Thinking About the 'Non-Working Middle-Aged Man' Problem! Part 2: 'The True Identity of the Non-Working Middle-Aged Man!' [Chapter 4]

――Who made them this way? And, am I okay?――
[Chapter 4] 'The surrounding gaze is what keeps them from working'

1) Introduction: The common 'It's faster not to ask the middle-aged guy' phenomenon
In an organization like a company, a strange atmosphere can sometimes emerge.
'Let's ask a younger person to do this job.'
'It's faster to do it myself than to explain it to the middle-aged guy.'
Even if such words are rarely spoken aloud, they can sometimes drift through the workplace atmosphere.
Of course, younger people work faster and are likely more capable of adapting to new technologies.
If you consider efficiency, that judgment cannot be called wrong.

However, if work stops being passed to veteran employees due to the accumulation of such decisions, the very opportunity for them to demonstrate their experience is lost. Before you know it, only the impression of being 'someone who does nothing' remains, and the label of 'non-working middle-aged man' is applied.

2) Main Argument: The negative spiral where younger staff keep their distance and bosses give up
Once the impression of being 'someone who is hard to ask' becomes established, it is not easy to change that flow.
Younger employees feel that 'it takes too long to explain' or 'our values don't align,' and they naturally begin to keep their distance.
Meanwhile, bosses also begin to think, 'Let's leave new work to someone else.'
As a result, work stops coming to the individual, and their days pass by in a vague manner.
If there is no work, there are no results. If there are no results, evaluations do not improve.

And the view that 'as expected, that person cannot be trusted with tasks' becomes even stronger.
This is how a negative spiral that benefits no one is born.
Even if the individual wants to work, they are not even given the opportunity to show that desire.
Those around them assume 'the person has no motivation,' and the individual begins to feel 'I'm not expected to do anything anyway.'
Even though neither side has malicious intent, the distance between their hearts gradually widens.

3) Conclusion: It is human nature to lose motivation when you lose trust
People work hard because they are trusted.
'I want to ask you to do this job.'
'I can count on you.'
With just those words, people strive to meet expectations.
Conversely, if nothing is expected of them and no work is entrusted to them, anyone will gradually lose their motivation.
Among those called 'non-working middle-aged men,' there are not a few who actually want to work but have lost the opportunity to do so. Of course, the effort to change oneself is necessary.

However, at the same time, if the organization does not also adopt an attitude of 'let's try trusting them once more,' this problem will likely not be solved.
In the end, it is not just the individual who is creating the 'non-working middle-aged man.'
The assumptions of those around them, the mechanisms of the organization, and the lost trust relationships overlap,
sometimes turning a single employee into a 'person who cannot work.'
That is precisely why I want people to look once more at the power and experience that person originally possesses before applying the label of 'non-working middle-aged man.'
And if I myself were to end up in that position, rather than lamenting the past,
I would want to continue the effort to find a new role--.
With that thought in mind, in the third work, I would like to face the theme of 'Can a non-working middle-aged man really be rehabilitated?' together with you.

※ This second work is consistently depicted with a focus on 'the interaction between the organization and the individual' rather than 'an individual problem.' And because it concludes with the hope of 'rehabilitation,' it is structured to connect very naturally to the third work, 'The Rehabilitation of the Non-Working Middle-Aged Man!'