The next big thing

I am convinced that the next big social movement in the U.S.A. will be about how much we work, the meaning of work, and whether how we work is “worth it.”

Consider the following:

• Taking on at least four years of student loan debt is a pre-requisite to “doing well financially” (click here for a Federal Reserve study showing that only 67% of people with a high school degree feel they are “doing okay” financially versus nearly 90% of college graduates saying the same).
• Real wages haven’t budged since the 1960s.
• We are generally working more hours than ever before to earn the same money as before (check out this EPI link, too).
• Between 1950 and 2012, annual hours worked per employee fell by about 40% in Germany and the Netherlands — but by only 10% in the United States. As Samuel P. Huntington said in 2005, Americans “work longer hours, have shorter vacations, get less in unemployment, disability, and retirement benefits, and retire later, than people in comparably rich societies.”

I’d submit that the pandemic has laid these problems bare. A strong stock market masks the discontent lying underneath, but workers have not been fooled:

• During the pandemic, the average workday increased by 48.5 minutes, per Harvard Business School.
• One poll conducted by The Morning Consult found that 39% of US adults would consider quitting “if their bosses weren’t flexible about them working from home.” Note that of those who would consider quitting, almost half were born after 1980 (link to original source is behind the paywall here).
• The Morning Consult poll tracks the 2021 Microsoft Work Trend Index (a study of more than 30,000 people in 31 countries) which discovered that 41% of employees are considering leaving their current employer this year.
• For months, retention and turnover experts have been warning of a post-pandemic “Turnover Tsunami,” but employers are doing little — if anything — to combat this (see 1 and 2).
• We’ve all heard of (and are now starting to see journalists write about) companies and bosses who are trying to act like the pandemic never happened.

I’m in constant communication with friends and co-workers who have used this season of “living at work” to reconsider career goals and reset their expectations and priorities. Why? To put it simply: leaders are out-of-touch with their workers and workers are exhausted.

Lest you think I just hang around “soft” people, data from the Work Trend Index mentioned above backs this up:

• While 61% of leaders say they are “thriving,” only 38% of employees feel the same.
• Since February 2020, weekly meeting time has more than doubled and weekly Microsoft Teams Chats per person are up 45% (and…don’t forget that Harvard Business School study noting that the work day has gotten longer by almost 50 minutes).

My friends are, generally, well-adjusted high achievers. They are accountants, consultants, data-scientists, lawyers, managers at the world’s biggest companies, realtors, and leaders in athletics and entertainment. If I were to survey this crowd, I’m confident that I could gather countless stories of detached leaders and exhausted employees. In fact, a story I recently heard shows just how out-of-touch companies can be.

A few acquaintances of mine started an internship at a prestigious, older company. Selection for this internship was competitive and the company expects a lot out of the interns. The stakes are high: virtually all of this company’s entry level employees interned with the company.

Well, on day 1 of the internship, the interns arrived at the company’s building a few minutes ahead of the appointed start time and…only the receptionist was there to greet them. You’d think that at least a member of management, someone on the HR/recruiting team, or internship coordinator would be there first to give the newest recruits a warm welcome. That didn’t happen. There was a room set up with coffee and snacks, but the interns arrived first, and the company’s representatives sauntered in later.

I don’t know if this was an oversight by several people or a deliberate plan to not greet these interns. Whatever happened here, it shows a lack of thoughtfulness and care. You don’t expect a lot of things on day one of an internship, but it’s not too much to expect a little enthusiasm from the people who hired you.

We spend a lot of time wondering if the younger generations “work as hard” as prior generations or whether young workers will be good stewards of the old, established companies, but we spend essentially no time asking if these companies will treat employees well.

For decades, we’ve heard companies say, “People are our greatest asset.” Well, if that is true, when will companies start acting like it?