The Gallup organization advised the corporate world last month to take steps to support employees—especially younger generations—who increasingly report “disengagement” from the workplace.
That’s not news to leaders in America’s religious groups, who have bemoaned the rise of the “nones”—those who no longer affiliate with or participate in any organized faith.
Any comparisons between trends in the secular and spiritual realms should stir our skepticism, but it couldn’t hurt to draw a Venn diagram to find intersections where disconnection reigns. Experience tells us there’s a large common ground, with trends ranging from societal atomization and isolated melancholy to “quiet quitting” and the “gig economy.”
The Worker Mindset in the Gig Economy
We can sum up Gallup’s announcement this way: Employers are finding that workers in their 20s and 30s are more emotionally detached from their organizations. In lieu of a sense of development and purpose, this “gig-worker mindset,” especially noteworthy since the pandemic, causes eyes to wander in search of new job opportunities and greater flexibility.
Before Covid struck, members of the Baby Boom generation (born 1946-1964) became more engaged in their jobs in 2023 compared with early 2020. But Generation X, already deemed a peer group of individualists (born 1965-1979), slipped deeper into low engagement numbers.
According to Gallup, " engagement has plummeted among Millennials (born 1980-1996), “engagement has plummeted,” especially in the older half of that group. And Generation Z (born 1997-2012) also showed declines from pre-pandemic levels.
The polling and business-advisory company drew these findings from questions related to “twelve elements of employee engagement that measure the extent to which employees have their basic needs at work met, feel supported and valued, receive clear expectations and feedback, and have opportunities to learn and grow.”
The elements tallied by Gallup influence whether employees see a consequential future for themselves where they currently work.
“Across all generations,” Gallup added, “the percent of workers who know what is expected of them at work has declined by four or more points since March 2020.” The Feb. 27 news release noted employee complaints about “a widespread lack of clarity and alignment in the post-pandemic workplace.”
The company offered this advice to corporate leaders and managers:
- “Communicate a clear, compelling vision of the organization’s purpose, values, goals, and the type of culture that supports these aspirations.”
- Managers themselves are getting burned out, so help them simplify their roles. The company must provide clear goals and accountability, and all employees should be offered “a meaningful conversation” every week to discuss how their work “contributes to the bigger picture.”
- Companies must recognize workers’ need for “personalized development” and mentoring aligned to each individual’s strengths and goals. They need to build a structure of connection, collaboration, and trust, inviting everyone’s input.
- Special attention is needed when employees are on “hybrid” schedules, working both in the office and at home. People will have different mixes that work best for them, but Gallup saw real value in face-to-face encounters at the office site.
Can these lessons for the corporate “C-Suite” suggest any guidance in other realms, such as how to get students more engaged in classrooms, athletes more engaged in their teams, or the faithful more engaged in their faith? What about getting people more engaged in personhood?
One big concern springs from a factor Gallup leaves out because of its limited audience.
The Gig Economy: This Wasn’t in the Strategic Plan
Engagement is essentially a relationship, imposing responsibilities not only on a company but also on its workers. Workers must be open to observing and utilizing their employers’ offers of connection to purpose, camaraderie, support, and growth.
Alas, social connectedness makes many people uncomfortable unless they can control it. Spontaneous, candid conversations that imply a commitment to truth and growth can seem downright scary if they challenge the safe spaces of expressive individualism.
The two-way street of relationship also carries other requirements. The employee needs a structure of values and priorities that generates important, satisfying goals with which an employer is a good fit.
Neither party needs to be focused on a grand plan to “save the world.” However, the goals should at least be benevolent and constructive toward a common good or greater good. This makes pursuing and achieving goals a source of spiritual energy, which, when spread, can do wonders for a workplace.
If the only shared purpose is to make money—and perhaps the company is largely a get-rich-quick project ignoring communitarian trust—we can’t expect commitment from either the boss or the bossed. Both will inevitably look for bigger salaries or show no zeal for the same salary.
Even if the job is a stellar vocation, or at least it leaves human dignity unscathed, too many jobs today lack the concreteness of colleagues and customers. The impacts and rewards of work well done, especially in cyberspace, can become abstract amid technological processes that reward productivity alone.
Numerous advertisements sell apps promising us push-button simplicity in buying a car, getting a mortgage, or making appointments with various experts. They portray an economy of anonymous persons, knee-jerk transactions, commoditized talents, and the triumph of marketing over substance.
Such an economy, where the convenience of a smartphone overrides our intuition that excellence requires relationships, is ripe for artificial intelligence's takeover.
Hiring, firing, and messaging based on metrics of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) also raise the risk of manipulating people based on superficial factors.
It may be high time for a company to recruit a Black or Hispanic team member, but in some cases, new employees will feel their uniqueness isn’t valued, their path is on automatic pilot, or their reputation for quality is overshadowed. Also, managers might wonder, “Should I treat this teammate like everyone else or differently?”
The Nones and Quiet Quitters of the Gig Economy
Today’s debates about higher education and expertise could yield new standards for engagement. Likewise, economic policies boosting jobs that prize hands-on craftsmanship might spark exactly the workplace fulfillment that has become elusive in this society.
We can expect that certain academic courses focused on one’s ideas and perspectives rather than creative additions to our shared reality will generate excitement that is suited only to particular kinds of organizations. Professors should spread Oliver Wendel Holmes’s guidance to “think things, not words,”
Wise, diligent students will also avoid too much attachment to manipulated words and disenchanting worldviews. These can sow fruitless seeds that are eaten by birds, starved of fertile soil, or dried up by scorched-earth conditions. (Matthew 13)
Future job-seekers must start in their classrooms and families to decide where their abilities and aspirations reside. Meanwhile, employers should work with teachers and colleges to let students sample the kinds of experiences that will connect them emotionally to important skills.
America has a shortage of graduates ready for high-tech and entrepreneurial trades partly because some young people have not been encouraged to discover their appeal. Their families and communities must cultivate an ethos of contribution and appreciation for others’ hard work.
These observations bring us back to the Venn diagram—to its intersection of interests, which displays the breadth and depth of our culture’s need for personal engagement. Gallup’s twelve tests for connectedness hold true for many organizations and areas of endeavor because they relate to caring, purposeful interactions that yield human happiness.
Let’s look briefly at the survey’s relevance to religion because the problem with disengagement in our churches is obvious and tragic. It is sometimes represented by “nones” who drop their affiliations, “quiet quitters” who vacate the pews, fall short in their zeal, or dismiss chances to learn and grow, and sometimes by those who slip away to graze at the Church’s cafeteria section.
We’re Trying, But So Is the World
Gallup could customize its message for each faith group. But the advisors probably would tell Catholics that the Pope, our bishops, and our priests represent the managerial class tasked with renewal.
How are they doing? God will be their judge and all of ours.
Pope Francis, especially with his call for “synodality,” is making noteworthy efforts to show young people the Church supports them and hears their concerns. Too many youths have added synodality to the list of inside-baseball terms discussed only by their pious grandparents.
Bishops aim to maintain a structure of development and purpose—places where everyone can learn and grow and see that the universal Church is present for us in our region. They promise to offer a life-sustaining future for us and our children, albeit one that seems pared back and less dynamic than competing influencers.
Pastors, often overworked and advanced in age, do the noble and nearly impossible job of keeping the “office” open, providing life-changing sacraments and caring conversations tailored to each person’s needs on demand.
They are managing the equivalent of a “hybrid workplace,” where many people prefer remote worship (in more ways than one). Our screens and Sunday sports appear to matter more than the Lord of heaven and earth.
Like their corporate counterparts, Catholic leaders know how much people would benefit from a flesh-and-blood presence in the church's daily life (in more ways than one). They serve as patient role models, offering what they can.
Parishioners forget how much their presence and energy would mean to their priests. Gallup recognized that managers are easily burned out if their missionary zeal is greeted with distracted resistance.
This returns to the point that Gallup ignores: the two-way street of engagement. The Church has worked hard to sow seeds of profound appreciation for Jesus Christ's transformative legacy. Our ministers, teachers, and libraries can let laypeople “know what is expected of them” and recall our millennia of seeking “clarity and alignment,” to quote Gallup.
Dismissal of this legacy is the bad news, but God’s continuing presence as an omnipresent source of abundant grace and aid is the Good News. A church’s managerial class has a resource for up-close problem-solving that the executives at a corporate headquarters could never provide.
Indeed, the shepherds and the sheep need to remember that most of the mission is not theirs. EWTN commentator Father Mitch Pacwa describes his advantage over the business world by quipping, “God is in charge of management; I just work in sales.”
Merging Gallup with Pew Research in Relation to the Gig Economy
In today’s culture, where nobody seems to manage anything very well, the assurance that the Lord of pure wisdom, truth, and love is in charge should make our hearts leap. This isn’t a get-out-of-work-free pass, however, because it demands accountability equal to everyone's gifts.
Congratulations to Gallup for offering insights that can assist the C-Suite. But the Church suite, which means all of us—in Catholicism and other religions with such motivations—should be shouting out to this chaotic world about a fulfilling engagement that lifts us up together. The Latin religio means bond or connectedness.
As Galatians 3:28 says, for all who have clothed themselves with Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male or female”. . . and neither the burnt-out manager nor disenchanted gig-worker.
This frees us from weekly discussions of DEI metrics. However, we are wise to seek daily, personalized conversations and interactions with Jesus, along with his communion of brothers and sisters.
Why? For one thing, we open our arms to the Kingdom of God, where diversity, equality, and inclusion are not a checklist but a lifestyle of mercy, justice, and dignity. We give ourselves the “flexibility” to hope and pray for possibilities far beyond the freedom to drive for Uber.
In addition, our church involvement informs and inspires us, meeting the Gallup requirement that our regular encounters offer “a meaningful conversation” about how our work “contributes to the bigger picture.” That’s one big picture we’re talking about.
Catholicism replaces the piecemeal gig economy with what it calls “the economy of salvation.” According to the Catechism’s glossary, this term builds upon the Greek word for “management of a household” or “stewardship.” It “refers to God’s revelation and communication of himself to the world, in time, for the sake of the salvation of all humanity.” Gallup can’t even contemplate this benefits package.
Perhaps the baby boomer age cohort reported having increased their levels of workplace engagement because they have seen the fruits of that attitude in families, communities, other life experiences, and America’s Judeo-Christian culture. In light of their many flaws, boomers also see a deadline ahead to determine the eternal consequences of detachment.
Gallup reminds us that the “common ground” of social atomization among young people is an oxymoron we must address. Fortunately, while suffering from rampant disengagement, the Church can imagine a way out through its grander structure of identity and meaning.
We should ask Venn fans to flip their charts. The answer for the Church, and thereby the world, is not to “manage” more intersections and intersectionality (∩) but to model personal, transcendent relationships that lead to more perfect unions (∪).
