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The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

gallup.com

131–140 of 264 posts

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#131
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This technocratic vision of the future does not square away with human nature and reality. Much more likely is a Butlerian Jihad to destroy automation and return us to a more pastoral way of life, even with advanced technology. Only socially awkward engineers, business majors (most of whom are incredibly anti-social contrary to common perception), and finance types actually believe in this vision. Normal people are h…

> Humans are not meant to lack meaningful work. Citation needed.

The opposite claim 'humans are okay lackin meaningful work' also needs a citation, as its easily demonstrably false in history.

Contrary to popular belief our civilization is not the only one that has come close to being able to provide basically all its needs. Many other civilizations have and eventually the class whose needs are provided for disintegrates due to their own decay. We will make claims that the 'barbarians' sacked rome, and while this is technically true, they are not the reason for the decline of the Roman Empire. The truth is, by the time the barbarians attacked, rome was a shell of its former self. In times past, the Roman army would have put an end to the barbarians. But the societal decay from the elites of the empire meant the systems that preserved them there slowly fell into disrepair.

Broadly speaking we are witnessing the same thing now except at a grander scale because now even for the lower classes it's not obvious they need to work.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#132

Interesting tidbit regarding Gallup: the Fortune 500 company I work for manipulates our surveys by asking general questions about the company and then holding the supervisors accountable for the results even if all of the questions are way out of their control. So they leverage the the employee-supervisor relationship to make it seem like there is more happiness and less discontent. That being said, I find it hard to…

Seen this before too.

1. Company makes unpopular decision (cuts a benefit, partners with someone unpopular, enforces some tedious process to make management life earlier)

2. Next poll season comes round

3. Shock, results are down

4. Declare an aggregate engagement measure as an action item which incorporates both the happiness metric but others such as understanding of company strategy

5. Declare the problem with this metric are line managers not conveying company direction well enough

6. Declare you're taking action by measuring line management on this metric

7. A bunch of ensuing makework on something execs think is important (at a certain size, a singular company vision is just too generic for line employees to care), yet they sell it as taking action

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#133

My opinion is that we need to move to four day work weeks and each day should have six working hours. Knowledge workers are wasting their lives at work when they could get the same amount done in fewer hours.

> Knowledge workers are wasting their lives at work when they could get the same amount done in fewer hours. I'm curious what job you have. I'm a SWE who is in the process of moving into a manager role. As an IC, I am 100% certain that I could get the same amount of work done in a 24 hour work week. In fact, I was probably working less than that already and still meeting my deadlines and getting great reviews. As a m…

I think this is a trigger for looking at the work you're doing, if it's actually necessary, or just busy work created by bureaucracy. If it is needed, should it be spread out among more people.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#134
post #75

> Though pay is important, money alone isn't the solution. Some very well-paid people are among the most disengaged, and disengaged white-collar workers are slightly more likely than others to be looking for a job. Two things here: - Well-paid could still be under the market (happens a lot in software) - If you're well-off it's easier to not depend on your job If it's mostly the first problem, paying more will solve…

I was in the first camp. Basically, well paid in absolute terms, but shite pay relative to other people in technology. Once WFH opened up my options, it took me all of week to find a position paying 2x as much.

Surprisingly, they company I left has no problem replacing me in about as much time. Though, I'm not sure if my replacement was paid more than I was. I did cite pay as my sole reason for leaving, so it is possible.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#135
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must understand that this attitude is the minority. Most people like their workplace because they like the people there. My dad worked in pharma sales for 30 years. Do you think he cared to sell the drugs? I mean... in that the drugs were helping people, he was happy. But his reason for going to work everyday was talking to his colleagues. To this day, he and his old colleagues still visit each other, still party…

Are you sure that this attitude is the minority? I can easily go have fun with people outside of work, so I have no incentive to put up with the annoying parts of office work just to get to interact with people.

Well you have to work, so it's better to do it with people you like.

Obviously, if you didn't have to work, you wouldn't work just to see office mates.

But if you do have to work, slogging away in a common place with friends is more compelling than sitting behind a computer.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#136

My opinion is that we need to move to four day work weeks and each day should have six working hours. Knowledge workers are wasting their lives at work when they could get the same amount done in fewer hours.

> Knowledge workers are wasting their lives at work when they could get the same amount done in fewer hours. I'm curious what job you have. I'm a SWE who is in the process of moving into a manager role. As an IC, I am 100% certain that I could get the same amount of work done in a 24 hour work week. In fact, I was probably working less than that already and still meeting my deadlines and getting great reviews. As a m…

Learning to manage is a lot like learning how to write a novel - at first you think you need all those words but then you can learn to cut fifty percent of what you wrote and still get the same point across. It’s kind of the same deal with the hours spent at work - identify and eliminate time sinks and suddenly you’re doing the same work in half the time.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Knowledge workers are wasting their lives at work when they could get the same amount done in fewer hours. I'm curious what job you have. I'm a SWE who is in the process of moving into a manager role. As an IC, I am 100% certain that I could get the same amount of work done in a 24 hour work week. In fact, I was probably working less than that already and still meeting my deadlines and getting great reviews. As a m…

I think this is a trigger for looking at the work you're doing, if it's actually necessary, or just busy work created by bureaucracy. If it is needed, should it be spread out among more people.

> If it is needed, should it be spread out among more people.

I agree, but that's kind of my point. There are plenty of people doing 40 hours worth of needed work right now. If we switch to a shorter work week, that work will need to be distributed to more people.

It's not an impossible problem to solve, but OPs comment seems to imply that there are no trade offs to be made if we switched to a 24 hour work week and I'm just trying to point out that that isn't the case.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#138

Interesting tidbit regarding Gallup: the Fortune 500 company I work for manipulates our surveys by asking general questions about the company and then holding the supervisors accountable for the results even if all of the questions are way out of their control. So they leverage the the employee-supervisor relationship to make it seem like there is more happiness and less discontent. That being said, I find it hard to…

Surveys set up by the likes of "Great Place to Work" and similar are nothing but HR and PR fluff. It's set up to be spinned and covered up.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#139
post #22

I resigned during the pandemic. The lockdown stripped my job to the essentials: No colleagues, no coffee corner, no nice fancy office, no treats (lunches, dinners, drinks), brainstorms, etc. I was left with something that was boring me to death. I felt perfectly happy in that job for 5 years before covid.

Yes, exactly this. I realized the separation between work and home is very important to me. The little things, like lunches with colleagues, were something to look forward to.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that “not engaged” isn’t the worst thing in the world. The expectation that we devote our lives to work is one of the biggest things that dissolved during the pandemic. I am far less engaged at my job than I have been in years, which actually makes me better at it because I’m almost never stressed out anymore.

"Engaged" and "disengaged" are terms of art in management which refer to whether someone is totally checked out or not. Someone who spends most of the day on Facebook is "disengaged", even if they're very competent and get more done in an hour than their teammates do in eight. Someone who basically takes their job seriously and puts in a reasonable effort is "engaged", even if they're a total idiot with net negative…

And they're apparently pretty approximate, if being 'disengaged' means that you're only 18% less productive than your 'engaged' coworkers. And then they provide the striking statistic that it will cost an employer up to 2X the annual salary of the 'disengaged' worker to replace them - that's equivalent to ten years of their not working hard, doesn't seem worth it, somehow.
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