Commitment or compassion?

Last week there were reports of workers phoning in for compassionate leave because they were heartbroken about the departure of Zayn Malik from One Direction.
What's not so surprising is the reaction to this news, people are almost resigned to the apparent idiocy by and lack of commitment from workers especially the younger ones (sorry for that huge sweeping generalisation!).  Which highlights one of the problems facing employers today - just where do you find the dedication that so many of us take for granted?

The CJS Team have battled on through births, marriages and death with a few minor and not so minor (car crashes and broken bones) disasters.  It's something we're very proud to be able to say that:
 "In 21 years and over 1,200 editions we have never missed a deadline". 
The hardest ever was the edition published the week our co-founder Anthea Carson lost her long battle against leukemia. TB and I were on duty that day when Niall phoned from the hospital with the news. We stopped and had a walk around the wood before getting on with things until Niall and family returned home (the CJS office was in their house in those days) when we all had a big hug before leaving the family alone. In true British fashion we dried our eyes, made a cup of tea and made sure that the 23 September 2001 edition reached everyone, until the following the week no-one was any the wiser. You can find out more about Anthea and Niall and their wonderful legacy to you our CJS readers here.

Perhaps it's only once you've been tempered in the fires of misfortune that you learn what's important. But maybe we can try (ha, ha, easier said than done) to persuade our youngsters away from TV, computers and social media and into real life away from artificial life inside games which are becoming addictive at ever earlier ages, see this recent report on Minecraft from the BBC.  Teaching them what's important, what's not and along the way learning not to cry over spilt milk.

How can we instill commitment and dedication in today's newly (and not so newly) employed? I wish I knew. 
But if you have it make sure you include it in your application and if you can give examples in your CV (although maybe not quite as extreme as ours which, under different circumstances, would probably be a genuine case for compassionate leave, except of course if we didn't carry on then....)