Empathy is a hell of a drug. Your perspective is that you guys had a rough time going public, lots of churn, difficulty for everyone, but everyone pulled through and now it's time to get to work. Their perspective is they jumped into a pigfuck, worked their asses off, saved the goddamn company and for gratitude they're being told to work harder. You see victims. They see ingratitude. You see a drop in their responsibilities - they likely see that they pulled your company's nuts out of the fire through sweat and effort and now that the nuts are no longer in the fire, what possible justification do they have for expending the same sweat and effort? When you hire someone in crisis mode, they'll give you crisis-mode efforts... until the crisis is over. then they've earned a break. Then they've earned some health time. Then they've earned the space to determine if the company warrants their continued allegiance. Damn right they've never known the good times. You've never shown them the good times. You call them "backfills" and list their greatest accomplishment as "alleviating the general workload." You think they see themselves that way? "What do you for a living?" "Oh, I alleviate the general workload." They have a "personal narrative of victimization." Of course, they're keeping that to themselves - they're not bailing on you (who would "alleviate the general workload" then?) and they're not bitching, but for some reason they're not giving you panic-level efforts now that the panic has subsided. You know how you deal with "victim mentality?" You recognize that your staff saved your bacon and you make sure your staff sees you recognizing it. You reward them, you listen to them, you lavish them with value (not just praise) and you enroll them fully in the future of the company. "Hey, you - clean up this mess that happened before you got here." How's that go over? "We need you guys to spearhead our next-level workflow system so that nobody ever has to deal with the past year's frustrations ever again." You're stressing that things were hard on the company but you're still thinking of "this group of people" as some set of others who need to "get off their butts." Give 'em a reason that doesn't start with "I," "me" or "mine."
Empathy is a hell of a drug. Try imagining that I'm caring human being and empathizing with that instead of assuming I'm some corporate demon. The "backfills" are new hires who are alleviating the workload for the people who worked through the rough times. The people that I'm talking about don't have lowered work loads just because the storm passed, but because we brought in and trained up those new hires so they had fewer clients. So no, they're not being asked to work harder, they're being asked to do new things. Now, why are they being asked to do new things? What I'm implementing are programs that they've asked for as people who survived hell and don't want to go through it again. But they are the subject matter experts and so, at a point, they are the only ones able to make the training content. This is a project they have decided will save them time and heartache in the future, so that nobody ever has to deal with the past year's frustrations again. I get it, righteous indignation is your thing, but if you're going to go around proselytizing the virtues of empathy, you should try to practice it first.
Empathy is a hell of a drug. I don't know you, your workers, your company or your industry. All I did was build a perspective opposite the one you presented for purposes of... You know, empathy. You can recognize that construct for what it is: a synthetic insight into a hypothetical situation that doesn't matter in the slightest to its author... Or you can get defensive. Calculating the marginal utility of either approach is left as an exercise for the student.
Do you ever do any fun team building activities? Either by team or department. My advice: work pays for it, it's done on work time during the work day, find a good well-reviewed non-dangerous not-too-physically-demanding (secretary ass) team-building clinic, and do that for 2-4 hours. End by 2pm. Then let everyone go home early for the rest of the day. If you are really crazy take them out to a happy hour. I mean it really sounds like even if the storm has blown over there has been no "Thank you" or acknowledgement that things were shitty. There is just this expectation that things are getting better and going to keep getting better and cool, that should be enough. My company gives us a budget every quarter for a "fun day" or "fun activity" that we get to do on work time. If we can spare it every quarter despite a general lack of any kind of work crisis or shittiness, then I think you could see the value in doing it at least once after a prolonged period of stress. Just don't pull a Michael Scott at the Dundees. Or the coal walking bit.