2021 Sparked The “Great Resignation”—And A Thousand Other Names To Call It | Walgreens’ Roz Brewer On Lifting Up Others | Omicron Is Hitting Return To Office Plans

Plus: Better.com Disclosures Show The Company Had Concerns About Its Controversial CEO Long Before Placing Him On Leave

Hello Forbes Careers Readers,

For a term that’s all about quitting, people are having a hard time letting the “Great Resignation” go.

Seemingly daily, someone writes an article, does an interview or sends an email suggesting the phrase doesn’t really capture the moment. Fast Company tells us it should be the Great Reprioritization. At LinkedIn, it’s the Great Reshuffle. The Commerce Department says it should actually be the Great Recognition. On the self-publishing platform Medium, it’s getting renamed as the Great Realization, the Great Questioning and the Great Change-Up. (Apparently, it’s always “great.”) 

Why can’t people stop re-christening this concept? A few companies seem to be trying to hitch their brands to the zeitgeist (a recent email from StorageUnits.com: “Remote work spurs ‘Great Relocation’ as 2 in 3 Americans move during pandemic”). But most of the new phrasing seems more like an effort to make sense of the seismic changes to the workplace—and articulate how there’s something bigger going on. 

Workers aren’t just quitting; they’re rethinking what they want out of work and shifting their expectations about professional life. After months of job departures—the Labor Department said its “quit rate” was still near all-time highs in October after a string of records set earlier this year—it’s understandable why people have wanted to define (and redefine) the idea. 

Anthony Klotz, a professor at Texas A&M University who studies resignations and likely coined the term in May, spotted several trends, including a backlog of resignations from 2020 and burnout among white-collar workers, that could signal a wave of departures. “Despite everyone wanting to rename it, it hangs on. This is more than a pleasant reshuffling of jobs.” 

There’s another reason the phrase—and its many iterations and substitutes—have become buzzwords. Adam Alter, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said in an email that naming a trend is important because “it allows us to identify a concept with precision, certainty and consistency.” That’s especially so during a pandemic, when there has been lots of “search for meaning and patterns during a time that's robbed us of control.”

So what’s the right phrase for the year of job exits and “I Quit” broadcasts we’ve faced in 2021? (I explore the issue further here.) To me, it all depends on how you see it—a narrow phrase that misses the broader point, or a phrase that captures the powerful moment of taking your career into your own hands. I’m not sure it matters in the end: Whatever we call it, we’re likely to still see a lot more of it next year.

Cheers,

Jena

On Our Agenda

What we’re watching this week

Tesla and SpaceX CEO and richest man in history Elon Musk was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, an anticipated honor each year that often invites controversy. What else will it spark him to tweet this week?

The omicron variant isn’t just postponing holiday parties: Some companies, such as Ford, Meta and Google, are postponing reopening plans, writes Forbes contributor Jack Kelly. Others that have reopened, such as Jeffries Financial Group, are asking people to work from home again or canceling travel, while Lyft is saying they’ll let employees work remotely through 2022. As we approach year end, expect more to push the pause button on their return plans.

The Federal Reserve will meet Wednesday amid record rising inflation. All eyes will be on Chairman Jerome Powell, whose testimony at the end of November helped spark a selloff.  

This week at Forbes, our Next 1000 list of upstart entrepreneurs launches on Wednesday, and our inaugural Halo 100 list, which spotlights companies with strong customer satisfaction records across a diverse array of consumers, arrives Thursday.

Take Five

Five essential stories about work, careers and leadership from around the web

The pandemic has ushered in new workplace jargon that go well beyond the “Great Resignation” and all its various iterations. The New York Times writes about new work words like “bookcase credibility,” “polywork” and “R.T.O.,” while Bloomberg reports we’re all on some kind of opaque “journey”—a buzzword used 70% more on conference calls by S&P 500 CEOs this year.

The workers quitting in Liberty Country, Georgia feel liberated, the Washington Post reports, but the after-effects are straining small businesses and damaging social bonds.

To fight labor shortages, some hospitals are dropping vaccine mandates for their workers, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Performance rankings hurt women, writes European University Institute professor Klarita Gërxhani in the Harvard Business Review. When participants were told they would be ranked, “men performed better than those who weren’t told anything, while women performed a lot worse,” resulting in “substantial discrepancies in net performance.”

Book Club

The latest reads on work, leadership and careers

Last week writers Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen released Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home, a guide to workplace culture with advice for managers and workers about how to navigate the new world of work. (One section that was excerpted in the Atlantic: “How To Care Less About Work.”) Called “a remarkable examination of the rapidly-changing workplace” by Publisher’s Weekly, the book provides what the authors call a “road map” of this unprecedented shift in the way we work and what could come of it.

Key quote: “The thesis of this book is that remote work—not remote work in a pandemic, not remote work under duress—can change your life. It can remove you from the wheel of constant productivity.”

Work From Home

Forbes contributors on working remotely – and working smarter

The development of the metaverse is expected to change the ways in which remote work, events and more are conducted.

People may be heading back to the office, but they’re also dealing with shortages. Here’s how to survive an understaffed office. 

In the rush to hire, don’t forget the workers who decided to stay.

Develop Your Skills

Forbes contributors on education, growth opportunities and boosting your skills

When work conversations become stressful, consider these tips to maintain your composure—even if you get off topic.

Only about 20% of New Years’ resolutions are successful beyond February. Strive to set goals instead. 

A new study shows that companies that tap into employees’ curiosity experience success in various ways.

Overcome The Obstacles

Forbes contributors on resolving conflict at work, getting laid off and navigating performance reviews

A new survey shows more than half of American workers want more personal time. The holidays may be the time to get it.

Amid the Great Resignation, understanding stress—and the difference between too much and too little of it—can make a difference.

As the Great Resignation persists, take a moment for self reflection before leaving your job.

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