with the employee or the employee’s negligence with the company.
Another research study, called “Actively Disengaged & Staying,” by Aon Hewitt, explains why disengaged professionals are more likely to stay with a company. One of the main reasons why these professionals don’t search for a new job is because they have a better salary than average, which makes them a prisoner of the situation. “Workplace Prisoners” is what these professionals are called in the research. It’s also proven that this situation damages not only the company’s business but also the employee’s life, provoking anxiety crises and aggression. In a situation like that, money is the boss.
It’s difficult to predict what will happen to us professionally. That’s why it’s so important build good relationships at work.
We need to be aware of our level of discontentment, which is normal in many cases. But, if it becomes chronic, it’s a signal that some change needs to happen.
After all, even dissatisfaction can become comfortable.
(this article was published in Portuguese here)