The Shift from a “Departure Organization” to a “Destination Workplace”
Discover how meaningful work, great managers, and outcome-based leadership create a more committed workforce.
By Andrea Nemeth
Between supply chain adjustments, rapid advancements in warehouse automation, and an evolving multi-generational labor market, operational realities have rarely felt more complex than they do today. Ask any owner or manager what keeps them up at night, and the answer is almost always finding, hiring, and keeping great people.
From forklift operators and warehouse dispatchers to highly skilled road technicians, the talent squeeze is real. For years, the popular narrative has been, “No one wants to work anymore.” But according to Joe Mull, author of Employalty: How to Ignite Commitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work and a keynote speaker at the recent MHEDA convention, that narrative is completely wrong.
“That exact phrase, ‘no one wants to work anymore,’ has actually shown up in North American newspapers every single year, going back 120 years,” Mull reveals. “It’s the single most persistent generational trope about work in human history.”
The truth, Mull argues, isn’t that people have grown lazy. Instead, we are living through a massive, long-term recalibration of how work fits into human life—a shift that began well before the pandemic, tracing all the way back to the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession. Workers aren’t dropping out of the labor force; they are actively rejecting jobs that threaten their quality of life and are switching to employers who offer an upgrade.
To win this war for talent, employers must abandon outdated, transactional mindsets and build what Mull calls a “Destination Workplace.” The secret lies in a concept he coined: Employalty.
What is Employalty?
While the word looks like a simple blend of employee and loyalty, the true definition is a portmanteau of “employer loyalty” and “humanity.”
“We define it as the commitment that an employer makes to a more humane employee experience, because that’s what activates commitment at work,” says Mull. “Extraordinary results from people in the workplace come from treating them extraordinarily well. If working for you positively impacts what matters most to your people, you’ve cracked the code.”
Mull’s team analyzed more than 200 studies on why people quit, why they take new jobs, and what psychological factors activate genuine employee engagement. They discovered that employee commitment consistently appears when workers enjoy three distinct factors: an Ideal Job, doing Meaningful Work, for a Great Boss.
For material handling leaders, these three factors serve as a scorecard to evaluate where their business stands and where it might be leaking talent.
- The Three Pillars of the Employalty Scorecard
- The Ideal Job: Compensation, Workload, and Flexibility
- The “Ideal Job” represents what an employee receives in exchange for their labor. It is anchored by three critical dimensions: compensation, workload, and flexibility.
In the material handling sector, many businesses report that they have hit a ceiling on wages. There is a limit to how high base compensation can go before it disrupts business viability. Mull’s advice to companies facing a compensation ceiling is to compete fiercely on the other elements of the employee experience.
“If you can’t offer more compensation, what else can you get right?” Mull says. “Ask yourself: What would make this place the very best place to be a forklift operator or a technician?”
If employees at competing facilities are routinely grinding through 50-to-60-hour weeks, an employer that can cap at 40 hours—protecting family and personal time—gains a massive competitive advantage. Similarly, finding creative ways to introduce flexibility in scheduling, even in localized, shift-heavy warehouse or shop environments, can dramatically improve retention.
Meaningful Work: Purpose, Strengths, and Belonging
Meaningful work is driven by purpose, leveraging an individual’s strengths, and fostering a deep sense of belonging. Employees want to know that what they do matters.
In material handling, the sense of purpose is naturally embedded in the work yet often goes unarticulated. Employees don’t just repair trucks or move pallets; they keep the global supply chain moving, ensure food gets to grocery shelves, and help local businesses survive. Leaders must consistently connect day-to-day tasks back to this greater impact. Furthermore, building a workplace where every individual feels an authentic sense of belonging ensures they lock in emotional commitment to the team.
A Great Boss: Trust, Coaching, and Advocacy
“People don’t leave their jobs, they leave their managers” is a cliché, but Mull’s research elevates it to a scientific truth. To earn the title of a Great Boss, managers must shift away from outdated command-and-control tactics and lean heavily into trust, coaching, and advocacy.
Mull emphasizes that trust is a powerful driver of commitment, but many businesses accidentally destroy it out of fear.
“For years, we have designed systems, policies, and practices in the workplace to prevent the rare bad apple, and then we impose those restrictive rules on a largely ethical workforce,” Mull says.
Micromanaging remote staff or over-policing shop technicians signals a trust deficit, which prompts top performers to look for the exit.
Moving the Needle: Outputs Over Inputs
To combat this trust deficit—especially in a hybrid or flexible work environment—Mull urges material handling executives to change how they measure employee performance.
Traditionally, managers have measured performance through inputs: the number of hours clocked, faces visible at desks, or rigid steps executed in a legacy process. In the modern workforce, success must be measured through outputs.
“If I have a salesperson, and they have revenue targets or new contract goals, and they accomplish those goals effectively, what do I care if it takes them 15 hours a week instead of 40?” Mull says. “If you clearly define the results people are expected to produce, you don’t have to spend your day looking over their shoulders to see if they are typing. Define the outcomes, communicate expectations clearly, and give them the autonomy to deliver.”
Coaching vs. Feedback: The Leadership Differentiator
Becoming a Great Boss—or what Mull calls a Boss Hero—requires mastering two distinct types of conversations: feedback and coaching. Many managers use these terms interchangeably, but they require entirely different skill sets.
Feedback is telling. It is the act of describing specific behavior because you either want to affirm it or change it. Mull warns against using vague, subjective descriptors such as, “You were negative in that meeting.” Instead, a Boss Hero provides specific behavioral feedback: “When those project ideas were shared, you dismissed them at the table as a waste of time.” Specificity gives the employee a clear path to adjust.
Coaching is asking. Coaching is not about giving advice or dictating solutions; it is about helping employees sort through what they think and feel to determine their own next steps.
For example, when an intermediate service technician approaches a manager asking exactly how to handle a complicated client issue, the frantic, busy manager’s instinct is to simply blurt out the answer. A coaching leader, however, pauses and asks, “What options do you see here? What does your gut tell you the first step should be?”
“This isn’t playing gotcha,” Mull emphasizes. “It’s a teachable moment where you treat the employee as capable, which in turn makes them feel capable. That builds confidence, autonomy, and long-term loyalty.”
Bridging the Generational Gap with Patience and Mentoring
The material handling industry currently relies on a highly complex, multi-generational workforce, stretching from Baby Boomers to Gen Z. It’s common to hear older managers express frustration with younger workers who aggressively demand rapid promotions, higher pay, and strict work-life balance.
Mull advises leaders to look past the surface complaints and examine the underlying economic realities. Due to staggering shifts in macroeconomic conditions, the youngest generation enters the workforce spending nearly 40% of their take-home pay simply on housing costs—nearly double what Gen X or Boomers paid decades ago.
“When our youngest workers ask for raises quickly or demand higher paychecks coming in the door, it’s not because they are greedy, entitled, or selfish,” Mull explains. “It’s survival.”
Additionally, because of pandemic-related disruptions during their formative years, many younger workers missed out on traditional first jobs, internships, and entry-level collaborative experiences. They may arrive with visible deficits in communication or professional teamwork habits.
“They don’t need our condemnation; they need our patience and our mentoring,” says Mull. “And what does nobody feel like they have time for anymore? Patience and mentoring. But the employers that intentionally invest that time are the ones that will successfully build the next generation of loyal technicians and operators.”
The Next Step for Material Handling Leaders
Transitioning from a departure organization to a destination workplace is not a one-time project; it is an ongoing operational commitment. Mull recommends that leaders start by opening up real channels of communication with their staff. Whether through formal focus groups, anonymous pulse surveys, or simple stay-interviews, leaders must gather data on where their scorecard currently stands.
Above all, it requires a personal mindset shift for every executive and manager in the building.
“You have to embrace the definition that your job as a leader is to come to work and create the conditions for your people to be at their best,” Mull concludes. “Figure out what those conditions are, and then fight like crazy to create them for your team every single day.”
Joe Mull is the author of three books including No More Team Drama and Employalty: How to Ignite Commitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work. He is the founder of the BossBetter Leadership Academy. Joe has taught leadership courses at two major universities and previously managed training at one of the largest healthcare systems in the U.S.
ARTICLE TAKEAWAYS
- People do want to work! Workers aren’t dropping out of the labor force; they are upgrading to jobs and employers that improve quality of life.
- Employers can build the committed workforce that they need. Employee commitment consistently appears when workers enjoy three distinct factors: an Ideal Job, doing Meaningful Work, for a Great Boss.
- Measure outputs instead of inputs. Define the results your people are expected to produce (the outputs), communicate expectations clearly, and give them the autonomy to deliver.
