Archive for June, 2021

Lately there have been a lot of news stories about “the great resignation.” Some employees are quitting because they do not want to return to the office after experiencing the benefits of working from home. Others are reevaluating their priorities in life, and want to make changes that help them enjoy more of their working hours.

There are some similarities to how employees felt during and after the housing recession around 2007 – 2012. During the recession, there were mass layoffs and some employers cut benefits. Yet workloads did not change. The remaining employees struggled to fill the gaps and do more work with fewer resources. Employer attitudes were that staff should be grateful to have jobs when many did not.

When businesses started growing again and hiring in greater numbers, employees who were burned out and fed up had more new opportunities to choose from. And they chose them!   

This time around, workers seem to feel even more empowered to leave their jobs for something better. A quick internet search for “negotiating working from home” pulls up several pages of results from the past year. And it is not only people seeking remote work who are quitting. Workers are looking for employers who will treat them well. Employees are less likely to put up with bad managers, brutal workloads, or inflexible workplace policies when there are other options.

If you are tempted to leave a bad job but need a little nudge, I’ve got a few nudges in the “quitting” category on my blog Quitting : Truth and Details.