Are your workers entitled or worthy?

Entitlement has always existed at work, although in gentler times it kept a lower profile. A decade of emphasis on individuality, empowerment, and well being brought many positives to organisational life, yet it also surfaced behaviours that were once muted. The pandemic then acted like a spotlight. It introduced real constraints, raised questions about personal rights, and left a lingering reflex to protect the self above all else. In many teams, that reflex now reads as entitlement. Leaders feel it. Colleagues feel it. Culture absorbs it.

This article explores what entitlement at work looks like, why it has grown, and how to respond with both firmness and empathy. The goal is not to shame people. The goal is to create a fair, high trust environment where contribution and accountability have meaning, and where human vulnerability is met with support rather than cynicism.

Entitlement is not the same as confidence or healthy boundaries. It is the belief that one deserves more than others without a proportional contribution. Entitled behaviour treats rules as optional, norms as negotiable, and the needs of the team as secondary to personal preference. It creates a two tier culture in which the few claim exemptions and the many carry the load. Over time, the climate shifts from cooperative to transactional, then from transactional to resentful.

If your team is on the receiving end of entitlement, you will see subtle signals first. People feel dismissed after meetings. Sharing credit becomes rare. Small promises go unkept. Later, the signals become louder. Morale dips. Back channel complaints rise. High performers begin to protect their energy by doing as little collaboration as possible. If left unaddressed, entitlement is no longer a behaviour. It becomes a norm.

Entitlement can be mundane, which is part of the problem. It hides in everyday choices. Booking leave without checking workload or coverage. Missing a deadline, then expecting a teammate to absorb the spillover. Asking for help that is not really help at all, but a handover in disguise. Claiming credit for the outcome while skipping the grunt work that created the outcome. Treating flexibility as a one way benefit. Setting boundaries that limit personal inconvenience but expand everyone else’s.

At first glance, some of these behaviours look like assertiveness. That is why managers often let them pass. The difference is tone, respect, and reciprocity. Assertive contributors show consideration for the system around them. They say thank you. They keep score fairly. They lift as they climb. Entitled contributors extract value without acknowledging the cost to others.

The post pandemic labour market tilted the field. Talent shortages, the great resignation, and rapid compensation resets changed leverage. Some employees were promoted faster than their skill ramp. Others arrived at new roles expecting the rewards of seniority without the responsibilities that accompany it. In many firms, a survival era vocabulary lingered, one that prioritised personal safety and autonomy over shared goals. None of this makes people bad. It does make expectations fuzzy. Fuzziness is where entitlement thrives.

There is also a psychological element. After a prolonged period of uncertainty, many people adopted a protective posture. Look out for yourself. Control what you can. Seek comfort when possible. In the workplace, that posture sometimes morphs into me first choices that ignore the spillover on colleagues. When leaders respond with irritation rather than curiosity, the cycle hardens.

There is a simple test that rarely fails. Gratitude. Deserving employees balance self advocacy with appreciation. They ask for a raise, and they show how their work created value. They request flexibility, and they propose a plan that protects delivery for the team. They say please and thank you. They give credit in public and feedback in private. Entitled employees treat rewards as a given and help as a debt the team owes them. Gratitude is not decoration. It signals awareness of interdependence, which is the essence of teamwork.

Before labelling someone as entitled, consider what the behaviour might be signalling. Fear and fatigue can look like defiance. Insecurity can look like bluster. Confusion about expectations can look like boundary setting taken too far. Reframing does not excuse poor behaviour. It invites a more accurate intervention.

Ask yourself three questions. First, is the behaviour chronic or situational. Second, have expectations been stated clearly, including what good looks like when tradeoffs are hard. Third, does the person know how their choices affect others. If any of those answers are unclear, start there.

It also cuts both ways. Employers can be entitled. Leaders sometimes claim special rules for themselves. They demand extra effort without context. They change the goalposts but keep the same deadlines. They ask for loyalty while treating people as cost lines on a spreadsheet. When managers label employee requests as entitlement without inspecting their own behaviour, the message is obvious. Power gets privileges. The culture gets brittle.

A useful reset is to adopt a single standard for fairness that applies to everyone. If a senior leader would be embarrassed to have their own choices described out loud to the team, something is off. High trust cultures grow where leaders show restraint, share credit, explain decisions, and take their turn doing the unglamorous work.

Set unambiguous standards. Write down what the team owes one another. Response times. Coverage rules for leave. Handovers for flexible schedules. The definition of done for projects. Where possible, tie standards to customer promises and to the company mission. People accept constraints more easily when they see the why behind them.

Make contribution visible. Entitlement often feeds on opacity. Use transparent project boards, sprint reviews, or weekly readouts that show progress, blockers, and ownership. When work is visible, credit flows more fairly and gaps become easier to address without drama.

Enforce the basics quickly. Address small breaches fast and privately. Waiting until a pattern is undeniable creates a higher stakes conversation. Be specific about the behaviour, the impact on others, and the standard. Ask the person to propose how they will correct it. Confirm the plan in writing. Then follow up.

Pair flexibility with accountability. Flexibility is a strategic advantage. It widens your talent pool and boosts retention. For it to work, it must be reciprocal. If someone needs a schedule adjustment, agree on outcomes, coverage, and communication. Flexibility without guardrails invites entitlement. Guardrails without flexibility drive attrition.

Reward the right signals. Promote people who demonstrate both performance and prosocial behaviour. Recognise those who do quiet, heavy lifts. When you celebrate wins, name the behind the scenes work that made the win possible. Over time, status will attach to contribution rather than to personal preference.

Rebuild the muscle of gratitude. Model thank yous that are timely, specific, and public. Encourage peers to recognise one another. Ask leaders to close meetings by calling out contributions. Gratitude costs nothing and changes tone quickly.

Coach on tradeoffs, not slogans. Teach managers and employees how to navigate the tensions that modern work creates. Speed versus thoroughness. Autonomy versus coordination. Focus time versus availability. Replace generic slogans with concrete heuristics that guide choices. For example, reply within four business hours when a teammate is blocked. Book leave once coverage is confirmed. When you say no to a request, offer an alternative path to the outcome.

Measure culture like you measure revenue. Track early indicators that entitlement is rising. Reopened tasks. Missed handovers. Rising cycle time due to dependencies. Anonymous feedback that references special treatment. Use monthly retrospectives to surface these signals and correct quickly.

When you must confront entitlement, prepare carefully. Bring facts, not feelings. Describe the observed behaviour, the specific impact on outcomes or colleagues, and the standard the team has agreed to. Then pause. Ask the person to share their view. Often you will hear stressors you did not know about or misunderstandings you helped create. Acknowledge those, and restate the standard. Co create a simple plan with dates and behaviours to watch. If improvement follows, recognise it. If not, escalate with clarity. Compassion and consequences are not opposites. They are partners.

A useful script is short. Here is an example in plain language. Last sprint, you booked two days of leave without coverage, which pushed the release by three days and forced two teammates to work late. Our standard is that leave is agreed with coverage and that deadlines remain intact. What is your view on what happened. What do you propose to ensure it does not repeat. What support do you need. I will check in next Friday to review progress.

There will be times when patience is not enough. Chronic entitlement drains performance and morale. After fair warning and support, you need a decisive step. Move the person to a role with less interdependence if there is a strong skills case. If not, part ways with dignity. Hiring for contribution is better than tolerating a slow cultural leak. Your consistent action tells the rest of the team that standards matter.

Prevention starts in recruiting. Interview for contribution, not charm. Ask for examples where the candidate did unglamorous work that made others successful. Probe for how they handle conflicts over resources or credit. Use practical exercises that require collaboration, not only solo brilliance. Check references with one key question. Would you rehire this person to work closely with the same team again. Listen closely to any hesitation.

Onboarding matters too. Teach how work flows through your system. Pair new hires with culture carriers who model reciprocity. Share the rules of the road in week one. Clarify how decisions are made, how tradeoffs are escalated, and how the team handles peak periods.

You cannot eliminate entitlement completely. You can minimise it and refuse to let it define your culture. When leaders set clear standards, make contribution visible, reward prosocial behaviour, and respond to slippage with speed and fairness, the culture becomes self correcting. People understand what good looks like. They see that flexibility is respected and that accountability is real. They learn to ask for what they need in a way that honours the needs of the group.

There is a deeper benefit too. Reframing some expressions of entitlement as fear or fatigue humanises the workplace. It makes space for honest conversation. It invites people to voice constraints early so that the team can design around them, rather than hide them until they explode. Over time, that honesty builds trust, and trust accelerates performance.

Hold the mirror up. Check your own entitlement risks. Are there rules you break because you can. Do you default to extraction in crunch times. Do you take credit that belongs to the team. Culture is not what you declare. It is what you tolerate and what you model. When you live the standards you set, even hard messages land as fair. Your people will accept discipline when they recognise the same discipline in you.

Entitlement is a growing concern, but it is also a leadership opportunity. Address it with clarity, empathy, and consistency. Teach your teams the craft of fair tradeoffs. Celebrate gratitude as a performance multiplier. Build systems that make contribution visible and norms unmistakable. Do that, and you will replace the energy drain of me first with the momentum of we first, which is where great companies live.