How Covid Forever Changed our Perspectives on Workplace Fulfillment
Isn’t it an interesting time to be alive? I have noticed recently that my thoughts keep coming back to how dynamic and dramatic the past twenty months have been. We have experienced rather dramatic events, highlighting social unrest, political turmoil, economic instability. Not to mention a particular pandemic that has disrupted status quos the world over. I sometimes hear people talk about “when things get back to normal.” Still, as I consider the Pandora’s Box level disruption covid has exerted over just about every facet of society, the truth becomes clear. The norms of pre-covid life may in many ways be gone for good.
One place where this has been most evident is in the workplace. To slow the spread of the virus, non-essential businesses were closed, governments gave lockdown and quarantine orders, and restricted travel. The result was a massive disruption in the economy. Unemployment shot up to a staggering 14.7% in April 2020. The 31.4% annualized decline in the gross domestic product (GDP) during the second quarter of 2020 represented the most precipitous drop in GDP in U.S. history. Many were thrown into remote work situations for those fortunate to keep their jobs (previously deemed untenable by many organizations) and left to figure things out.
All this disruption in the workplace had a particularly impactful, if not unforeseen, consequence. With the collective step back from and out of, the office we noticed a light shining into the hidden recesses of our hearts and minds. You know, those places we have neither the time nor energy to explore during “normal” times? This moment of collective pause brought a new perspective, and we felt a question begin to whisper in that light: “Am I happy?” And growing in strength, it was followed by: “Am I fulfilled?”
What is Fulfillment?
When thinking about what it means to be fulfilled, we might turn to ideas of achieving our hopes and realizing our dreams. When we look at it in the context of work, we tend to translate this into “engagement.” A simple way to think about engagement is the degree to which an employee utilizes their discretionary effort. How far beyond that minimal effort needed to keep one’s job is an employee empowered to deliver? This is primarily governed by the four drivers of:
ROLE | how well they fit their role
MANAGEMENT | what is their relationship with their manager
TEAM | how well do they fit in with their team
CULTURE | their fit with the culture of the company
Work-Life Pre-Pandemic
Before the pandemic, we acquiesced to the realities of hours on the road commuting to and from work every month. We relegated family time to a few minutes every morning and a couple of hours every evening during the week, with two weeks in a year to take a family vacation. Many felt limited to two choices to “balance” our lives: (A) brutally early mornings, in exchange for getting off work in time to pick up the kids or run an errand, or (B) being part of the morning routine but having to work late. For some, the choice would trend towards (C) All of the above. From an emotional energy perspective, these things were all taxing. Still, we reminded ourselves of the “reality” that this was the cost of being gainfully employed. It was called “work” after all.
Work-Life Post-Pandemic
Since covid, life took a dramatic turn for millions of workers. With a commute eliminated, we gained hours back in our day. Not only did we not need to drive to work, but now things like lunch were only steps away. We could even conceivably eat our meals as we worked, creating time for…dare I say…a mid-day nap [que dramatic orchestra hits]. Lifestyles like these were only rumored in fairytales of Google campus life, and even then, you still had to get to work. It wasn’t possible that those fairytales could not only be true but true for the U.S. I mean, could it?
Impact
Yet as the initial chaos of the pandemic began to wear off and Lifestyle changes became a habit, our concepts of what is an acceptable emotional price to pay to be gainfully employed shifted. Having more time for ourselves, more time for our work, and more time for our families exposed how much more we can be fulfilled with our work, and as a result, life. This is not just showing up in anecdotal stories but in the real numbers. According to Bankrate’s August job seeker survey, some 55% of people in the workforce, meaning they are currently working or actively looking for employment, said they are likely to look for a new job in the next 12 months. Many have decided to move on to entirely different endeavors, like starting their businesses. The job market is markedly different now. The result is borne out in the challenges organizations are experiencing attracting, and more importantly, retaining talent.
We can safely say covid has shifted the way we think about “work.” A recent Forbes article points to one of these changes: “Corporate Flexibility.” It will not be feasible or desired for every organization to move to a permanent “work-from-home” model. There will be those who miss the commute and the in-person office interactions. For some, the situation at home was the emotional drain, and the time at work was their relief. Tomorrow’s corporate winners then will be those best equipped to listen, flex and pivot to the diverse needs of their employees and balance these with profitability. Some will be easy win-wins. Others will need to determine the new variables in the math of engagement and determine the best investments. Those who best figure this out will be the organizations of the future. (hint: it will be about the four drivers of fit: role, manager, team, and culture).
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