The Great Resignation: Facts vs. Explanations | On Connection

The Great Resignation is just one of the COVID-era phenomena many people, especially organizational leaders, are concerned with right now. Everyone wants to know—why is this happening? And why don’t we know by now, when it’s been nearly a year since we started noticing the trend? Most of the articles you can read and podcasts you can listen to have tried to analyze what exactly is contributing and what’s to blame. There is a long list of possible explanations that have been given, but no single clear cause.

On this podcast we don’t analyze the why – you can find plenty of that elsewhere. What we’re most interested in is, how do leaders make decisions in the midst of so much pressure and uncertainty? We have a principle we think is helpful across challenges of all kinds and scales: separating facts from explanations. This is particularly valuable when it’s hard to find anything factual to anchor to and we’re swimming in a sea of explanations. That’s the case for most leaders as they face today’s “war for talent.”

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January 5, 2022

Articles & podcasts you can explore to learn more about The Great Resignation

Articles

The Great Resignation is Accelerating, by Derek Thompson, The Atlantic (Oct. 15, 2021)

Covid Drove Workers to Quit. Here’s Why From the Person Who Saw It Coming. By Lisa Beilfuss, Barron’s (Dec. 30, 2021)

More workers quit than ever as U.S. job openings remain near a record. By Ben Casselman, The New York Times (Jan. 4, 2022)

A record 4.5 million workers quit or changed jobs in November, by Eli Rosenberg, The Washington Post (Jan. 4, 2022)

Podcast Episodes

From Great Resignation to Great Aspiration, Bloomberg Businessweek, Jan. 4, 2022 (13 min.)

Work will never love you back, Make Me Smart, Nov. 9, 2021 (34 min.)

The Great Resignation: Why People Are Leaving Their Jobs In Growing Numbers, Consider This from NPR, Oct. 22, 2021 (12 min.)