Ep. 103 - Season 7 Opener: Getting Ready for a New World of Work
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To set things up for this season, we want to talk about something that we’re all probably going to hear a lot about this year: quitting.
The Great Reshuffle & The Future of Work
On January 4th, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released their latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). The survey showed that 4.5 million people quit in November 2021 — a record high, beating the record of 4.2 million people quitting in October 2021.
This was the 8th month in a row of record-breaking resignations. The Great Resignation, The Big Quit, whatever you want to call it, it’s clearly not slowing down. And it’s going to dramatically reshape the American workforce.
We see that people are quitting in the highest numbers from low-paying jobs with inflexible hours, particularly food service, hospitality, and retail jobs.
At the same time, more people are getting hired than are quitting. Data shows that 6.7M people were hired in November. That indicates that people aren’t just leaving to do nothing or collect unemployment benefits — people are quitting to take different jobs.
And to me, this whole phenomenon is indicative of a huge gap between employee expectations and employer expectations — and from where I’m sitting, it seems clear that businesses will have to change to accommodate people if they want to thrive. If your organization is unwilling to take the hint, someone else will just come along and take your place.
The State of Work and Career Success 2021
But what is it that people actually want? That’s the trillion-dollar question.
Flywheel Associates conducted the inaugural wave of the State of Work and Career Success Study in 2020 to understand the U.S. workforce’s attitudes, behaviors and perceptions with respect to their career journey, goals, and needs. Our goal was to identify strategies and opportunities to help move them forward in their careers.
When we got the results, it was clear that workers’ goals and needs have shifted over the last 20 years. We conducted this survey in the early summer of 2020, right after the pandemic was beginning. The Great Resignation is very much reflecting, and perhaps magnifying, the results that we saw: people want more flexibility, people want to do something that gives them a sense of purpose, and people don’t want to work in conditions where they don’t feel respected. If you want to learn more about the study, we discussed the key takeaways in episode 86.
But the survey only made us want to know more. So we decided to conduct another wave of research to measure trends in perceptions and conduct additional analysis to develop a deeper understanding of the needs of American workers. This next iteration of the State of Work and Career Success was designed to also include a framework to understand the drivers of career success and the relationship between career success and business success.
By working towards aligning the needs and goals of people and the companies they work for, we can make progress together — because I want people to live happier and more fulfilled lives, yes, but also because it’s becoming increasingly clear that organizations will have to change very soon if they want to be part of whatever the “new normal” ends up being.
We’re getting the survey results back in the next month and then we’ll be diving into that data. So, in addition to interviewing people about what it takes to make progress in this new world of work, we’ll be including some relevant data from the survey in upcoming episodes. I’ll also be sharing everything we find over on Instagram and LinkedIn.
