Remember That One Brief, Shining Moment We Thought Employees Had Power?
We had a narrative from maybe August 2020 until sometime deep in 2021 that employees finally had power — they had those bastard employers over a barrel! — because they were “voting with their feet” and “reconsidering what work meant to them.” I agree that was happening to some extent, but I also realize most people need to pay for children and dogs and periodically want to host a brunch for their neighbors, and you need money to do those things, so at some point we all can’t resign/quiet quit and go make an Etsy shop, because then there would be too many Etsy shops and it would be hard to compete. You know? Supply and demand. C’mon.
The first brick in the “employers are taking back the power” wall was return to office initiatives, which are still not at-scale. A lot of companies are still hybrid and/or fully-remote, which is leading us to discuss “Urban Doom Loops.”
Many bosses were able to drag KPI Kevin back into the office, but not all. Some power restored.
Now, per CNBC, some bosses are looking at their employees and saying: “Inflation? You caused that, son.”
And per WorkLife, the “Perk-Cession” is over:
Things are now falling back to Earth a little bit. Waffle bars are being shuttered. Jeans on Friday are hanging on — but only a bit. Boosted wages because of the “essential” worker COVID debate and labor shortages? Let’s cool our jets. That might be causing the inflation that the investors are complaining about.
We had a grand opportunity to kinda reshape what work is, and the “working contract,” and we’re just falling back towards the status quo at semi-light-speed nowadays.
