Can you talk about why everyone is quitting?

Photo by Frank Vessia.

We've gotten this question three times in the last week. To be fair, we've been talking about pandemic quitting for a while now.

We mentioned the idea of a "huge reshuffling of talent" back in May. And talked about people wanting to reclaim space between work and life in June. We talked about it again in July and how to know if the situation was fixable. Hell, we even wrote an entire how to quit in a pandemic guide in September.

That we're at the one year mark for the first lockdowns and it feels like everyone is quitting, well, we can't say we're surprised. But it's our full time job to pay attention to this stuff. And what we're hearing from a lot of you is: why now?

But why, actually, now?

We're starting to stare down coming back. And the thing that's clear to most folks is that they can't go back. The person they were at the start of this is long gone.

And you know it for your own self if you've gotten those "One Year Ago" photo app reminders this week. The person in those pictures has no idea what's about to happen. How could they?

For many of us, that former self is unrecognizable. So beautiful. So hopeful. And so, so naïve.

We'll have the kids home for two weeks. And then they'll go back. Might be sorta nice to have an extended spring break anyway.

We're not new anymore. We're not naïve. We're not those people. And the idea of going back to a workforce that anticipates an outdated version of us makes it easier to think about what's next.

Don't call it a come back

As we anticipate our collective re-entry, it's easy to understand the appeal of a fresh start. The opportunity for new coworkers. Ones who haven't seen us take a shower on zoom. Or wipe our kid's bum. Or apply a face mask, only to find it was a video-on call instead of audio only.

We're ready to reclaim more of that space. On the heels of a year of this, the entire workforce is screaming GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE. Get out of my evenings. Get out of my weekends. Get out of my before sleep brain loops. And my morning coffees. And my Peloton rides spent listening to webinars.

The collective push back against employers who have been in our living rooms, our bedrooms, our kitchens, and our family life for the better part of a year. It's not a gentle shove.

Some slates don't wipe clean

In our office it was always the red whiteboard marker. Green, blue, purple, orange would all wipe clean off on the first try. But once you'd written on the whiteboard with the red one, it was on there forever.

If you've ever lived this life, you know the trick. The best way to clear a whiteboard marker that won't come off is to write over top of it with another marker. The solvent content in the new marker helps lift the old one. You have to write new things to make the old things fade. ... So when we see that a lot of people are starting new jobs right now, we get it.

But where does that leave your organization? And what's your job as a boss in this moment?

Well first let's recognize where we are. A year of pandemic has written a lot on each of us, and much of it is in permanent marker. For your employees who have been with you through the whole thing, there's no getting around it. COVID is part of your employer brand for those people. Always will be.

Even for those who started with your organization partway through the pandemic, this is part of their story. Part of how they talk about their work, part of how they think about their future with, or without, you.

As a boss, now is a good time to listen. You know the listening that happens when you step out of the car and into a forest, and it takes a second for your ears to open up? Compared to the noise of the car, the forest seems so silent. But no forest is ever actually silent. It's just that sometimes it takes a deliberate effort to notice how much you'd turned down the volume on everything.

Listen to what your workforce is trying to tell you. Because from over here where we're writing this they're speaking loudly. They are burnt crispy. They are tired. They are working too much and living too little. They need to re-establish boundaries. They want a clean start and a healthier life than how it's felt. And the idea of that is so attractive that, one way or another, they're going to get it.

We're having another moment

Quitting is one way for your people to set new boundaries and negotiate a new relationship with work. As a boss, your next job is to ask yourself: are there any others? Is that renegotiation something they can do within your org? And if so, what does that look like?

Back in the spring, we told you that every organization had a moment in front of them. A moment to decide what kind of pandemic employer they were going to be. Everything was on the table. And organizations made some wildly different choices. Choices they are still living with, a year on.

This is a moment again. And this time the question is how you want to meet your team as they come out of all this. How are you going to give back the hours of lengthened work day? How will you support them as they try to reset some work/life boundaries?

It's gotta be you who starts this conversation, because you hold the power to make change. We should all want to build supportive workplaces where employees feel empowered, sure. But a lot of people aren't feeling very empowered right now. A lot of employees feel like the only power they have left is the power to walk away. And when they use that power, even with all the risk and uncertainty it creates for them, there's a reason.

So our advice to you is to get proactive about this negotiation. Don't make this as-needed or when-requested. This is a conversation worth having with every single person on your team. What's working, what's not? What needs to change as we emerge from lockdown?

Imagine that every person on your team is trying to figure out whether this job is recoverable or not. Imagine that it's been a hard year, but that many of them are still open to the idea of staying on. Imagine that they're curious to see what you're going to do next, but that they aren't going to wait much longer.

- Melissa and Johnathan