I think this hits the nail on the head. People are learning the meritocracy they were taught growing up isn't real so why would they work 80 hour weeks for a 25% bonus instead of a 10-15% bonus. The calculus gets even worse when the bonus people get is insignificant to that of switching careers often.
For what you specifically experienced, my opinion, the bigger the organization the more inevitable this seems to become. To make things worse the size of the organization isn't limited to just a company or non-profit but to the size of all groups involved, i.e. a small charity or non-profit that's part of a huge government program is similar to a small engineering team in a huge tech company. They could do huge things or be completely worthless and so long as they pass along positive messages up the chain and the org or company as a whole is doing well then yay no consequences.
We're (hopefully) at the beginning of a cycle where companies realize they are causing apathy amongst the majority of the employed and hopefully experiment (and succeed) in providing meaningful pay raises to the lower echelons which will come at the short term costs of profits but are justified for long term productivity. Or we'll just keep divolving into a dystopia
For what you specifically experienced, my opinion, the bigger the organization the more inevitable this seems to become. To make things worse the size of the organization isn't limited to just a company or non-profit but to the size of all groups involved, i.e. a small charity or non-profit that's part of a huge government program is similar to a small engineering team in a huge tech company. They could do huge things or be completely worthless and so long as they pass along positive messages up the chain and the org or company as a whole is doing well then yay no consequences.
We're (hopefully) at the beginning of a cycle where companies realize they are causing apathy amongst the majority of the employed and hopefully experiment (and succeed) in providing meaningful pay raises to the lower echelons which will come at the short term costs of profits but are justified for long term productivity. Or we'll just keep divolving into a dystopia