The disinterested employee

Employees are scared. Some are angry . More worrying is that a great deal more (the silent working minority) are just downright disinterested, because we as employers have failed them by not recognising their emerging needs and doing something about it. The danger signals are there if you look. This is the beginning of a code red alert. HR has to get the news of this workplace malaise on to the strategic action agenda any way it can and has to have a strong, supportive plan of how to re-engage the workforce. It can't do it by itself.

In the research for this book I was unable to find a single manager who thought trust would return. The best I could get out of anyone was the thought that creating credibility would do just fine. That will certainly work for me. Employees that believe in the credibility of their chosen workplace and a business organisation that fully respects their skills and their contribution. I don't think we can ask much more than that.

In the next chapter we will examine in more detail just where it all went wrong and why, as the wheels came off, most of us stood by the roadside and watched the car crash.