Finding Your Calling During “The Great Resignation”

While some doors are closing, others are opening

How many times have you heard someone say “I hate my job?” Before the pandemic, it was simply a reality of life that many employees hated their jobs and that most employers had to deal with workers who really didn’t want to be there. But Covid-19 forced us to look at our work/life balance differently than ever before, and decide what matters most to each of us.

Inspirational stories abound in the media right now about people who quit jobs they hated and moved on, such as the tale of a husband and wife who quit selling insurance, and turned their love of the outdoors into a new opportunity with a landscaping company. The couple are happy to be doing something they love, and the employer is happy to have employees who love what they do. The trend toward leaving an unwanted job for meaningful work, the “Great Resignation”, has been framed as a catastrophe for business, but can just as easily be a win-win for both employees and employers.

The “Great Resignation” is term recently coined by Anthony Klotz, a Texas A&M University associate management professor, during an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. The term describes the prediction that, among those who kept their jobs during the pandemic, approximately 25–40% will quit…