Neoliberal Trends in the Workplace and Society
The economy’s reopening during the pandemic unveiled a host of trends that gained traction as the workforce modernized, especially in people’s values. Businesses with strong leadership and infrastructure reinvented themselves to capitalize on online models, and companies unable to handle the shift in demands closed down. The workforce observed a mass surplus of jobs in a phenomenon known as the Great Resignation — working class people left their jobs, for reasons including new priorities and more flexible options. Due to the peak resignation rates in August 2021, it may seem the pandemic caused the Great Resignation. However, society’s values were already shifting to be more human-centric decades earlier, and the pandemic only amplified the stresses from the already-present dissonance between the traditional work structure and modern worker values.
Since the 1990’s, workers began losing trust in government and the capitalist economic structure; cynicism towards company leadership set the foundations for modern job hopping. In the 1950’s people lavished in the post-war economy, settling for a sense of stability — now considered a bare minimum — that was lost in the Great Depression. At that time, “people often spent their entire career with one company, either out of loyalty or the desire to earn a good pension” (Barua, CQ Researcher). During the Depression, supporting a family was difficult, so the post-war outlook of yearly salaries and corporate ladder promises created a stigma around job-hopping, “finding a calling” or “starving artist” careers. The recessions of 1990 and 2008 chipped away at this mentality. Especially when the government bailed out big banks and left working-class citizens jobless or even homeless in 2008, a societal shift occurred where people trusted themselves more than their companies or government. It wasn’t just economic cycles that forced people to reevaluate their company loyalties: access to information beginning in the 1990’s exposed citizens to ethical quandaries that could cause people to reconsider and resign from their jobs. For example, current advertising algorithms can target audiences so well that without boundaries, they advance human trafficking. A CNN article reports that Facebook “has known about human traffickers using its platforms in this way since at least 2018.” News like this can shatter the blissful ignorance of employees in established companies, leading to guilt and a consideration of the social cost of one’s work. Access to the internet and social media has especially exposed Generation Z to these ideas growing up. This exposure to information, loss of company loyalty, and presence of stability established by their parents, has allowed Gen Z to explore and define unique career paths. Nowadays, we value experience over prestige, and we look for happiness, morality, and self-actualization in work. Job hopping increases exposure, and pathways are being charted in various verticals, including ethical business development. Accordingly, the phasing out of the traditional workplace was already beginning in the 1990’s and gained traction in the 2010’s, and underscores a sustainable economy and happier workforce in the future.
Besides the exposure of ethical quandaries in worker’s job search, the growth of technology has also forced workers to find niches in their human value, intrinsically as individuals in the workforce. Globalization has caused outsourcing of domestic jobs to overseas, and also the automation of many other tasks. For example, in the legal field, “Companies … outsource a chunk of the work to third-party service providers to reduce cost, facilitate coordination and streamline their workings as a whole” (Sagaciousresearch.com). Even in the legal field, a field known for it’s intensive human input, young attorneys face an unknown of what tasks will be outsourced, meaning they need to learn skills to stay competitive. The outsourcing and automation of jobs threatens current workers and the traditional workplace dynamics. Nowadays, blindly trusting the corporate ladder is more likely to lead to layoffs, since automation can complete tasks more efficiently. The most useful skills to keep one ahead of outsourcing and automation is adaptability and being able to apply concepts from one facet of work to another. The traditional workplace is being automated, but companies with creative and human-centered employees cannot be automated; meaning workers will want to find jobs that allow for creative freedom and human-centered problem solving. The modern workplace is developing to embrace individuality and diversity in solutions. This is a beneficial direction for society and Gen Z, who is moving toward finding companies that amplify individualism.
Consequently, the change in workplace values are infusing into educational approaches. More and more, school boards are using buzzwords like “liberal arts education” or “integrated approach” — these words relate back to the fundamental shift of valuing adaptability over a skill. A Forbes article discusses an educational trend — how we are moving away from the idea of “learning for a period of 16 years and then working for 40 years…learning must be ongoing to adapt to the innovation economy.” The idea of lifelong learning is more beneficial in personal grown, and also addresses the idea that Gen Z should expect to be working past the current retirement age, because social security funds “will … decline, reaching exhaustion in 2037” (SSI.org). The idea of living to work, over working to live, is becoming popular amongst younger generations, because no one wants to work a soul crushing job into their 60’s and 70’s. The information boom highlighted the importance of inclusion, mental health, and purpose in work and life. Modern workers are not just looking for work, but a lifestyle that allows us to feel validated, valuable, and passionate in the long-term. Though the current educational system is still structured around 16 years of education, educators need to begin championing lifelong learning in these early years. Approaching life with a growth mindset makes people more flexible and resilient, so one can take setbacks and drastic changes — such as global pandemics -as learning experiences to integrate into their life education.
Admittedly, the COVID-19 pandemic did catalyze the shift into more flexible work formats, creating more options for people to reprioritize given freedom. The pandemic sent the workforce to an extreme on the spectrum of technology usage, meaning any unused technological potential was capitalized. A Brookings report states how by January 2021, “close to 60 percent of firms had either expanded the use of or invested in new digital technology, or introduced product innovation” (Brookings). The pandemic phased out inefficiencies related to in-person work, and once the pandemic ends, companies will keep the effective technological advancements. Workplaces will find a new equilibrium of innovation in the workplace — the freedom created by innovation allows people to reconsider their priorities: for example spending time at home with families was valuable, and is something people can keep post-pandemic. Working from home blurred the lines between work life and home life; the ability to work from home made people desire jobs that can sustainably integrate with their lifestyles. Other economic stresses, like the value of caretaking, became even more clear during the pandemic, which caused people to quit their jobs. Therefore, the pandemic didn’t cause the Great Resignation — it only exposed the stresses that were already building up from a modernizing workforce restrained by an outdated workplace.
The current 9–5 work structure is too archaic for our modern age. The pandemic forced us to take advantage of technology and realize the alternative methods for completing jobs — which oftentimes were more efficient than the pre-pandemic methods. So, looking beyond the pandemic, there is no way to return to “normal” life before COVID-19 due to the fundamental restructuring of the economy. However, this is a good change that brings out human value in our work, which is something that society has already been leaning towards decades prior. The idea of dream jobs and climbing corporate ladders are being phased out, with the idea of passions, interests, and horizontal career growth taking precedence. Today, the ideal job is one that infuses into our lifestyle and sparks passion so that we can make a meaningful difference, to ourselves and the world, by simply following our own interests
