One Foot Out the Door

How to Combat the Psychological Recession That’s Alienating Employees and Hurting American Business

Author: Judith M. Bardwick
Pub Date: 2007
Your Price: $24.95
ISBN: 0814480586
Format: Hardcover

• Overview
• Listen to the podcast
• About the Author
• Sample Chapter
• Employee Commitment
• Customization
• Press Release
• The Psychological Recession
• Statistics
• Request an Evaluation Copy, INSTRUCTOR ONLY!

Press Release

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century: hardworking Americans overwhelmingly stopped caring about their jobs. After years of massive layoffs and countless acts of corporate callousness, people from all fields and backgrounds—but especially the young and educated—got the message: the company no longer values them. Expecting the worst to happen, they saw no reason to give any organization their all. As a result, as many as two-thirds of today’s workers are either actively looking for new jobs or merely going through the motions at their current jobs. While they still show up for work each day, in the ways that count, many have quit.

Bestselling business author, successful management consultant, and respected psychologist, Judith M. Bardwick, Ph.D., has identified this widespread state of feeling vulnerable, resentful, and fearful about work. She calls it the Psychological Recession. In ONE FOOT OUT THE DOOR: How to Combat the Psychological Recession That’s Alienating Employees and Hurting American Business (AMACOM), she reveals how this condition, marked by a dour view of the present and even bleaker view of the future, poses a serious threat to our nation’s economic health and vitality.

“When people are perceived as a cost and not a resource, when they are treated as a liability and not an asset, when no one seems to know or care that they are there, they don’t work well, and they don’t stay,” Dr. Bardwick stresses. It’s not just her opinion. She makes her case with hard numbers and hard-hitting data, drawing on university studies, government reports, Gallup polls, and an array of groundbreaking research. As she clearly demonstrates, employees’ feelings have a measurable, dramatic impact on their company’s financial outcomes. Aggravated by bad management, the Psychological Recession results in low productivity, high absenteeism, pervasive apathy, constant turnover, and a huge toll on the bottom line.

Fortunately, Dr. Bardwick goes beyond the dire diagnosis to offer hope and help for recovery. Based on what works for profitable, people-focused companies, ONE FOOT OUT THE DOOR presents a wealth of original ideas and practical strategies for nurturing employee commitment and engagement, and restoring people’s confidence and optimism. They include:

• Creating significant relationships between bosses and employees, with an emphasis on the special importance of trust, genuine communication, and reciprocal mentoring.

• Inspiring and recognizing leadership in the ranks, supported by a commitment to shaping “average” people into successful and self-assured performers.

• Humanizing the workplace and strengthening the bond with employees through customizing incentives and rewards to appeal to the priorities of diverse individuals.

• Achieving the best fit between what the organization can offer and what a worker requires or desires, starting at the hiring stage.

In the book’s final section, Dr. Bardwick broadens her scope to the precarious state of the American Dream. Acknowledging the challenges of increasing global interdependence and competition, she advocates creating a 21st-Century Safety Net, especially for the many people who will, at times, find themselves adrift in the turmoil of rapidly changing economy. Her plan focuses on reforms in three critical areas: 1. education, providing an accessible, affordable program for adult learning, along with improving and re-thinking our K-12 public school system; 2. healthcare, ensuring affordable coverage for all working Americans; 3. an increase in well-paying American jobs, achieved through a radical collaboration between employees and management.

Compelling and urgent reading for America’s business and civic leaders, ONE FOOT OUT THE DOOR has the potential to inspire a national resurgence of pride and personal fulfillment in working for a company.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Judith M. Bardwick, Ph.D., is a highly regarded writer, speaker, and management consultant. She has worked with IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, and 3M, among many clients. Prior to starting her consulting business in 1983, she was a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan, and an associate dean in the college of Literature, Science and the Arts. She currently serves as a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. Her previous books include the national bestseller, Danger in the Comfort Zone (AMACOM 1995). She makes her home in La Jolla, California.

Search the full text of this book