There’s a new movement out there and unless you are like me, and not on TikTok or Reddit, you may not know about it. I heard it in passing from a live chat group I am a part of on Facebook a few weeks ago and wondered if it was a real thing. Apparently, since people have had the taste of working from home due to the Covid restrictions, they got to enjoy the flexibility and perks that offered, and many are seeking jobs with companies that are continuing this work from home option permanently. The company I work for was one of the few to have everyone back into the office before summer kicked off and quite honestly, I was ready for the change and the structure going into the office offered. I guess not everyone is of the same mindset as me. It’s mind blowing really that so many people lost their jobs during the pandemic and many businesses are saying they can’t get people to fill the vacant positions. My question is…where did all those people go and how are they supporting themselves financially?
According to the one article I read by Hannah Cox of Fee, she says it could get worse as a lot more people are planning to quit after they use up their vacation time this summer as many employers are planning to have employees back in the office this fall. In her article, Cox is so bold to mention that in the U.S, millions of workers are preparing to say, “I quit” in the upcoming near future. Employment sites such as Monster and Glassdoors, are reporting 95% of employees are considering changing jobs for more flexible work from home options while others used the downtime of the pandemic to upgrade their skills, education or passions and are wanting to find roles that allow them to incorporate those interest – and then there are those that simply don’t want to work. Cox blames the latter on, “…the repercussions of bad, big-government policies that have tampered with the market this past year. The federal government has continued to send an increased amount of unemployment benefits to workers even as businesses they shut down, struggle to open. Workers are responding to this perverse incentive in entirely predictable ways, choosing to stay home or work less and for some, for more pay than they were able to earn in the workforce.” One article by Holly Corbett in Forbes Magazine mentions that there was an increased polarization of political and social views amplified during the pandemic and it could be contributing to anxiety when it comes to being face-to-face again with co-workers.
I had a conversation with my 25-year-old son a few months ago about all of this and I was surprised by his new perspective. He says too many people are working so hard to just pay bills and have a roof over their heads and never get to enjoy life that many his age are deflated about the purpose of working. He has been working through the pandemic and lives on his own unlike many of his friends. He doesn’t see a way to get ahead in life with the cost of living and taxes what they are today here in Canada and unless you are able to find a good paying job with flexibility many young people are not wanting to work at all. The economists have dubbed this new era as the Great Resignation as many people have shifted their priorities and are pursuing a dream job or transitioning to be a stay-at-home parent. Some are leaving due to the way they were treated by their employer during the pandemic. For some they noted that they saw the true colours of how the company they gave their loyalty too, had wages reduced, didn’t have a safe work environment or piled on extra duties due to a lack of resourcing. Many are quitting to go where they feel they will be valued. I would have to say in the industry I work in (Oil & Gas sector), we have been dealing with reduced wages and a lack of resources – doing the job or 2 or more people since 2015 when the economy took a downturn and thousands were let go and hundreds of companies went into receivership, so for us, we didn’t really notice a difference and for most that I have had this conversation with, felt they were treated better or the same as before the pandemic.
According to a BBC article by Kate Morgan, this trend of workers quitting is higher among the traditionally low-wage roles and essential workers. She goes on to say in the American retail sector, 650,000 retail workers quit in the month of April alone according to data from the U. S Labor Department. On the flip side of this, CNBC’s Michelle Fox says employers aren’t buying the threat of the Great Revolution and they don’t see any more than 8% of their employees actually quitting and they believe there will not be a problem filling the gap with new hires. The BBC website also mentions that as of the end of July, the Labor Department for the U.S cited job vacancies up from 590,000 to 10.1 million. That’s a lot of jobs not being filled currently. In Alberta here, businesses are only open a few days a week because they can’t get workers yet and for some businesses, they haven’t been able to open at all.
This does seem to all lead into the conversation about a new era of the Self Education Revolution that I first heard about in March of this year. This is something that has been going on for a few years now with people looking to the internet to get educated and to purchase goods and business is booming for those that have figured out how to capitalize on this. It makes sense with where we have been headed – so much has transitioned online and with the pandemic, it became even more so. Industries we never thought would ever conduct business that way were forced to come up with a solution if they wanted to be able to continue to operate during the pandemic and now that they have put the money into the process and tools to do that, will probably continue that way. It appears we were trending that way if you look at how many ways people were able to stay connected and be able to have everything at their fingertips so quickly when the world went into lockdown back in March. Just like with the ability for pharmaceuticals to come up with a vaccine in such a short time – they had already been working on a similar vaccine since 2011 with SARS. Platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams were already prepared to help businesses transition as well as soon as the pandemic hit. Many learning institutions were already doing some form of distance or online learning as well and let’s not forget how many retail businesses had already shifted the majority of shopping online thanks to big companies like Amazon that led the way. Big box stores were already changing the way we purchase our goods, and then there’s Skip the Dishes, Door Dash, Uber Eats and grocery stores that already had apps available to deliver.
Now add in that people’s perception changed during the pandemic and they realized that life is too short and never guaranteed is a game changer for those who find their work unsatisfying. Jan van der Hoop, President at Fit First Technologies said, “We’re evaluating our lifestyle choices, our values around how we spend our time and what we want to be contributing to the world. And the truth is that there’s a huge segment of the population that has been going to work for jobs that they can do but they aren’t excited about. Right now, there’s an opportunity for them to level set around what am I prepared to put up with even in the course of the day to day work?”
Where we go from here is anyone’s guess, I never thought 20 years ago that technology would have come as far as it did. I remember when my son was a few months old and we moved from Alberta to Saskatchewan in 1995 and I had sold my Optical businesses when we moved away. There wasn’t much opportunity for work in the small town we moved to for my then husband’s work. I found a company that was just coming on the internet scene and was selling websites for business’s looking to be the first to transition online. Back then, everyone laughed and said there is no way business’s will sell anything online. You have to remember this was when you could only access the internet by dial up and AOL was the only way to find anything on the web. I sold a few packages to some oilfield supply companies in the area and to a furniture store and that’s was about it, none of the other businesses bought into the idea of people shopping online. I then gave up and went to work for the local College teaching senior classes on how to email their loved ones who moved away and their friends. I did this for a year and then we moved back to Alberta and I went to University in search of a new career. Fast forward 25 years and you can get anything online and it is the preferred method of shopping for the majority of the population and I’ve started an online blog!
Getting back to this idea of people looking to change careers or companies to have more life than work balance, there might be something to this. I had a visit from an ex coworker that was put out to pasture last year and was forced to retire as the economy was not so great and many companies were looking to downsize. Most companies look for those opportunities in a downturn and few people get caught up in that. She was planning to work a couple more years at the time and was not too happy about being packaged out. Now a year later, she is glowing and never happier. She has so much time to focus on her health and well-being and her and her husband have got a groove going of how to be home with each other everyday. She mentioned that it was the best thing that ever happened to her and once she realized that her identity is not tied to her job or career, she was then able to let go and shift gears. In fact, she said to a group of us, that if we are passionate about something to just put yourself out there and take the risk you have nothing to lose and who knows you may find happiness! I have worked with so many people that stayed on into their late 60’s and early 70’s not because they needed the money from working but they didn’t know what they would do with their time and then when they were too forced to retire, they ended up with health issues or spouses passing away and never got to fully enjoy that time of their life as they waited too long. This correlation of being tied to an identity is from my generation and the one before but the younger folks never bought into the traditional sense of working and career as we did to form an identity to their job. I think this is because of the technology era we had as well. This could be why it’s easier for them to quit a job without having another plan in place and are taking the risk because they want a life versus material things. Keeping up with the Jones’s seems to be a thing of the past.
I know I have had an influence on my children with my work ethic and they have seen me work hard and put that above them many times. It wasn’t my intention but for some of us, it goes back to how we were raised and got rewarded by our parents when we showed we were doing something productive. I have in the last few years tried to discuss this with my kids and to let them know it’s not always the best way to go about it. Most of my adult years have been dedicated to putting work first and in 2014 I had been working so hard and putting in so much overtime (600 hours in 4 months) that I had not seen my parents for at least 6 months and they live in the same city as me. My dad then passed away suddenly, and I had talked to him on the phone briefly every Sunday and he seemed proud that I was working so hard but I hadn’t seen him in person in so long and then he was gone. I did have some regret about that but find solice in knowing what made him happy was proving me and my siblings were working hard. That’s just what he knew and believed in. I did some soul searching then and I did decide to change my ways and jobs to take a step back from managing people and just be a worker bee. I have had more enjoyment in the work/life balance since and appreciate that for this next phase of the years left to work. I don’t want my children to do as I have done and I am happy to hear we have shifted as a collective to this idea of life over work balance and that happiness has become about people and not materialism.
Some companies are shifting into the “Hybrid” model where they are offering a few days in the office and a few days working from home. This allows the employees to have the flexibility and for companies, they can save money on lease space of offices and just have hotel stations that employees will rotate into as their schedules make it so not all are in the office at the same time. There is always the question about productivity when working from home. Some people have said they are more productive and others not. This could come down to personality and what motivates people, whether they are social or not, what the office set up is and space they dedicated to this, whether children are in the home while working….I’m sure there are a lot of factors that feed into this. It’s interesting to see how this is morphing and I am intrigued to see how it works. I know for me, I was feeling in a rut when I was living and working in the same space and feel much more productive and connected to the world being in the office however, when winter hits and I am commuting in the freezing cold, I may change my mind but for now, I am content.