In 2021, the world came to know about a silent revolution which engulfed the entire globe. That came to be known as ‘The Great Resignation’. The psychologist Anthony Klotz coined this term which meant the enormous amount of dissatisfaction people had all over the world since many years regarding their job/work. Many of them had been hesitant to change jobs primarily due to social status, peer pressure or desire to keep earning in spite of hating their job.
But the covid-19 pandemic and its after effects changed everything. For the first time, many of the unhappy employees and workers realized that life is short and uncertain. They came to accept that more than job or high salary, it is job satisfaction, spending time with family, and personal wellbeing that matters in life. Hence, the pre-covid hesitation to quit the job changed into a determination to leave the job immediately. Many employees started quitting their job, be it in healthcare, sales, tech, IT and manufacturing. Soon, this spread all over the world and came to be known as ‘The Great Resignation’
But if we look more closely, do we really see any change in people’s approach towards job and career? Because even though this fancy word ‘The Great Resignation’ sounds utopian, people are willing to quit their jobs for the sake of health and family. But in reality, it is not that easy. Because unlike the millionaires and billionaires, common wage earners and employees really cannot afford that luxury to quit the job. They have their family to feed, pay the bills, and thus make ends meet. Some of them might have quit jobs for their health, or family concerns, but many seem to be just following the crowd. Because so many employees are switching jobs, this has created a dearth of employees in the organization with the required skill set, and hence the demand has exceeded the supply. So, naturally, the value of that job has been pumped up, not because that skill is in demand, but just because companies are not sure if they would be able to retain their employees for long like pre-covid times. So, few employees are taking advantage of this uncertain environment, by revolving around jobs and thus spiking up the salary package scale.
But the problem still remains, which is that by changing jobs just for better pay or perks, it won’t change the reality of a job.
This is because people often confuse between a job and a career.
Job is something we have to do, but a career is something we want to do.
The significance of Great Resignation is actually meant to go after a meaningful career, where we work because we want to do that work, we have the right skills and interests to do something creative, something useful in that field of work. This is what the Great Resignation tells us. The covid-19 pandemic awakened the people who were drunk in the materialistic success, but after the pandemic, it is time to go after meaningful career, which would not only give us work satisfaction, but also help us to spend time for our good health, family time, hobbies, travel, volunteering etc. This is the ideal work-life balance which we should aim for in our life.
But unfortunately, what we are seeing, especially in India, is that people are going after jobs, and not careers. People are willing to slog for hours for some foreign client/company, just because they are giving a 70% hike or even a 2.X salary as compared to the previous salary package. People are switching jobs because the market is ripe and pumped up by this virtual demand, coupled with the advantage of work from home. But they forget that this slogging for hours, while working from home, without any meaningful career is going to hurt their health, family life in the long term. They are willing to take a job which they hate, just because it is paying more, but it is never going to give the work satisfaction, and hence that is the bad side of ‘The Great Resignation’.
Hence, it’s far better to go after a long term stable career rather than a short term high paying work from home job which will cost more in the long term.
Views expressed are my own.
-Abhishek Karadkar
AbhiKNotes - The blog of Abhishek Karadkar 