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Key points
- Many workers are rethinking the point of what they're working and living for in the times after the pandemic.
- Surveys show that management and workplace cultures create stress and mental health problems.
- Many workers want to remain "virtual," as they realize careerism has been defining their lives too much.
Lately, I’ve been noticing self-help articles appear about how you can get ready to go “back to the grind” if you’re returning to in-office work. Curious about what people think of that, I asked a random sample from different careers and organizations for their responses.
They all began laughing. “Are you kidding?!” “No way, I’m not going back!” “Never—maybe one day a month, at most!” And those were some of the more printable responses.
A gap is brewing: Some companies, like Amazon, have announced that they expect a full-time return to an “office-centric culture,” like in pre-pandemic times. Many more, though, are giving the option of remaining virtual—some or all of the time. Google and Apple, for example. And others offer permanent remote jobs, like Twitter, Slack, and Facebook.
There’s a theme emerging from the experience of working from home—with both the convenience and the domestic issues people have had to navigate. It’s unleashing new perspectives about the role of work and career in people’s lives… and what they want it to be. Many are reflecting and questioning over-devotion to “careerism” in their lives: how that’s curtailed and narrowed their sense of purpose for living beyond work and career development.
They’re looking anew at how their careers and lives beyond career connect. Or don’t. And what they want to do about it as we enter the emerging, different kind of normalcy and changes in the workplace and career culture.
This questioning and reflection—visible in those responses to going “back to the grind”—is linked to long-standing negative experiences career-pursuing people have within the management and leadership culture of many organizations. Management practices can create mental health problems. That’s not a new discovery: I and others have written about it for many years.
Take, for example, my book Modern Madness from some decades ago. Essays about abusive management practices that continue to hurt people. Why work and career create emotional conflicts for many men and women. What brings others to redefine the meaning of "success."
But more recently, we’re seeing employees at all levels report mounting stress and a range of mental health problems. A number of new surveys and research data reveal that many organizations are marked by unsupportive, psychologically damaging leadership. The work itself often limits opportunities for new growth, learning, and creative contribution to the product or service. All of that adds to stress, conflict, and outright emotional conflicts, sometimes serious disturbance.
Here are some of the new findings about management practices and mental health. Then, let’s look at how that’s related to the impact of virtual work during the pandemic and how people are rethinking the ways their work and work culture relate to their larger life.
Management culture can harm your mental health.
Workplace stress and mental health:
Eighty-two percent of workers report that the pandemic has had a bigger impact on their stress than any other event and that it’s linked with the management culture they experience, according to a recent Thrive Sciences research report. Similarly, 69 percent of employees report concerns about their mental health, based on their experience of work and the workplace, according to research from Salesforce. And 84 percent report that managers, especially those who are poorly trained, cause work and stress on the job, from a study by the Society for Human Resource Management.
Planning to quit or change careers:
Twenty-five percent of U.S. workers have weighed quitting their jobs altogether as they face what may come next in the workplace—especially with pressures to return to work at the office, reports an AP-NORC/SAP poll. Sixty-one percent of women career professionals are planning a major career change post-pandemic, according to this survey, in anticipation of seeking more meaningful, integrated careers. A new think tank for women has been established to promote women’s ascent to a range of careers in the post-pandemic world.
Rethinking career and life purpose in the aftertimes.
A good illustration of reacting to the toll that career culture can take on your life was described in a recent Washington Post article by Tracy Moore. She writes,
“If the pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that the old way of working left little room for living. Between our fragile mental health and the notion that one must appear to be killing it 24/7 or be deemed not ‘in it to win it.’ Of all the cultural baggage Americans might hope to shed after the past 14 months, it is this: the expectation that work should always come first, that personal responsibilities are mere inconveniences to be minimized, that taking vacation days or sick leave—if you are lucky enough to have them—somehow reveals a lack of professional dedication.”
Moore adds that if asked if you want to return to the workplace and career pursuits as they have existed, “…for most workers, the answer is simple: I would prefer not to. Not yet. Not every day, anyway—and maybe not ever.”
It’s no surprise, then, that new surveys show a strong desire to continue working virtually as much as possible. For example, a recent Wall Street Journal article by Rachel Reintzeig reported that nearly 9 out of 10 workers said they want to work from home at least once a week after the pandemic subsides. One in 3 said they wouldn’t work for a company that forced them to be on-site full-time. Another survey by FlexJobs in association with Mental Health America found that over 80 percent of participants believed more flexibility for remote work significantly improves their mental health. Additionally, 66 percent said they would prefer to work remotely full-time after the pandemic is over.
In short, many really don’t want to go back, at least not every day. In fact, the link between work and mental health is joining with the desire to work virtually. That, in turn, reflects a growing awareness that careers and the workplace culture have become too much the definition and focal point for many people’s lives. That is, viewing yourself—your worth and purpose—too much by seeking position, power, maneuvering to “get ahead,” looking for more recognition. In other words, as in the common expression, “living to work” rather than “working to live.”
To reexamine what you want to really live and work for as we enter "The After Times," it would help to take a step back from your overall life at this moment. Describe what you want to be living for or towards from this point forward. What truly matters? And what do you want to do about it? Our experience through the pandemic teaches us that none of us know how much time we have remaining in the world, one that will not be returning to the way things used to be.
That means reflecting seriously—by yourself, with your partner, your family—about what you’ve been striving for and how that’s been shaping your life. More money? How much financial security is “enough?” More career development? Towards what ends, over what length of time? What’s the takeaway, ultimately?
Is it more intimacy, a loving connection with someone, friends who matter to you? Your relationship with your children or surrogate children? Do you seek a larger purpose for expressing your capacities and imagination in the world and concerns that lie outside of your own internal, private world? How can you do that?
Keep in mind that all of our external pursuits—material, financial, recognition, prestige, power—are transitory. All fade and disappear, ultimately. What does that realization stir in you? What shifts in your values and actions might you make in your life? Starting now?
