It’s The Great Upgrade, not the Great Resignation

Mar 18

The COVID-19 Pandemic hit us all. Hard. Many, if not most of us, were forced into a situation in which all our “normal” ways of doing things got turned upside down. Schools and daycares were closed, so parents found themselves typing on a keyboard with one hand and making continuous snacks for their children with the other. All. Week. Long. With limited breaks and blurred lines with virtually everyone working from home, our new commutes consisted of moving from the bedroom to our “home offices” – sometimes, we changed out of our pajama pants, sometimes we didn’t.

And amidst all the change and challenges, these new circumstances gave us the unexpected space to see some realties that were always right in front of us but maybe previously not so clear to see. It took removing ourselves from our physical corporate offices to see that there are healthier, more progressive, more inclusive ways of running our businesses and treating our people. And now with this new perspective in place, people are also starting to better understand their worth. And although there is a myriad of reasons people are leaving their jobs, overall people are saying “no” to the mistreatment, to the lack of opportunities, and to the injustice that plagues Corporate America. People are focusing in on what they value in their lives and saying F$&* it! Life’s too short to be treated unfairly.

Cue the Great Resignation.

22 million employees have quit their jobs in the US in the last 5 months – representing 15% of the US workforce and more than all of Canada’s workforce, which to put into context is more than double the normal attrition rate and a 20 year high. In other words, an abnormally high volume of people are leaving their jobs (1) (2)

It's not like we didn’t already know pre-Pandemic that things in Corporate America were broken. But for many reasons, the Pandemic put us all in a position to feel the brokenness in corporate culture, and that is resulting in greater action to correct societal and business issues than has probably ever been seen before.

The action of quitting jobs that no longer serve us is a strong message to politicians, corporate executives and society at large that things can’t continue based on the status quo.

More than ever people are creating space to learn and share knowledge with one another to pave the way for a better future for the next generation - A future that is equitable, diverse, and sustainable. So really, the Great Resignation is more like the Great Upgrade. And as a part of our Superlab community, you are the catalyst for positive change.

Here are 10 things you can to do contribute to the Great Upgrade:

Treat your employees with respect. Have you noticed your more senior leaders regularly cancel meetings with more junior employees? This sends the message that not everyone’s time is equally valued. Guess what? We have all been given one life to live, which means everyone’s time is worth the same value. This is one of many examples of ways you can properly value your employee’s time and show them the profound respect everyone deserves.
Offer flexible work hour options (which is different than working “all hours”). Each person has a unique optimal working hour profile and the old 9-5 model doesn’t recognize this. If finding mutually available time on your team is a priority (ie. to hold team meetings), then set aside a short-window daily or weekly where employees are expected to be available online and/or in-person.
Provide optionality surrounding the “5 day work week” The 5 day work week was established in the Industrial Revolution, at which point women were rarely part of paid work - it no longer serves modern day society. Leaving 2 day weekends means you likely eat up one of those days attending kids birthday parties/running between baseball-soccer-dance-gymastics-insert more here, and the other day cleaning/grocery shopping/meal prepping + planning for the week to come. So where’s the day of rest?
Offer hybrid/remote working as this provides individuals with greater options to integrate home and work life. People waste an average of 48 minutes a day commuting (in Canada)(3). If we properly value our employee’s time, we’d realize this is not always a reasonable ask. Offering hybrid/remote working doesn’t preclude you from providing in-office options. Afterall, not everyone agrees that they work best at home. But being more open and providing more options for how people work, gives people the option to lean into the one that works best for them and their teams.
Make your hiring policies equitable and inclusive by screen candidates based on the quality of skills and competencies, not the quantity of experience. A recent study conducted by Harvard demonstrated that there is zero correlation between experience and someone’s performance on the job (4). By focusing on hiring candidates that have already acquired certain experiences, we also perpetuate gender and racial gaps in our workforce.
Compensate people equitably and transparently, while reducing the spread in compensation between all levels within the organization. Oh this is a big one! Will dig deeper on this in a future post - stay tuned!
Throw out performance evaluations and instead have people rate their own experience and intentions. People cannot reliably rate one another. Many studies have shown that performance evaluations are better at predicting individual rater biases than objective performance of those being rated. By having people rate their own experience or intentions, you can use that data to inform the type of work to expose each employee.
Remove critical feedback and replace it with paying attention to what each person does best. Critical feedback elicits the fight-or-flight response in the person receiving the feedback, responding as if to a threat and narrows brain activity. This does not enable learning. The research makes it clear that we learn most when in our strength zone, so focus in on an individual’s strengths (5).
Increase exposure to learning and development through formal in-house or partnered programs. The old model of elementary-high school-post secondary, then you stop learning, is dead. Life is learning and so learning doesn’t need to end. Make sure you make learning accessible and affordable throughout your employee’s journey by prioritizing it in your annual budgets.
Stop trying to make everyone well-rounded and a “culture fit”. Improvement doesn’t come from prioritizing the repair of our deficits - it comes from prioritizing first and predominantly our strengths and successes (5). Focusing on creating well-rounded individuals is misguided as we need spiky, weird, idiosyncrasies to unlock new ways of thinking and solving things (on the flip-side, well-rounded teams is a must!). Instead focus on working with your team members on how to combine and create unique combinations of their strengths, while nurturing the confidence to lean into those.

Make sure your organization’s WHY makes the world a better place. Remember that actions speak louder than words. It’s important to make it visible and known what you believe in, but more importantly is to match the words to the actions you as a member of your organization, undertake.

These Great Upgrades will become the norm.

What would you add to this list of workplace upgrades?

With love and hope for a better future,