What Workers Want (and Need)

Ten years ago, I was working as the CMO of a technology company. This was what I spent most of my life working toward up until this point. Being in the C-suite was what I was supposed to do. It’s what I thought I wanted to do.

But in reality, the role, and particularly the environment, weren’t a fit for me at all. I was a mom of two young children. And like many working moms, I felt tremendous stress from trying to juggle my professional and personal lives. You just feel like you’re being pulled in so many different directions, but you’re not actually able to devote the amount of energy you want to in each place.

Achieving this milestone - what I had originally deemed as a marker of success - in reality didn’t feel like success. I needed to make a change, for my family, for my life, and for my own health.

And over the next ten years, and especially over the last two years, I’ve seen thousands and thousands of people come to this same realization: what I want and need isn’t being served by the organization I work for or the role I’m in now.

As I listened to podcasts, read studies, and talked to the upcoming generation of leaders, I heard the same things over and over again. People were no longer focused solely on money, title and power. I increasingly started to hear people talking about purpose, passion, and freedom. Right before my eyes, people were shifting from a ‘live to work’ mindset to a ‘work to live’ mindset. Work isn’t just about money anymore, it’s about meaning.

I became obsessed with studying how others were feeling and what they truly wanted as people. I wanted to understand the “business of work” — the who, what, when, where, and why that makes people and the companies they work for thrive or fail. What holds people back? What gets people stuck? And what does it take to create positive momentum?

The Human Side of Work 

I’ve always been intrigued by what makes people and the companies they work for thrive. Getting to the root cause of why is something that I have been doing for all of my professional life.

And since companies are made up of people, what is the relationship between a person’s potential and a company’s potential? I guess I was trying to understand that for myself as well. 

Yet many of the studies on workforce needs were about getting the perspectives of company ‘employees’ not as ‘people’ in general. With the continued growth of the independent workforce and creator economy boom, I saw a future workforce where people wanted to build a career that fit them best and not necessarily have it be defined by who they work for. 

So that begged the question, what do individuals want and need to be successful? How are we now defining success and how will that change over time? 

These fundamental questions are what drove me to conduct original research because I was on a journey to learn about how I was changing myself. 

Success = Progress

Success is the journey, not the destination.

This is the realization I came to as I studied the business of work.

When I heard people talk about pursuing these goals of happiness, fulfillment, service to others, and meaning, they were talking about the progress they were making — they were interested in doing a little better than yesterday, not hitting a hard-and-fast milestone. 

Our career goals are not one-dimensional; they are multifaceted and intertwined with our life goals. I could feel this tension ten years ago and people are still feeling it today — 62% of U.S. workers agree that work and career are integrated into their personal lives, according to the latest findings in our second annual State of Work and Career Success study.

As I said in January: the future of work is human.

Understanding the Target Audience: People

We are now shifting away from a work environment where workers are seen as an easily replaceable resource. And as such, an organization’s sole focus has to shift away from creating as much productivity and efficiency as possible.

Employees aren’t commodities. They are people. And if organizations want to thrive, they need to understand their employees as people. Leaders need to get back to the basics to understand their peoples’ needs and what drives them.

I started the State of Career and Work Success survey in 2020 because I didn’t see a lot of answers to these questions. What does it take to be successful in the new world of work? What holds us back as individuals (not employees) from reaching our goals? And how does this translate to organizational success?

We just got the results back from our second annual survey, conducted near the end of 2021, and it’s a fascinating snapshot of the current state of work — and I think, when you consider these responses were coming in at the peak of The Great Reshuffle, we can see that these last two years have been a tipping point for a lot of people.

I’m excited to announce that the State of Work and Career Success 2021 will be available next week.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn as part of Connie Steele’s monthly newsletter, The Human Side of Work. You can find the original article and subscribe to the newsletter at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-workers-want-need-connie-wang-steele.