Reward is the answer. If unions have a major flaw it is that they cannot do provisions that allow employers to reward individuals for outstanding service. In that line unions are Managements best friend.
Back in my time, the dark ages, an employer provided a job. The employee provided their own motivation based on if they do better (or more, if you like) then there would be a reward for that in the form of more pay or general promotion. That has switched around to the point where an employee says, "you pay me more money and I will give you a better attitude". That is what used to be the measure of an employees worth, not the employers. Employers in the past, looked at attitude as a basic part of the job description. Those who brought a good attitude to the game were spotlighted. Those with lousy attitude were checked off as slightly useful, but not worth fighting for. If they left, they left, no one cared. What most do not seem to understand is even though it is no longer used to promote, it still affects how they feel about individual employees.
Now, in this world of everyone gets a trophy, even if you have a highly motivated person, they cannot be recognized to any real degree without incurring the wrath of perhaps more seniority or those that just have an overdeveloped opinion of self-worth. So the result is a situation where everything is stagnant. No one can move unless they add something to their resume that changes the vision of what their skills might be. If no one makes that initiative then no one advances. Waiting for management to recognize them as special goes on unfulfilled.
