Happy Thursday, everyone. I'm Frank Richardson, an organisational psychologist observing the workplace with curiosity and care. Each week, I share insights to help HR leaders better understand the people behind the processes and build cultures where both individuals and organisations can thrive.
This Week in Workplace Whiplash 🌀
A quick snapshot of work right now, where expectations are shifting faster than anyone’s quite keeping up with:
🚀 Musk is personally hiring at SpaceX
Elon Musk says he’ll personally review applications for SpaceX’s new AI division, asking candidates for three bullet points proving exceptional ability. It might look like HR being sidelined, but some leaders see it differently: a founder leaning in at a moment where talent, timing, and attention all matter.
👉HCA Mag📉 A labour shortage… and the wrong jobs filled
A major workforce shift is coming, driven by retirements, lower birth rates, and reduced immigration. The twist is that shortages are expected in sectors like healthcare and construction, while AI reshapes white-collar roles many graduates are still targeting.
👉HR Dive🌿 Cannabis ban extends beyond work hours
A Canadian ruling has upheld a full cannabis ban for flight crew, including off-duty use, prioritising safety over personal freedom. With no reliable way to measure impairment, the case highlights a growing tension between legal rights and workplace risk.
👉HCA Mag
And to today’s main topic: what happens when people become more selective about being the one who does more.
Ten years ago, being busy was something to be proud of. It meant you were needed, in demand, doing something that mattered.
But recently? It’s had one of the worst rebrands in workplace history.
The person who stays late, volunteers first, fixes the mess, and quietly keeps everything running used to be seen as dependable. Increasingly, they’re seen as someone with bad boundaries.
And it’s not hard to see why. We’ve spent years watching layoffs hit high performers, restructures wipe out loyalty, and organisations talk about work as transactional while still expecting emotional investment.
At the same time, career culture online has shifted. Terms like “quiet quitting” and “bare minimum Mondays” have taken off because they reflect something real: people are no longer convinced that going above and beyond actually changes anything.
There’s now an awareness that being too hardworking can actually make you vulnerable. Vulnerable to burnout, to exploitation, or to becoming the person everyone relies on while quietly wondering why nobody else seems as stretched.
Which raises a slightly uncomfortable question: what happens when being the most reliable person in the room stops feeling like a good deal?
💼 At work, which one are you most often?
🤝 In partnership with Mode Mobile
No, it's not Nvidia… It's Mode Mobile, 2023’s fastest-growing software company according to Deloitte.
Their EarnPhone has helped users earn and save over $1B, driving $115M+ in revenue and an eye-popping 32,481% revenue growth. And having secured partnerships with Walmart and Best Buy, Mode’s not stopping there…
Like Uber turned vehicles into income-generating assets, Mode is turning smartphones into an easy passive income source. The difference is, investors like you still have a chance to invest in Mode’s pre-IPO offering at $0.50/share.
They’ve just been granted the stock ticker $MODE by the Nasdaq and over 59,000 investors participated in their previous rounds.
🧠 The behavioural science lens
What looks like a drop in effort is actually a shift in how effort is perceived, rewarded, and socially interpreted at work:
People copy what gets rewarded, but also what gets socially protected: For years, extra effort hasn’t reliably led to better outcomes, while overworking has started to carry a bit of a stigma. Behaviour spreads socially, and employees learn quickly which identities feel psychologically safe to adopt. In many workplaces now, emotional distance feels safer than visible devotion. Research on quiet quitting consistently points to burnout, distrust, and poor organisational conditions as major drivers of disengagement.
Effort has become associated with exploitation risk: A lot of employees no longer believe extra work reliably leads to security, progression, or recognition. Instead, discretionary effort can feel like opening the door to permanently increased expectations. That’s part of why trends like “resenteeism” resonate so strongly. In many teams, competence doesn’t just get rewarded, it gets quietly loaded with more work.
Younger workers still have ambition, but they’re redirecting it: One of the biggest misconceptions is that younger employees don’t care about success. Many absolutely do. They’re just increasingly investing effort into things that feel portable and self-owned: side hustles, personal brands, freelance work, and skill-building outside traditional organisational loyalty. Axios recently described Gen Z as the first true “side hustle generation.”
Visible struggle still functions as a social signal: Workplaces still tend to trust effort they can see. The person answering emails at midnight often appears more committed than the colleague quietly automating their workload. And ironically, the more efficient you are, the easier it is to look like you’re doing less.
This is ultimately a trust problem: A lot of newer workplace behaviours are adaptive responses to uncertainty. When people stop believing institutions will protect or reward loyalty long-term, they become more protective of their energy and identity. Even articles framing Gen Z as disengaged often describe workers trying to avoid burnout and instability, not effort altogether.
🚀 What this means for leaders
If you want more effort, you have to make it feel like a good deal again:
Treat reliability as something to protect, not just depend on: Every team has a few people who quietly hold everything together. The problem is, the more reliable they are, the easier it is to keep leaning on them without noticing the load building. Eventually, what looked like “high performance” just becomes quiet overextension, and everyone else has been watching that play out.
Make sure effort leads somewhere visible and meaningful: People are much less willing to “just help out” indefinitely without a clear sense of what it unlocks. If going above and beyond leads to better work, faster progression, or real influence, say that clearly and follow through. If it doesn’t, people will still do good work, just within much tighter boundaries.
Stop rewarding competence with more of the same work: In a lot of teams, the most capable person becomes the default solution to every problem. It’s efficient in the short term, but over time it teaches everyone else that being good at your job simply increases your workload. Once that pattern is visible, people don’t stop being capable, they just become more selective about when they show it.
💬 Final thoughts
I don’t think people have become less ambitious, I think they’ve just become more selective about where that ambition goes.
For a long time, workplaces relied on the people who quietly did more than their share, often without much protection from what that cost them. What’s changing now is the tolerance for doing it without clarity, recognition, or return.
And after a while, being the reliable one stops feeling admirable and starts feeling like a setup.
How's the depth of today's edition?
If any of these land differently read together, I'd genuinely love to hear it. Hit reply.
Frank
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✢ A Note From Mode Mobile
Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation A+ Offering.
Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur.
The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period.
Pro forma revenue and EBITDA, includes full year numbers of the businesses acquired throughout 2025.
