The Great Resignation, or great resignation, is a surprising phenomenon that began in the United States in mid-2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Suddenly millions of American workers began to leave their jobs. This trend began to spread rapidly throughout the world, replicating almost mimetically in almost all industrialized Western countries.
The reasons for this profound silent revolution are yet to be defined, given the recent nature of the phenomenon and the absence of studies on the matter. But the data speaks for itself. In Spain, a study by Infojobs shows that 27% of workers in our country intend to leave their jobs during the next year
Many experts consider this resignation as another consequence of the pandemic that has recently devastated the planet, while others, the majority, including myself, believe that COVID-19 did nothing but give the last push to a trend that had been brewing for a long time
The drift of the perception of the work context
Indeed, for a long time, especially among the youngest and middle-aged qualified professionals, there has been obvious discontent and uneasiness with respect to their jobs and their professional future.
The aforementioned study supports figures that quantify the causes of this work disaffection. Of the 27% of workers who plan to leave their jobs, no less than 32% would do it for mental health reasons 27% base their decision on economic reasons, 26% claim that they want to dedicate themselves to a different activity and finally, 24% need a better balance between work and personal life.
As far as we are concerned, we cannot ignore the impact that mental health has on this phenomenon. The question is, will the mental deterioration, already confirmed, secondary to the pandemic, be the cause of this resignation? Or will it be the working conditions themselves, exacerbated by the pandemic, that have triggered the trend?
If we consider the other three causes; economic reasons, change of activity or conciliation needs, we have to conclude that the pandemic is just the tip of the iceberg and that underneath there is an absolute disillusionment in people with respect to their job and the role it plays in their life.
Whether it is the chicken or the egg, the fact is that we have another argument when it comes to explaining the increase in the deterioration of mental health as a result of the pandemic and it is none other than the hopeless relationship of many of our citizens with respect to their present and future work.
The Silent Renunciation
To this term, the Great Resignation or Big Quit, Quiet Quitting has recently been added. That is to say, it is not just the fact of resigning from the job, but, by staying in the same position, the worker adjusts exclusively to his work schedule and predetermined functions without making an hour or an effort more than what was foreseen in your contract.
A well-known tweeter, Zaidleppelin, explains it with crystal clarity: “You are not giving up your job, you are giving up the idea of growing and going further. You continue doing your tasks, but you do not subscribe to the culture of effort (…) Work is not your life.”
This reflection can be perfectly linked to that of the deterioration of mental health In my opinion, the labor market moves within such brutal parameters of demand and uncertainty that, together with the increasingly lower remuneration and lower valuation of the worker’s merits, they have ended up having a dent in the worker’s motivation. Some because they are emotionally broken and others because they do not want to put their mental health at risk, the fact is that the phenomenon is unstoppable.
An example
Not so long ago I received a salesperson from a digital company in my consultation who came to offer us an innovative service. He was a great salesperson who actually got me to accept his offer.
However, in the conversation I saw him so anxious and confused that I investigated a little about his professional work. He was the 1865 worker for a huge multinational. As it was, within the company he had a number, he was a number. The bonuses for sales goals met increased every year, so it was almost better not to sell as much, given that, the following year, to get the same remuneration I had to sell more and more, and so on ad infinitum.
Our meeting ended with his offer contract signed, him sitting on my couch doing therapy and finally resigning from his position within the brand new multinational. And it was not me who pushed him to resign, it was something that, in line with this article, he had been working on in his head. A moment of calm, a sofa and a friend were enough to abandon his work madness.
I believe that these phenomena and trends, like almost everything, have a multifactorial, multicausal origin, but deep down lies the meaning of life and mental health Our productive and labor model, our social model and even our health model are failing, and this time it does not seem to be producing a political revolution or street unrest.
The response is being silent, a kind of disaffection, resignation from the type of life and work in which we are immersed and which has begun to lose meaning. I think that health professionals have a lot to say about this under penalty of the deterioration of mental health continuing to increase exponentially and ending up overwhelming the system.
Author: Javier Elcarte. Founder and director of Vitaliza. trauma expert.
