The Perfect Storm
As the U.S. moves more towards gig economy and away from industrial labor, it’s natural to see new workplace norms setting in, none clearer than the new professional landscape accelerated by The Great Resignation.
In a way, I mourn the pre-COVID times. While the work arrangements remain up in the air for most companies with fierce battles over going back to work, working remote, working part-time, and working hybrid, I find myself wondering what work model I truly desire. On one hand, I do genuinely miss the collaboration, shared learning, and energy that took place at work prior to COVID-19. On the other hand, life becomes a lot easier on rough days when I just feel like working from home from my recliner, watching T.V. in the background, taking my dog out, and being able to work out during lunch. Prior to COVID-19, I could work remote occasionally but it wasn’t near acceptable to stay home on random days or even weeks straight. I truly do value this flexibility as well, especially if I want to plan trips or make weekend plans without having to worry about splitting up PTO and work time. Although I do not have kids or a family, I can empathize with their situation as well valuing work from home (WFH) even more than myself.
Employers now find themselves in a predicament. Do we cave and allow permanent WFH and let our culture subside to e-meets and forcing employers to have their cameras turned on during meetings? Do we take a strong stance regarding the return back to office for “collaboration”? Do we distribute the decision-making authority regarding WFH to a team/org level or do we decide a hybrid model is the short-term solution until it’s easier to make a decision? Employers are caught sometimes at the whim of their employees which model to choose, and it’s worrying them.
Startups and other businesses have found it strategically advantageous to go permanent WFH. With a tighter financial budget than tech giants like Google, it’s a no-brainer. Google, very conscious of its culture it has spent a lot of time fostering to be very employee-friendly, is wondering what exactly it would be sacrificing by going permanent remote and what effect this might have on its workforce.
There’s no right answer at the moment, but there are plenty of wrong answers. Some employees have risen up and decided they’re not going back to the office, and some companies are happy to take advantage of this to recruit top talent (Quora, Dropbox, VMWare, etc.). Some companies’ decisions to return to the office if/when it’s safe has backfired against employers as it’s hard to tell disgruntled employees their pajama-ridden workdays are over, that extra hour with their kid at lunch is no more, their 1.5 hour commute is now a daily part of their routine again, and their afternoon nap times are history. Many studies are showing employees are just as productive working at home, but I expect this metric will change if WFH is the norm. Employees are burning out faster than ever and I personally find it ironic that so many are fiercely defending WFH for short-term comforts without self-reflection to realize the long-term implications.
Employees are Buckling Down
Not only are employees fed up with employers trying to dogmatically authorize employees’ return to work, but also fed up with being treated poorly by their management, poor wages with rising inflation, work that feels soul crushing, and working long hours for a corporation that has made it more than obvious in times of crisis they don’t care.
Towards the beginning of COVID-19, some employer’s took the times as a lay-up excuse to lay off some of their workforce, stranding employees in an extremely tough time in the job market. I was personally safe from layoffs, but seeing friends and family laid off reinforced that no matter how much companies try to stress they are one big family, they’ll still drop you at the first instance you stop being a financial upside to the company. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this unless the debate starts becoming more about capitalism, but more employees have woken up to this truth and aren’t willing to settle.
We’ve all witnessed the skyrocketing housing prices in the last year, and many are worried they’re priced out from every buying housing or latching onto the shrinking middle class lifestyle. Although this doesn’t apply as much in software, the average white collar millennial may be priced out for decades from ever being able to afford a house that their parents could afford at their age and it is starting to look more and more like a pipe dream. Wage stagnation has been a trend long prior to COVID-19, but COVID-19 seemed to be the straw that is currently breaking the camel’s back. Reading articles, hearing friends and coworkers talk, especially those on the younger side, it’s a common feeling that many are losing hope in finding enough financial success to live a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. Millennials will be the first generation where they will be financially worse off than the generation preceding them. With the feds printing huge amounts of money that is mostly siphoned to the upper echelons of society, people are willing to YOLO their life savings on meme stocks at one final chance to strike it middle class rich. The desperation is real.
While many jobs were soul crushing before COVID, I think there was more of an acceptance of not having other options. COVID-19 might have been a time for people to self-reflect about their work, and when you’re sitting in your personal office with no immediate sign of returning to work, it’s easy to self-reflect on what you don’t like about your actual work setting aside the coworkers, company culture, and collaboration that now suddenly seem like they don’t matter for whatever job you do. Many are looking at taking up side gigs to supplement the life they want. Teens now aspire to be YouTube or video game streamers producing their own content. Non mainstream jobs are becoming mainstream as there’s more flexible options to make money in previously unconventional ways, and many are unlocking their creativity to make money if it allows them to escape entering numbers into an Excel sheet for hours on end.
Finally, some employees have simply decided their jobs aren’t worth it. There’s a sense employees are playing musical chairs while plenty of companies need employees as the market is shuffled. Eventually, companies and economists think, the job market will settle. It may look different than pre-COVID times but this is really what employers are banking on heavy.
Start of a Revolution
At the root of The Great Resignation is a deep mistrust of employers and fundamental unhappiness with the work conditions. Many job market participants are looking on gleefully as employers struggle to find qualified workers. Short-term products/projects might suffer delays but employers are holding out in hopes the market will stabilize. Employers will do most anything to avoid raising wages, something at the heart of the battle. If employees continue to resign at alarming rates, many with the intention of finding a better, higher-paying job, capitalism should suggest the market will naturally adjust and wages will be raised in certain sectors. With current housing prices, this feels extremely natural, but against most companies business models. This could be a long-term sign of the health of the economy and proof of regulated capitalism’s ability to succeed.
It really does feel like a tug-of-war between employers and employees at the moment. Some are fighting this by raising their wages, some are offering larger sign-on bonuses, others are embracing permanent WFH to entice higher caliber employees, and some are coming up with unique perks to accommodate employees like paying their Internet bills. It’s hard telling what the new norm will be moving forward, but employees seem unwilling to settle like any time in recent history. In a way, this is a quick pulse check on the health of the nation. While this shift could be attributed to new age groups entering the workforce and their outlook on work, companies will need to adjust to thrive in the new job landscape. Employees’ sense of what’s acceptable work conditions continues to evolve, and to stay competitive in the market, employers find themselves more and more in an arm’s race.
A lot of the less-than-desirable work conditions can be traced back to favorable employer markets, and now that the tables have turned, even if temporarily, employees are demanding change and flexibility. This could be a defining moment in the 21st Century about how work conditions have adjusted to work conditions that are sensible as the U.S. moves away from the industrial revolution into the service and gig economy
