Spillover Stress From “The Great Resignation” in the United States: Broken Cross-Departmental Dependencies

Introduction: “The Great Resignation” After Covid-19

In the United States and elsewhere, the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic was a disruption of the labour market known as “The Great Resignation”. As businesses shut down in-person activities, many office-based positions, such as administrative and professional roles, began to operate remotely. Telecommuting platforms were adopted as an alternative to in-person work, and many roles were able to shift to virtual from physical presence (Endresen, 2020). This ultimately made plain the notion that remote office work had been possible for quite some time, due to advancements in virtual meeting software. The stress of shifting work environments was combined with the personal stress of pandemic health risks for workers and their families, and shortages of household items such as toilet paper, disinfectant wipes, and hand sanitizer. Some workers, of course, had no virtual options, such as those in the physical trades. Government unemployment benefits were increased, proving some minor cushioning for those unable to work or going through a job transition.

In short, workers reassessed their relationships with their current employers, particularly with regard to compensation, advancement, and a sense of respect (Parker and Horowitz, 2022). Those workers who needed physical presence or enjoyed the social aspects of the workplace environment were dissatisfied with remote work requirements. Those workers who felt unsafe from the contagion working in a building with those whose vaccination status could not be known found themselves dissatisfied with requests to come back to the office. Workers with long commuting times and high commuting costs found relief from the commute and wanted to prolong working from home (Price Waterhouse Coopers, 2021). These conditions led to massive resignations from existing positions, or for those keeping a role but performing the bare minimum necessary to sustain it, a “quiet quitting” (Hare, 2022). Many organizations found themselves struggling to retain essential employees as prospects elsewhere brightened into job offers with higher salaries, better benefits, or more preferable working conditions. Labour became a seller’s market, advantaging job seekers.

Meanwhile, organizations that relied on revenue from customers faced challenges from both broken supply chains, and redirection of consumer discretionary dollars. Many reduced their target headcount to attempt to rebalance expanded salary and bonus expenditures with declining income. In some cases, open positions were simply not filled. In other cases, the work was too important to necessary operations, and companies began competing more intensely for available qualified candidates. This ultimately meant fewer workers in some organizations trying to produce the same amount of work. Employees who remained felt pressure to expand either the scope or output of their existing roles, resulting in longer hours (Beheshti, 2021). Persistent employees paid the price of additional workload stress in challenging social and psychological pandemic conditions, while their peers moved on to often better-paying, and perhaps more-flexible employment elsewhere. In the face of increasing work, these retained employees may have had less wherewithal to perform or overextend, particularly a decline in executive functioning (Farahat, et. al., 2021) as they faced personal and family health threats and organizational uncertainty.