Everybody is trying to make sense of the phenomenon of more and more people resigning from their jobs, especially since the start of the pandemic.
Is it a response to the pandemic, a change in culture, is it time for a break, the employers’ fault, the employees’ fault, the Governments’ fault?
In my opinion, all of the above created the ideal environment for people, society, and the market, to go through a Great Reshuffle. This reshuffle is actually an Evolution. People realized that work lost its Glamour halo.
With the start of the pandemic and the lockdowns around the World, people were forced to stay at home, and when they finished posting photos on how they go for 3 days wearing the same pajamas throughout the day, they started doing house chores. When the house chores finished, they started watching movies.
And when the movies started to be more and more boring, a deeply mind-brewing procedure started:
What the hell am I doing with my life? Is this what I wanted? How did I end up working in a cubicle for 10 straight hours? Why am I paid so little? Why did I go to college to enter data on a freaking PC? Will I retire as a barista? Is it worth it? Can I do it differently?
When all the pessimistic questions run their cycle in and out of their brains, then the awakening started to kick in:
Can I do better? What everybody else is doing? What do I enjoy doing? Can I really work from home? A 4-day workweek? How about not wasting 2 hours each day going back and forth to work? Why is my manager such an a-hole?
The pandemic, lockdown, time to think, time to prioritize, time to change, time to make it happen, happened. And it spread like a virus. People saw that they can actually work from home, save time and money, other options are available. That there is no such thing as ‘life and work balance’, there is only ‘life balance’. Work began to look, as it always should, like a way to help you live and not as priority. Work started to look like a side hustle necessary to finance a way of living, our family time, our time home. Work wasn’t just there to buy you a house, pay your latte, get you a new pair of shoes.
Work lost its Glamour.
So, after analyzing and over-analyzing, the crying desperate tear-shedding managers complaining that they cannot find enough people to work, capable people to hire, blaming governments for subsidizing too much, the calmest brains began their own procedure and brainstorming to find a solution. Or rather, Solutions.
The solutions
- It is not only about the paycheck. It’s also about the conditions people go through to GET the paycheck.
- It is not only how big the office building is. It’s also about where the building is.
- It is not only about what you do. It is also about why you do it, and also how you do it.
- It is not only about the promotion. It is also about what comes WITH the promotion.
- It is not only about the company. It is now also about the company, COMPARED with all the other companies.
The Great pandemic allowed people to stand still, think, re-think, prioritize, point their middle finger to the Big Man and say “let’s see how you deal with change”!
The rules actually changed. Work is less associated with the word ‘office’, salary is not only about ‘how high’ is now ‘what did I exchange to earn that’, the job description is less ‘duties’ and more ‘outcome’.
The pandemic will pass but the leftovers or this great crisis will remain for years. Companies will have to adapt to not only how they do business but also to who they hire, to do what, where, and for what cost.
Technology enabled the world economy to avoid even more severe problems by helping companies to function, more or less, in this weird situation and saved them from completely shutting down. Just imagine what would happen if the pandemic hit us during the early 2000s (dial-ups, fax, phones) and not in the fiber-speed, PDF, Zoom, Era of 2020.
What companies can do
Change how you do business, not what you do in your business
Do you really need that big office building? Will allowing for some people to work remotely allow you to lower costs and at the same time offer a ‘cookie’ to your employees who spend their time and lives driving back and forth? Can I offer the same products and services as before but with a different set of input?
Be open to the new tools
Why hire an average office employee who lives near your office when you can hire a great employee who lives across the country? Do I really need that client to come into the office to sign a form?
Be more transparent
State your job duties, the outcome, AND the compensation. That is compensation, not salary. The Salary is dead and the new player is a total package of ‘rewards’ that an employee can get. Do you really think that the whole salary subject will not be a part of any job interview? Duties, outcomes, and salary are just parts of the new life-work balance equation. Compensation on the other side includes money, time, ease, rewards, progress. Companies know what they can afford to pay (more or less) and job seekers are just open to proposals. Being more transparent will allow companies to rise above their competitors. At least those companies that can and want to change.
Think 2025, not 2019
Do you really think that after the pandemic the World will just ‘reset’ back to 2019? It won’t. The world will move forward, and, despite all the casualties, misfortunes, setbacks, it will still be much better than before. How better? Better in what? That remains to be seen but we have already begun to see the changes in our everyday lives.
Working from home will no longer be associated with housewives, a Zoom meeting will be as good and acceptable as an actual meeting, a 4-day work week will be an option and consideration and not a joke, maybe people will be able to do 2 jobs for 2 different employees at the same time, earn more and their employers will be more satisfied too.
Who knows?
Maybe during the next pandemic, we will not have to go through all these mind-blowing changes that occurred during the past years to finally realize that people can adapt, and so should companies. The problem lays in the adoption of change between the two, speed. It seems that people are faster in making drastic changes in the way they work, live, communicate. Companies are starting to make faster decisions also. The underlying difference that distinguishes the two is the way they perceive Work. Companies still use Work as a two-way calculation: you work, I pay, repeat. People are starting to see Work as a three-part equation: I work, I get paid, I live, repeat. This fundamental third element, Life, is the Great catalyst for the now cliché ‘Great Resignation’. This ‘life’ factor is crucial and if a workplace, an employer, a company doesn’t include it in its culture as a factor, well, they will have issues.
Work lost its Glamour symbol. Life is the new Work.