If you were betting on the post-pandemic economy to be so bad that people would cling to their jobs even more, boy, were you wrong. The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have driven home one lesson: there is more to life than work.
This week in The Global Tiller, we follow the trail of the Great Resignation — a growing trend of thousands of workers quitting their jobs. We take a look at what’s driving this trend and where. How does it impact how we work?
A Microsoft survey of more than 30,000 global workers showed that 41% of workers were considering quitting or changing professions this year. A study conducted by an HR software company, Personio, of workers in the UK and Ireland showed 38% of those surveyed planned to quit in the next six months to a year. In the US alone, April saw more than four million people quit their jobs, according to a summary from the Department of Labor – the biggest spike on record.
In the Asia-Pacific, the Great Resignation is still a drizzle more than a deluge but there are expectations that it may happen in the coming months. Already in China, the tang ping movement (which we talked about here) is an indication that the younger generation is keen to change the oppressive work culture.
A lot of the blame (or credit) for this trend could be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic. For many workers, the pandemic precipitated a shift in priorities, encouraging them to pursue something they always wanted to do, or transition to being a stay-at-home parent. For others, the decision to quit was driven by how their employer treated them during the pandemic.
American professor Anthony Klotz, who coined the term 'Great Resignation', would point out that the rate of resignations has been rising over the past decade. In fact, 2020 was an outlier when resignations fell due to the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic. But, as soon as vaccines were distributed, people enacted on their plans to quit.
This trend is more common among employees between 30 and 45 years old. It could be because companies are not hiring a lot of entry level workers since they can’t train them in person, which has given mid-career workers more leverage. Another interesting fact to note in these mass resignations is the sectors they are happening in: mostly tech and healthcare industries. Since these sectors had extremely high demand during the pandemic, their workers faced higher burnout and stress. For the tech industry, one additional factor driving the resignations is the lack of diversity that made women, racial and ethnic minorities feel out of place.
How your employer treated you during the pandemic also has a big impact on whether or not you quit. Workers, who were already teetering on the edge of quitting workplaces with poor company culture and practices, saw themselves pushed to a breaking point. A recent Stanford study showed that many companies with bad environments doubled-down on decisions that didn’t support workers, such as layoffs, so the ones who survived layoffs decided to quit on their own.
The Great Resignation will have far-reaching consequences on how we work. For one, it will make hybrid work the norm rather than an exception. Microsoft is already calling it 'the next great disruption'. It is also going to boost the gig economy (we looked at this recently) as people look for more flexible work. HR practices may change to prioritise mental wellbeing, and help workers find meaning in their jobs.
For a change, the balance of power seems to have tilted in favour of the workers. How can we make sure that we use this power to bargain for better practices? Could this be the moment where we redefine success for ourselves? If we realised that there is more to life than work, can we imagine a life beyond mass consumption too?
If you were one of those who quit their jobs recently, we’d love to hear from you about your experience.
Until next week, take care and stay safe!
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
If you’d like to read our previous issues, you can access our archives here.
Getting excited for COP26? Don’t miss climate activist Greta Thunberg’s latest dismissal of climate action promised by world leaders:
“We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people.”
…and now what?
I loved my first job. Fresh out of university, I had a chance to get a lot of responsibilities and do very diverse tasks (from drafting contracts to managing emergency drills dressed as a fireman!). But there’s one bitter memory I have from when I tried to negotiate a raise. “You should feel grateful to at least have a job,” I was told.
This is a statement you hear very often in Tahiti. Perhaps, due to the fact that in islands like Tahiti and others in the Pacific, we face very specific work-related issues:
Work and workplaces, being very recent concepts, have never truly adapted to the socio-cultural context of the islands;
Work opportunities are scarce (if you have a specific field of specialty, you will quickly run out of options to switch your job);
And over-stretched human resources that prevent organisations from helping employees grow through training, work/life balance, etc. Usually, we end up doing more work than if we were in bigger countries because we just don’t have enough resources to distribute the workload more evenly.
In this context, what ends up happening is that work becomes a necessity, not an opportunity for self-growth, self-development, and focusing on finding joy more than just getting paid. We may not have been hit by the Great Resignation yet but a similar movement, the entrepreneur trend, has taken root recently that could be stemming from the same underlying issues.
It happened a few years after I, myself, decided to start my own business. It became a “thing” for people unhappy with their work to start their own business because, when they lacked options to change jobs, the only opportunity left was to work for themselves.
Even if it is sometimes nice to see someone leave a disempowering workplace, it is also sad to watch people try to escape something rather than strive towards something, which seems to be the dynamic behind the Great Resignation.
This comes at a great cost for organisations and our societies as a whole. As we said in the previous issue on the gig economy, if we all start working for ourselves and not for a more commonly shared goal, we will end up looking inward more than outward.
So, what lessons can we learn from this Great Resignation movement? Now that I’m considering the other side of the equation as an employer, I’m compelled to wonder where the leadership is lacking.
How come our organisations can no longer make people want to stay, feel good and happy about themselves and their commitment at work? Have we stretched too thin the old and outdated management techniques? Just recently, I saw a famous 'leadership guru' share a supposedly inspirational quote about leadership and success, complete with a picture of a rich white man with a private jet! Is this really what the new generation wants out of their work? Are they still really striving to become these fictional 'self-made' individuals?
It doesn’t seem like it. Looking at the reasons why people are resigning, we can see that people want their organisations to provide a more collective-focused purpose, a deep sense of being part of something greater.
What does it mean for leaders? It means fostering collective work and teams more than promoting individuals. It means giving more opportunity for shared leadership than rigid and vertical hierarchies. It means also making sure the organisation is committed within the community for real and not green-washing to appear responsible.
The Great Resignation is telling our leaders: if you don’t focus on the collective existential challenges we all face and we’re all a part of, we will just leave you be. Because there are now bigger concerns for all. You may find a way to align it with your core business but, if you don’t, don’t count on us to stick around.
In this moment, it is not control, or more authority, or even a bonus that will allow you to retain your employees. You’ll keep them if you care, if you build a collective vision and if you make them part of the process.
For some organisations, like here in Tahiti where management still relies on very old-school practices, this change will be messy. But it has to happen. Otherwise the coming generation won’t be wasted because of the pandemic or climate change. It will be wasted because we would have killed the spark in their minds, the energy in their hearts and the motivation in their lives.
It’s a great time for leadership to renew itself and to show the way in the face of change. So, leaders, are you up for the Great Inspiration?
Philippe - Founder - Pacific Ventury
Mahalo, Hira! I'm surprised that Microsoft refers to hybrid work as a "disruption," which sounds like a negative choice of words. Certainly there's a lot of change. Aloha! Eileen Cain, Honolulu