The Pandemic Changed Us. Now Companies Have to Change Too

Writing for Harvard Business Review, Jennifer talks about how, during the pandemic, the global workforce was toiling away under the weight of chronic stress, financial insecurity, and collective grief. We became exhausted, self-efficacy decreased, and cynicism grew. It’s no wonder that people eventually hit the wall and started leaving their jobs in droves. One of the biggest reasons why people left? Unsustainable workloads. Still, many organizations kept marching ahead. Stretch goals remained, despite employees being unable to meet the demand. Too many employees were pushed past their breaking points.

Now, employers are finally starting to listen, as employees renegotiate their social contracts with work. Mental health awareness, a focus on increasing fairness, hybrid offerings and flexible hours, more active listening, real-time feedback, and personalizing communication are all initiatives that are working to solve issues around burnout in a more upstream manner than we’ve seen before. Leaders are beginning to have a clearer understanding that new workplace policies are not just “nice to haves,” but a necessity going forward.

It may sound obvious, but facing our collective mortality for the last two years changed us. Of course, many of us had confronted big challenges in our pre-pandemic lives, but this shared experience was uniquely difficult. One area of our lives that was dramatically altered was our collective perspective related to work.

Working under the weight of chronic stress, financial insecurity, and collective grief forced people to work harder and longer to get to the same goals. We became exhausted, self-efficacy decreased, and cynicism grew. It’s no wonder that people eventually hit the wall. But it was still shocking when nearly half of the global workforce said, almost simultaneously, “I quit!”