Workers

Athletes will tell you that working out is not the most important part of training. Recovery is the number one cause of athletic injuries is the lack of recovery time between training sessions.

Let me repeat this because it’s so counterintuitive—recovery is more important to athletic performance than training is. Your body needs to rest and repair between periods of exertion. By not letting each of the muscle groups rest, a person will reduce their ability to repair. Insufficient rest also slows fitness progression and increases the risk of injury.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This a physical expression of a reality that applies to your heart and soul in serving Christ as well. We could probably predict who’s going to burn out and who’s not by looking at their recovery practices. But most people don’t take their recovery seriously. They’re simply shocked and heartbroken when their soul suddenly gives out. How will you build recovery into your life? What’s your plan?

Longstanding workplace issues such as mistreatment, the normalization of toxic behavior, and a lack of accountability for workplace culture have fueled a growing trend known as revenge quitting.

This phenomenon, on the rise since the 2000s, sees employees leaving their jobs not just for better opportunities, but as a form of protest and self-preservation against unfair treatment.

When employees resign as a final act of protest against toxic workplace conditions, the impact on organizations can be significant. One of the most obvious consequences is financial loss. The abrupt departure of employees also sends a powerful message to remaining staff, potentially leading to decreased morale, trust, and engagement.

High-profile cases of revenge quitting can also damage an organization’s reputation, affecting customer relationships and investor confidence.

Finally, revenge quitting can have lasting consequences on workplace culture. If the toxic behavior that caused the resignation remains unaddressed, remaining employees may become disengaged, leading to a decline in work quality.

Research has found that when employees feel a genuine sense of belonging, they are more engaged and loyal, they produce more innovative solutions, and they are more reliable and productive.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Employees – Respect; Testimony - It is certainly permissible for a Christian to quit an incompatible job and look for other work. But let us be sure to leave an employer with a good testimony after giving proper notification of quitting (Rom. 12:18; Eph. 6:5-8; 1 Tim. 6:1-2); 2) Church ministry - Does any of this sound familiar in a church setting when people quit attending? Here are several biblical principles that might apply as antidotes: Respect and Integrity in Leadership - (Matt. 23:11; 1 Tim. 3:1-13); Accountability (Matt. 18:15-17; Acts 15:1-29); Promoting a Culture of Belonging, Harmony, and Unity (Psa. 133:1; Rom. 12:16; Eph. 4:3).

There’s nothing spooky about ghostworking. The newly coined term describes a set of behaviors meant to create a facade of productivity at the office, like walking around carrying a notebook as a prop or typing random words just to generate the sound of a clacking keyboard.

Pretending to be busy at the office is not something workers recently invented, of course, but it appears to be reaching critical mass. According to a new survey, more than half of all U.S. employees now admit to regularly ghostworking.

According to the report, the results show that 58% of employees admit to regularly pretending to work, while another 34% claim they do so from time to time. What might be most striking are some of the elaborate methods workers use to perform productivity. Apparently, 15% of U.S. employees have faked a phone call for a supervisor’s benefit, while 12% have scheduled fake meetings to pad out their calendars, and 22% have used their computer keyboards as pianos to make the music of office ambiance.

As for what these employees are actually doing, in many cases it’s hunting for other jobs. The survey shows that 92% of employees have job searched in some way while on the clock, with 55% admitting they do so regularly.

The ongoing return-to-office resurgence has left many employees feeling like they’re working inside of a fishbowl, performing for the watchful eye of employers. Employees sensing a greater need to broadcast that they’re getting work done. So ghostworking is a performance. It involves actively projecting an appearance of busyness without actually engaging in meaningful work.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Diligence; Employees; Sincerity - Scripture encourages believers to work wholeheartedly, not just for human approval, but as if working for God; 2) Hypocrisy - The act of ghostworking is a kind of hypocrisy—projecting an image that does not match reality.

Bonnie Hammer started her career in 1974 as a bottom-rung production assistant to the top of NBC Universal’s headquarters. As of 2024 she had become a Vice President. She advises younger workers to resist the lies about work, like “follow your dreams.” Instead, she shares a story about humility and hard work:

I learned my ‘workplace worth’ fresh out of graduate school when I was hired as a production assistant on a kids’ TV show in Boston. Each PA was assigned a cast member, and as the most junior employee, my cast member was Winston, an English sheepdog. My primary responsibility was to follow him around the set carrying a pooper scooper. I had two university degrees. Winston, on the other hand, was a true nepo-baby, the precious, unhouse-trained pet of one of the show’s producers. Plus, as an on-camera star, Winston out-earned me.

But while many days I felt like working for Winston was beneath me, I never showed it. I acted like I was pursuing an honors degree in pet sitting, and each poop pickup was an extra-credit opportunity. The work and the attitude paid off. When an associate producer position opened, I was promoted. I pursued a similar strategy for much of my early career: If I wanted to be a valuable asset to my colleagues and bosses, I knew I needed to add concrete value to their days by showing up, staying late and doing whatever needed to be done.

For young employees who want to feel ‘engaged’ at work, the truth is, you need to engage with your work first.

Lee So-hee, a 30-year-old office worker, used to live alone in Seoul. That changed in November when a friend gave her a rock. “If you really think of your rock as a pet, I do think it makes things a bit less lonely and more fun,” she said.

Pet rocks, a kooky and best-forgotten fad of 1970s America, are resurfacing in South Korea.

South Koreans, who endure one of the industrialized world’s longest workweeks, have a tradition of unwinding in unusual ways. They have lain in coffins for their own mock funerals, checked into prison to meditate, and gathered in a Seoul park each year for a “space-out” contest.

Pet rocks are the latest new thing. Lee, a 30-year-old researcher at a pharmaceutical company, made her pet rock a winter blanket from an old towel. It came into her life during a demanding stretch at work when she was working long hours in the lab, often late into the night.

“I’d occasionally complain to my rock about what a tiresome day I had at work,” she said. “Of course, it’s an inanimate object that can’t understand you. But it’s kind of like talking to your dog, and can feel relaxing in some ways.”

Choi Hye-jin, a 39-year-old Seoul homemaker, picked up a stuffed cloth trinket in the shape of a rock at a tourist shop next to one of South Korea’s famed rock formations. She takes pictures of it when traveling and has brought it to concerts and autograph-signing events of her favorite singer, who now recognizes her because of it, she said.

There is a reason God gave us the Sabbath rest. We need it. We were not created to work seven days a week. Yet, that is where we are headed as a culture, especially since COVID-19, and this is not a good thing.

Technology tethers us to our work through smartphones and “productivity” apps such as Slack and Teams. The majority of workers regularly check their email on their smartphones, which never leave their side, even after work hours or on vacation. The rise in remote work means work and family spheres are no longer separate, blurring the boundaries between work and home. Or as Andrew Barnes, cofounder of 4 Day Week Global, said, “We’re not working from home, we’re sleeping in the office.” This is our new world of work.

Our relationship with work is becoming increasingly unhealthy. Levels of burnout and stress are at all-time highs. Even before the pandemic, the World Health Organization called stress the “health epidemic of the 21st century.” What is a major source of that stress? Our jobs.

COVID-19 exacerbated this problem. During the pandemic, workdays became longer—in the United States, the average workday is now three hours longer; and in the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and Spain, it’s two hours longer. But more than that, we have gotten used to working outside traditional work hours.

The church and small groups can learn something from a Swedish tradition called Fika. Pronounced “fee-kah,” the Swedish culture of breaking for coffee involves a deliberate pause to provide space and time for people to connect.

In Sweden, work life has long revolved around fika, a once- or twice-a-day ritual in which colleagues put away phones, laptops, and any shoptalk to commune over coffee, pastries, or other snacks.

Swedish employees and their managers say the cultural tradition helps drive employee well-being, productivity, and innovation by clearing the mind and fostering togetherness.

Many Swedish companies build a mandatory fika into the workday, while the Embassy of Sweden in Washington holds one for staff weekly. IKEA extols the virtues of fika: “When we disconnect for a short period, our productivity increases significantly.”

“Fika is where we talk life, we talk everything but work itself,” said Micael Dahlen, professor at the Stockholm School of Economics. The ritual helps drive “trivsel,” he says, a term that means a combination of workplace enjoyment and thriving. The concept is so fundamental to Swedish workplaces that many companies in Sweden have trivsel committees.

According to Business Insider, a big turn off for Gen-Z workers is what workplace experts call “a double bind.” Jeanie Chang is an expert on mental health in the workplace, and she defines it as “giving two or more contradictory messages at the same time.”

For example, claiming to value work-life balance by insisting workers are off their computers by 6pm, while at the same time supervisors routinely send messages after hours. Or when a job advertises unlimited paid time off, but workers are routinely denied PTO requests. Chang says that many Gen-Z workers use another name to describe the practice: “corporate gaslighting.”

As a member of Generation X, Chang doesn’t exactly blame managers for their double-bind habits. She thinks that many of them had the same practices modeled for them in their younger years, and just assumed that’s how work has to be. “People my age and up didn’t talk about mental health,” said Chang. She said that many of her coworkers adopted a survivalist mindset in order to battle burnout and fatigue, but they didn’t understand what was happening since they didn’t have the same common language to describe it.

By contrast, many Gen-Z workers adopt what Chang calls “a thriving mindset.” If they perceive that the company is an impediment to their happiness, many of them will quit, even without a backup plan in place.

“At the end of the day, you can't blame those older folks because they don't know what that is. So, it's a learning curve, but all sides have to be open. No one generation is better than the next.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Business; Church Staff; Volunteer Recruitment; Volunteers - Whether managing people in an office, or working with volunteers in a church, leadership must be clear about their expectations and open about the amount of time and effort that is expected and not take advantage of workers.

Does a pay raise bring happiness? Sometimes it will, but the level of happiness is often tied to how we compare our salaries to others.

According to a story in The Wall Street Journal, people’s happiness with their pay is strongly tied to how it compares with the pay of others around them, say researchers who study compensation. Sometimes, those comparisons rankle.

Executives are more likely to leave their companies if their pay is low compared with other top bosses, according to a 2017 study in the journal Human Resource Management. Comparisons matter closer to home, too. Living in an area where people tend to make more money than you is linked to being less happy.

A 30% raise made Ryan Powell less happy at work. Powell, a 38-year-old finance director for a manufacturer in western North Carolina, received that pay bump in 2022. He had been hoping for more based on the salary information he had heard from recruiters, peers in the industry, and his M.B.A. cohort.

The initial thrill of the raise lasted about three months, he said. “The further I got into it, the more I was realizing that I was anchored to the higher number.”

In March of 2024, aviation manufacturer Boeing announced changes to their internal processes after failing a safety audit by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The audit followed a string of negative stories involving the safety of its aircrafts, including an incident in January where an Alaska Airlines flight experienced explosive decompression when an insufficiently secured door plug popped out.

The FAA reviewed 89 aspects of production at a plant in Renton, Washington, and found that the company failed at 33 of them. That amounts to a 63% success rate, which in school would normally earn students a letter grade of D.

In a memo to employees, president of Boeing’s commercial division Stan Deal said that the vast majority of failures involved employees not following approved procedures, and promised to provide opportunities for remedial learning. “We’ll be working with each employee noted with a non-compliance during the audit to ensure they fully understand the work instructions and procedures.”

Deal also acknowledged that the problems did not solely rest on the backs of production-level employees, but that many of Boeing’s procedures were confusing and changed too frequently. He said, “Our teams are working to simplify and streamline our processes and address the panel’s recommendations.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Whether in secular work or in ministry, taking hazardous shortcuts in a responsible work position, because of laziness, inexperience, or time pressure, can lead to disastrous results. It is better to speak up and take responsibility to make sure that a trust is fulfilled (1 Cor. 4:2).

Gallup once polled people in 142 countries to respond to a series of statements designed to measure employee engagement—involving matters like their job satisfaction, whether they felt their work was important, and whether they had opportunities in the workplace to learn and grow.

What the polling firm found was that engagement is the exception, not the rule: Worldwide, 13% of employees were engaged at work, while 63% were not engaged and 24% were “actively disengaged,” meaning they were unhappy and unproductive. Engagement rates were highest in the United States and Canada, and lowest in East Asia.

Gallup noted, “About one in eight workers … are psychologically committed to their jobs and likely to be making positive contributions to their organizations. The bulk of employees worldwide ... lack motivation and are less likely to invest discretionary effort in organizational goals or outcomes.”

First, there was a pop. And then a big bang. Air loudly whooshed out of the side of the airplane, which was flying at 16,000 feet with an emergency exit size gash. A cellphone, a teddy bear, and a passenger’s shirt were sucked out the hole in the cabin. Oxygen masks dropped from overhead compartments.

Passengers on Alaska Airlines flight 1282—which was enroute to Ontario, Calif., from Portland, Oregon—were fearful for their lives. The flight, however, landed back at the Portland airport less than 30 minutes after takeoff, with 171 passengers and six crew members aboard, all of them alive.

One passenger said, “We literally thought we were going to die.” Bolts needed to secure part of an Alaska Airlines jet that blew off in midair appear to have been missing when the plane left the factory.

Boeing and other industry officials increasingly believe the plane maker’s employees failed to put back the bolts when they reinstalled a 737 MAX 9 plug door after opening or removing it during production.

The scenario was based partly on an absence of markings on the Alaska door plug itself that would suggest bolts were not in place when it blew off the jet around 16,000 feet over Oregon. They also pointed to paperwork and process lapses at Boeing’s Renton, Washington factory related to the company’s work on the plug door.

In 2023 the ad agency Design Army created an entire campaign using only generative AI. In it, a world of impossible buildings, floating hats, and gigantic eyeballs announces the opening of a high-end eyewear retailer.

As Design Army cofounder Pum Lefebure explained, “in a typical project like this, we would hire models, makeup artists, and wardrobe specialists, scout and secure shoot locations, and ultimately it would take at least three months to execute.” But the budget was tight and time was short, so they turned to AI. Though there’s a touch of uncanny valley in the resulting imagery, the visuals are impressive.

Always aiming for faster output and grander scale, leaders across industries are excited about the potential for this new tech. But AI technology raises real concerns for the creatives whose original work could be replaced or copied by these tools.

Creativity is an essential part of who we are as human beings. In the creation narrative, when the first human is tasked with cultivating the Garden (Gen. 2:5–8, 15), we see that making is a God-given privilege and responsibility. It’s a calling generative AI threatens to undermine. We are robbing ourselves of this gift of toil—the creative process of ideating, developing, and producing—when we take too many shortcuts or automate our work.

As the opening lines of Genesis make clear, right after God completes the aspects of creation that he alone is capable of, he invites humankind to pick up where he left off. For example, God doesn’t create all of humanity in an instant; he makes only two humans and then tasks them with making more of themselves through bearing children and forming families.

To accomplish these tasks, God didn’t give humans his unique power to generate new things simply by speaking them into existence. He gave humans the purpose of joining in the ongoing work of creation. We see this again and again throughout the biblical story line. He tasks humankind with making things themselves (Ex. 31:1­-11; 1 Sam. 16:16–18). It is in God’s generosity that we are handed the paintbrush and invited to join the process.

Possible Preaching Angle:

God uses the trials, tedium, mistakes, victories, and lessons of life to refine us into the image of Christ. It is not done in an instant, however much we want to rush to the final result. It is through an often-lengthy process that we become who God intended us to be and our work becomes what God ordained.

Should consumers who worry about the origins of their clothing, coffee, and chocolate focus on a more spiritual item: the Bible? Chances are good that your favorite Bible was printed in China. The over-whelming majority of Bibles sold are printed there, said Mark Bertrand of Bible Design Blog. He said: “A lot of people have misgivings about that. Some of it is, ‘Oh, our Bibles are printed in Communist China.’ Others are concerned about the economic situation, about what conditions these Bibles were produced under.”

The Chinese government’s restriction of Bible distribution is also troubling, said ChinaAid’s Bob Fu. “When brothers and sisters are being persecuted and arrested for their beliefs based on the same Bible, what does it mean to purchase an exported copy that says Made in China?”

China’s only legal printer of Bibles, Amity Printing Company, published its first Bible in cooperation with the United Bible Societies in 1987. Since then, more than half of the 100 million Bibles printed every year have been printed in China (50 million in 2019), making China the world’s biggest Bible publisher.

Printing Bibles is more difficult than printing other types of books, and requires a certain amount of expertise. That’s because of the specialized printing requirements for a complex book such as the Bible. Bibles require thin paper that cannot be fed into standard printing equipment, leather covers, stitched binding, color pages and special inserts such as maps. Most printers outside China do not have the range of facilities to manufacture the same Bibles.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Maybe Westerners seeing “Made in China” on their Bibles, can be a reminder to pray for those who made these Bibles. 2) God can use any instrument he chooses to spread his Word, even unbelieving, communist China (Isa. 55:11).

Kevin Ford, a dedicated Burger King cook and cashier, received a small goody bag from management as recognition for never taking a sick day during his 20-year tenure at the restaurant.

While Ford appreciated the gesture, social media users were outraged on his behalf, believing he deserved more than a bag of treats for his unwavering commitment to work. This prompted his daughter to start a GoFundMe campaign with a modest goal of $200 to help her father visit his grandchildren in Texas.

The campaign unexpectedly gained massive support, amassing over $400,000 in donations. People resonated with Ford's story, relating it to their own family members or friends who had made sacrifices for their jobs. He said, “I think they just wanted to show my employer and other CEOs that people deserve to be congratulated, rewarded, even just acknowledged for their hard work and dedication.”

Ford, a single father with four daughters, rarely took sick days because he couldn't afford to do so, as his job didn't offer paid sick leave. Even when facing health issues, he used his vacation days to avoid missing work. While his attendance record was uncommon, Ford has much in common with workers across the restaurant and accommodation sector, who often have to choose between unpaid time off and working while sick. He said, “I'd be lying down in front of the fryers because I was in so much pain and people would tell me to go home, but I was thinking about the power bill or the water bill.”

Despite the overwhelming support, Ford advises against following his example, emphasizing that his health and family suffered due to his extreme dedication to work. With the funds raised, however, Ford now has a second chance to enjoy retirement, contribute to his grandchildren's college education, and spend quality time with his children.

That said, he plans to continue working at Burger King in his immediate future. He said, “That's also my family there. We're fun and funny. When it's not like that, then I guess I'll retire."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even when employers don't recognize the value of your service, God always rewards those who diligently serve in his name and with his principles.

In his book Adrift, Scott Galloway details how America is losing its strong middle class:

In 1965, the chiefs of America's largest 350 companies by revenue made 21 times the average compensation of their industries’ workers. In 2020, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio shot up to 351 times that of their workers. Since 1960, corporate profits have gone up 85 times; employee wages have gone up only 38 times. Between 1979 and 2013, the bottom 99% of Americans saw their wages go up about 18%. The top 1% of Americans saw their wages go up 140%.

The result is that kindergartners with good grades from poor families are less likely to graduate from high school, graduate from college, or earn a higher wage than their affluent peers with bad grades. At 38 colleges, including five of the Ivies, there are more students from the top 1% of the U.S. income scale than from the bottom 60%.

Iconic quiz show Jeopardy! faces an uncertain future due to ongoing labor strikes by two labor unions, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Sony Pictures Television, the show's producer, is exploring solutions like reusing questions to maintain broadcast continuity during the labor disputes. However, the imminent start of Season 40's production adds urgency to resolving the impasse.

Contestants set to compete in the upcoming Tournament of Champions have expressed solidarity with striking workers. Toronto's Ray Lalonde, a 13-time winner last season, declared his support on the Jeopardy! Reddit forum, vowing not to cross picket lines. More holdouts could cause a postponement to winter or spring.

Moreover, the status of hosts raises another concern—Mayim Bialik has already halted her duties until the resolution of the labor issues, while Ken Jennings faces increasing pressure to follow suit.

As Season 40's premiere approaches, the show's future hinges on negotiations between the two unions and Sony Pictures Television. Those negotiations are said to be imminent and/or ongoing. With a rich legacy and loyal fan base, the fate of Jeopardy! rests on key leaders in both camps being able to find middle ground in this dispute. And fortunately, the answer to this problem need not be stated in the form of a question.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Scripture has much to say about the rich and powerful withholding wages from the hardworking laborer. Regardless of how this particular strike is settled, there is a day coming in God’s timetable for all accounts to be settled in God’s courtroom (Jam. 5:1-6).

As the American advertising slogan goes, milk “does a body good.” But for one real estate agent, his wallet might feel differently.

Canadian real estate agent Mike Rose was slapped with a substantial fine of 20,000 Canadian dollars (approximately $15,000 USD) by the British Columbia Financial Services Authority (BCFSA), for drinking milk in an unauthorized manner. The agency deemed Rose's behavior “unbecoming" and detrimental to public confidence in the real estate industry at large.

The incident occurred on the evening of a house showing in mid-July. Homeowner Lyska Fullerton and her family had prepared the house for one set of potential buyers. Later, Rose informed the Fullerton family of another showing. Unbeknownst to them, Rose had been caught on a Ring camera during that second showing, making a series of questionable decisions.

The surveillance footage showed Rose entering the house ahead of the scheduled buyers. He opened the kitchen blinds, proceeded to the refrigerator, took out a carton of milk, and took a drink directly from it. He then put the milk back in the fridge. As the potential buyers toured the house, Rose also sat on the couch, inadvertently breaking its arm in the process.

Fullerton said her concern wasn't about the milk itself, but the lack of transparency. "He didn't even leave a note or tell us this happened,” she said. “I had to find out because of my camera, and that's just gross and plain wrong,"

In a statement to a local news outlet, Rose apologized for his actions, describing them as "very unfortunate, and very uncharacteristic." He acknowledged his mistake and vowed not to repeat such behavior, promising to reflect on his actions in the coming weeks.

The incident has raised questions about professional conduct in the real estate sector and the expectations clients have for agents during property showings. It has also sparked a broader conversation about the responsibility of agents to uphold ethical standards and respect homeowners' spaces.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Whether we are in church leadership or business people in the community we must make sure that our behavior is exemplary at all times. Our actions reflect on ourselves and on our Christian testimony to the world.

Miwa Sado, a reporter for NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, “died in the line of duty and her body was found with her mobile phone still clasped in her hand.” Doctors soon established that Miwa Sado died as a result of congenital heart failure. But following an investigation by Japan’s Ministry of Labor, the official cause of here death was changed to “karoshi”: death by overwork.

In the month preceding her death, Sado had clocked an exhausting 159 hours of official overtime. That was equivalent to working two full eight-hour shifts every weekday over a four-week period. Unofficially, the number of hours of overtime probably exceeded that.

For the last few decades, the world has watched as China became the world’s largest producer and exporter of manufactured goods. But one of the unintended consequences of this has been a surge in the number of people whose deaths have been attributed to overwork. In 2016, CCTV, the state broadcaster, which usually only resorts to hyperbole when they have good news to share, announced that more than half a million Chinese citizens die from overworking every year.

Many in China’s high technology sector now order their working lives according to the mantra “996.” The two 9s refer to the requirements to put in twelve-hour days, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and the 6 refers to the six days of the week that employees with ambitions to get anywhere are expected to be at their workstations.

Possible Preaching Angle:

There are so many people who overwork their entire lives. They may not suddenly die as poor Miwa did, but over the course of their lives, they do eventually work themselves “into” death by fixating on the wrong goal, and putting temporary gains over eternal rewards.

Do impressive-sounding, inspirational job titles make us feel better about ourselves? Can they change our behavior? Research suggests that job titles have the power to improve our well-being and sense of control, and shield us from feeling socially snubbed. They might even encourage us to apply for a job in the first place.

Since a powerful-sounding job title can signify social status, it’s not surprising workers aspire to them. But a fancy title isn’t always about status. Simply making a title more fun can influence behavior. After attending a conference at Disneyland and upon discovering that employees there were called “cast members,” Susan Fenters Lerch felt inspired.

The former CEO of Make-A-Wish Foundation returned to her office and told employees they could create their own “fun” job title, in addition to their official one, to reflect “their most important roles and identities in the organization.”

Researchers interviewed these employees a year and a half after Lerch’s decision. They found that their “self-reflective” job titles reduced workers’ emotional exhaustion, helped them cope with emotional challenges, and let them affirm their identity at work. Researcher Daniel Cable said, “The titles opened the door for colleagues to view one another as human beings, not merely job-holders.”

Researchers have also found that giving an employee a more senior-sounding title can make them act more responsibly by making them feel happier at work. Sociology professor Jeffrey Lucas found that giving high-performing employees a high-status job title could stop them from leaving. He carried out two experiments and discovered that workers with important-sounding job titles “displayed greater satisfaction, commitment, and performance and lower turnover intentions” than those who didn’t.

“However, as far as job titles go, it's important that people actually perceive the titles as conferring status. In other words, fancy titles that people perceive as being nothing more than just that would be unlikely to have positive consequences.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This attitude could apply to valuing church staff, elected church officers, and volunteers. Do we follow Paul’s example in giving affirming titles those who serve with us? He publicly appreciated them and called them “fellow workers,” “beloved brothers,” “faithful ministers,” and “true partners” (Phil. 4:3; Col 4:7).