The Great Resignation OR the Great Redesign?

Elle Hunt’s The Guardian article 19th July 2022, “A bigger paycheck? I’d rather watch the sunset!: Is this the end of ambition?” resonated with me as a coach.  I don’t experience this with clients as the end of ambition but a meteoric rise in even greater ambition - fulfilment.  

 This is about individualism; people, humans, emotional beings, giving themselves the freedom to reconsider and re-design their version of their reality; prioritising things important to them and seeking to live more wholeheartedly.  I think, based on my conversations with clients as coach, it’s borne from desire to be authentic and to be really seen, heard, and accepted by others and most importantly themselves.  That desire isn’t new, we’re borne with it in our DNA.  Perhaps we’ve kept a lid on it, stifled it, and suffocated it at work; to fit in and to stay safe.  I often hear, ‘the pandemic has changed everything’.  I disagree, I see in my work that it’s changed ‘us’ as human beings.  Perhaps as people head ‘back to work’, they realise not enough has actually changed for them in their environment?  Fitting in is not nearly the same as the safety of belonging.  I wonder if people are re-designing and migrating to where they feel they belong – at least leaving where they know they don’t/can’t belong and searching for something better, which they bravely accept might take a bit of sacrifice and trial and error.

Simon Sinek recently said, “The ‘Great Resignation’ is an inditement on decades of substandard organisational culture and poor leadership that’s gone on for too long...”.  This is quite harsh, but the truth often is.  Elle Hunt’s perspective in this article agrees indirectly in people’s stories of instigating a wholehearted change.  It agrees directly in the stats of people resigning but offers the contradiction that they also seem to be being re-hired elsewhere.  Is this the ‘Great Resignation’ or the ‘Great Re-design’?  The myth that people just don’t want to work is too simplistic to entertain.   There are so many studies that back the importance and value of working life on our psyche.  I believe people are now placing greater importance and value on their psyche than their work - and that’s new.

This re-design is costly to businesses and our economy.  The airport/airline horror show unfolding this summer is a prime example.  The IES’s (Institute for Employment Studies, Labour Market Studies, 14th June 2022) conclusion to the report mentioned by Elle Hunt suggests labour market recovery is slowing and spiralling inflation is suffocating real pay.  Problems might get worse as interest rates continue to rise and spending will probably slow. The EIS final comment states, “We also need to do more to support employers and expect more from employers too – on inclusive recruitment, job design, flexibility, and workplace support”. 

This is tough, many leaders talk to me about fingers being mostly in holes in the dam stemming the loss. Minds are whirring on how to re-coup.  Throwing money at it is not the whole solution, although the economic issues surrounding real pay need to be addressed.  Meanwhile people are voting with their feet and many of the sectors experiencing the greatest impact of this are service based, they are unable to offer work from home arrangements, or flexible patterns or discretionary days off; they have be on, 24/7/365.   I wonder how businesses and leaders are embracing this re-design in this environment.  A re-design of their thinking about how they re-design for the individual who wants to bring their whole self to work and wants to feel valued, fulfilled, and authentic, in exchange for their manual and cerebral contribution and expertise. 

How can businesses adapt to allow for individual bespoke personal development? For people who are hybrid or WFH bringing unique expertise and talent and for those who must attend their designated shift?  How are businesses responding to the emotional needs of their people?  Is there are safe space to talk, express, contribute positively and develop; for businesses to retain that authentic being they searched so long and hard to find.  How are businesses being influenced and in turn influencing their people?  How are the strengths of internal relationship being fortified? How does an organisation even conceptualise the sensory construct of belonging, versus this is how you fit in?  Is it possible to positively visualise the entire workforce ‘bringing themselves’ and what that looks and feels like?  All whilst meeting shareholder and financial demands. 

In many ways the pandemic has been a great leveller.  Those companies out there who considered and delivered on all the above pre-pandemic have been highlighted and this has woken a new sense of possibility and desire in so many.  The great rising ambition of a meaningful, balanced, fulfilling life experience that absolutely includes meaningful work.  If this is true – how do leaders and organisations respond and how do those on a pedestal stay there?