Jonathan Malesic makes the rather revelatory yet oh-so-obvious point that the coronavirus pandemic has been a large-scale catastrophic philosophical experiment.

Work was not what we thought it was. When faced with a deadly global pandemic, some life-and-death truths come to the surface. The whole roll-up-your-sleeves and get on with it becomes a death wish when an invisible and lethal virus is passing from person to person.

It’s funny that it takes death staring us in the face to realize that a job is not (despite what bosses tell us and what we tell ourselves) the most important thing in life.

What workers, policymakers, and employers can now plainly see are the countless truths the pandemic has laid bare.

Productivity doesn’t actually require air-polluting, grinding hourlong daily commutes to a soulless downtown office building. A fair and just society shouldn’t put the poorest, most vulnerable people in danger in the name of capitalism.

The pandemic also showed just how reliant the economy is on child care, and how incredibly fragile that industry is. Turnover is high. Making ends meet is impossible. The very people who need child care to allow them to work often are those without the means to afford it.

For many who don’t have the luxury of working from home - teachers, housekeepers, food servers, truck drivers, health aides, bank tellers, and others — slightly higher wages are masking more difficult and dangerous working conditions that will only continue.

Given that work as we know it no longer works, how can we make it better?

Common executive ideas (develop tailored retention programs, amp up benefits and compensation, accelerate promotions, launch new training opportunities, pop in ping-pong tables) show that leaders don’t understand the full implications of the employment crisis.

If workers can’t get more from work than staying home, why would they even contemplate going to work? Little wonder quit rates are still at record highs.

Narcissistic bosses (who aren’t even that good-looking) need to stop screaming at their workers to come back to work.

They need to redesign and rebuild work.

They need to do their job.

References

“Work is broken. Can we fix it?” Vox 2022

“What it would take to make us love our jobs again” Vox 2022