From today’s CBNC News:
Dysfunction in the Covid-era workforce has reached a fever pitch.
If you’ve talked to anyone about work in the last month, you’ve probably discussed quiet quitting (or setting boundaries), the not-so-quiet backlash from bosses, and even warnings of quiet firing (or managing out).
Railroad workers prepared to go on strike. Starbucks workers are unionizing. Teachers and nurses, burned out beyond belief in year three of the pandemic, say they’re reaching a breaking point.
All the while, the Great Resignation has become less of an anomaly as sky-high turnover every month has become the new norm. Even worries of a looming recession and mounting layoffs haven’t shaken workers’ confidence.
The power struggles between workers and bosses may have buzzy catchphrases now, but they’re really nothing new, says Sharon Block, professor and executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.
“I’m not sure that work is any more dysfunctional now for many workers than it’s been in the past,” she tells CNBC Make It. What has shifted, though, is that the tight labor market of the last year-plus gives workers the upper hand to vocalize, even push back on, the unaccommodating ways work gets done. On an existential level, people are re-thinking how they fill their time (including spending less of it at work).
“The experiences of the pandemic have brought these conversations of dysfunction to the fore,” Block says. “More workers are speaking up and speaking out about the quality of their jobs in a way they haven’t before.”
Read the complete story here.