Employees call it a ‘situationship.’ Employers should be worried

The pattern echoes something academics have studied for years under less romantic terms, the psychological contract that shapes what employees expect from their employer, and the ties that keep people in a job after that contract frays.

A psychological contract that’s stopped delivering

Denise Rousseau, professor of organizational behavior and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College and Tepper School of Business in Pittsburgh, has studied the psychological contract, the unspoken expectations between employer and employee, for decades.

“Organizations aren’t making commitments, and when they do make them, they’re not very credible,” Rousseau said. “A lot of what makes a psychological contract valuable is the future creating possibilities of what we’re preparing you for, what you can see yourself doing in this organization.”

She traces the shift to the 1990s, when companies moved away from developing talent internally toward buying skills on the market, and fewer companies today invest in training, development, or a visible path to promotion. Rousseau said that absence matters more than people realize.

“What’s diminished has not just been job security, it has been a promise of the future,” she said.