What Workers Want: Insights from the 2022 State of Work and Career Success Study - with Gina Woodall and Scott Vanderbilt

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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?

Making this podcast is part of that. Writing “Building the Business of You” was part of that. But I want my work in the Future of Work space to be built on a foundation of data — and that’s why I started the State of Work and Career Success two years ago.

We just launched the second annual report, titled What Workers Want, last week. And today, I’m talking to two people who partnered with us to make this possible, Gina Woodall and Scott Vanderbilt.

Validating Experiences with Data

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, the environment, they 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 — 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.

Scott and Gina fall into this group as well; they don’t have traditional career paths and they’ve ensured flexibility was part of their daily life. As the President of Rockbridge Associates, Gina has also seen the value of empowering everyone on her team to work how and when they work best. And it was encouraging that they were just as excited by the results we got from this year’s survey.

As Gina says, “For the first time, we had a chance to dive really deeply into understanding American workers in terms of how they achieve personal career success and what they're doing to reach it.”

Purpose over Profit

Success today is more than about money. What we want, what we need, is spending time with those we love, being fulfilled, and getting the most out of life. And the work we do and the career we have are connected to all of that.

As Gina shared, being successful in your job leads to being successful in your life. But unfortunately, many of us don’t feel that way. However, there is something that we can do about it and specifically prioritize so that we can create the traction we are looking for. And that involves having a career plan and recruiting the support system who can get us there.

Getting clarity around what it is you want to do is so important to determine what path to take next. It enables you to determine those people who align to what you will need today and tomorrow.

For organizations, if you have workers who feel successful, they are more likely to be committed to the organization. They’ll stay and even recommend you to others because they’ll be satisfied with the progress they are making towards their career and life goals.

Given that many believe work and career are integrated into their personal life, as leaders you now have to think about how the values of your organization align to the personal values of your workers. Let’s not forget your employees, your workforce is made up of people. And as people, our attitudes, beliefs, motivations have been changing.

And over the next several weeks and months I'll be sharing new insights and learnings from the research to shed light on what those are and the implications to what we want and need for both ourselves and for the organizations we work for. Because all of us want to reach our full growth potential.

Key Takeaways:

People want work to fit into their lives, not the other way around. This is the shift from a ‘live to work’ mindset to a ‘work to live’ mindset.
Paycheck is always a factor, but it’s not the only priority that matters and it is not as strongly correlated with feeling successful. Doing meaningful work working on things you are passionate about need to be part of the equation, as well as strategic planning.
Workers who feel successful in reaching their career and life goals are more likely to be committed to your organization, stay with your organization, and recommend it to others — and the inverse is true as well.
Unfortunately, our research revealed that most U.S. workers don’t feel very successful: a C- on average.
So it’s critical that organizations offer holistic support to help people reach their career potential if they want not only the best work possible but to build a strong foundation that will support the business in the long term.