The Future of Work: Why the Great Resignation is better than Quiet Quitting
The pandemic has accelerated the Future of Work as COVID has altered how we work, play, learn and socialize. Many of the changes are welcome. Video calls are an efficient, if imperfect, substitute for in person meetings. Online collaborative tools enhance project management and information sharing. Hybrid work and reduced business travel frees time for more meaningful work. Many employers in digital industries have extended hybrid work policies acknowledging employee preferences and high productivity among remote workers.
The Great Resignation is both a response to and accelerant of workplace changes. More than 60 million U.S. workers have quit their jobs since the pandemic started with a record 4.5 million Americans quitting in November 2021 alone. The Great Resignation is a sign of economic vitality. Voluntary employee turnover typically increases during periods of economic growth as tight labor markets enable employees to move to higher paying jobs that better match their skills and interests.
The Great Resignation offers companies an opportunity to retool their workforce. Adoption of new automation software and robotics has increased as companies seek to offset rising employment costs with labor saving technology. Remote work expands labor markets enabling companies to tap top talent from other cities. Distributed executive teams untethered from company headquarters ripples across organizations resulting in more distributed workforces.
Yet remote work may involve longer term organizational costs that we may not now fully appreciate today. We are just now realizing the toll of remote schooling on student learning through declining standardized test scores. Employee development is harder to measure so the long-term impact of remote work on the workforce is not well understood. Studies have long shown that knowledge transmits best in dense, local social networks. Companies must redesign professional development and reorient company culture to accommodate remote work.
Quiet Quitting is a rising trend enabled by remote work. Quiet quitting refers to fulfilling minimum job requirements with the least necessary time and effort. The average workweek has declined by half an hour in the United States over the past two years even as the unemployment rate has declined from 8% in 2020 to 3.5% in September. This trend predates COVID as Greg McKeown’s Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less has been a New York Times best seller with over one million copies sold since its publication in 2014. Remote work reduces direct oversight offering more degrees of freedom for potential slackers.
Essentialism is a natural response for salaried workers. When employers pay hourly wages, employees are incentivized to work longer, and employers manage workloads to avoid overtime pay. Salaries are a fixed cost for employers, which tempt them to trim workforce and demand more of remaining employees. As employers increasingly expect salaried workers to be always on, the burden of restraint falls on the workforce. Essentialism is an appropriate employee response to protect work life balance and manage their own professional development.
Bonuses and performance-based pay raises are powerful motivators, yet the most effective levers may be nonpecuniary. Mission driven companies can attract and retain a workforce intrinsically motivated by a common purpose. Creative people are attracted by dynamic company cultures working alongside talented peers.
Essentialism does not apply in winner-take-most labor markets, especially in career opportunities with the highest potential payouts. Zipf’s Law observes that, across many fields, the winner gets twice as much as the runner up, three times as much as the bronze medalist and so on. Winner-take-all markets skew rewards toward the winner to an even larger extend.
For those gunning to be President, Provost or CEO, coming in second is a first loser proposition. Professions with limited room at the top tend to be winner-take-most markets. Startups that need to achieve escape velocity to survive must run hard else risk failing. For high achievers, time is a most precious asset.
For ambitious, young professionals, the Future of Work should not have a Q (Quiet Quitting) in it. Remote work is a convenience with a cost — the opportunity to interact with leaders, work closely with mentors, accelerate professional development, build company culture, and be part of something larger than yourself. Being part of a mission driven organization is an unrivalled experience. Quiet Quitting sells both yourself and your organization short. The Great Resignation is a better response both for your professional development and your company.
