Some believe it was triggered by the pandemic, and others claim that the pandemic only accelerated this course of action. However, there is a factor that is common among thought leaders; the pandemic enabled workers to re-evaluate their relationship with work, and their priorities.

The pandemic brought about a concerning economic downturn, resulting in widespread job loss and bringing greater uncertainty for the future. Due to health concerns and the need to care for family, many professionals found themselves shifting from traditional work environments, and started working from anywhere but the office. 

Workers were quick to realize the benefits of working from home, and having more time with family. Reducing time to commute to work, increasing proximity to family, and more quality time to work on themselves, professionals have turned this fad into a must; a new way of working and creating value.

The most notable impact of The Great Resignation is that employers had to shift their focus onto retaining employees, and boosting their offers to be more lucrative and enticing to source new talent. What was once up for debate, is now a permanent fix to the way we work. That is, flexible work. 

As a means of promoting mental health and work-life balance, employers facilitate the means for their employees to select days on which they work from home, and from the office. However, this shift poses threats to company culture. Deloitte conducted a survey in 2021, showing that of their 275 clients, 32% were mostly concerned about maintaining company culture in response to the sudden loss of jobs and resignations.

The Great Resignation and the pandemic fueled a boom in the startup ecosystem. Yusuf Berkan Altun, technology entrepreneur and founder of InQube mentioned in a Forbes article that in the United States, “in July 2020, the number of applications for starting a business reached its all time high of 551,657, an increase of 95%”. He continues to note that the likes of France, Japan, and the United Kingdom saw an increase of at least 14% of new businesses registered by the end of 2020.

The effects of The Great Resignation are most noticeable in Western countries. Alarm bells were ringing loudest in the US, as they saw 47.8 million employees quit their jobs. This staggering figure indicates that the US was impacted most by this movement, but it doesn’t mean that other countries were free from the waves of resignations.

PwC Asia Pacific and China Chairman, Raymund Chao believes that, in Asia, “the dynamics of the workforce is changing at a rate not seen before, with demand for different ways of working continuing to evolve.” Though not as many people resigned across Asia compared to the US, the effects of The Great Resignation have reached every employer and worker, creating a change in people’s relationship with work.

Cyprus was not immune to the effects of the pandemic, nor The Great Resignation. However, data shows that employment in Cyprus has not taken a significant hit, and that it is continuing to steadily rise. Albeit a small spike in unemployment, roughly 50,000 workers had either quit or lost their jobs from 2020 - 2021. That number is fractional compared to that of the UK or the US. The numbers have definite correlation with population size, and in correlation with Cyprus’ population, only 5% had left their jobs.

This perhaps could be related to the government’s efforts in providing financial support to organizations, and individuals who were self-employed at the time. The European Commission indicates that “on the 9th of March, 2021, the Commission approved two Cypriot schemes with a total budget of €200 million, to support companies and self-employed individuals whose activities were suspended due to the restrictions imposed to limit the spread of the coronavirus.” Implementing these new ways of working such as hybrid work, and the workers' epiphanies on their relationship with work, were a result of these imposed restrictions.

We spoke with Katerina Andreou, CEO and Founder of HR Innovate, a leading recruitment company based in Cyprus. Her insights on “The Great Resignation” are, “As agency recruiters, we witnessed candidates from junior positions all the way up to C-suite executives leaving their roles and companies. They left because they were no longer willing to endure jobs they weren’t really passionate about or wanted to do, or because they were being treated unfairly by their employers.” 

She continued to add that, “so began The Great Resignation, and it continues today. Perhaps not to the degree of other, larger countries, but enough to have affected our job market. Employers have to be more thoughtful now towards their branding, and reputation, as this new tip to the balance has taken hold.”

With challenges to retaining talent, employees have an upperhand in negotiating their needs and wants. In Microsoft’s Annual Work Trend Report for 2022, they indicated that “the talent landscape has shifted, and employee expectations have changed. The best leaders will empathize with the unique needs of each group in their organization, and see remote work as a lever to attract the best and most diverse talent.”

CEO and founder of Grokker, Lorna Borenstein, highlighted in a Forbes piece that “what’s happening is a big wake-up call to employers”, she continued, stating that “it’s part of a larger trend that’s taking shape in real time and speaks to the very heart of the employer-employee compact.” Her article states that workers are reworking their values and priorities, and shifting their perspectives on how they want to work.

Data indicates that The Great Resignation was not a product of the pandemic, and we will continue to see resignation letters hitting employers’ desks. Felix Richter, a data journalist for Statista expressed, “The Great Resignation is still going on, as 4.2 million Americans left their jobs in November” of 2022. 

All of these changes are not a sign of workers and employers ‘quitting’, rather, we are evolving. It may be due to the realizations induced by the pandemic, leading us to acknowledge that there is another way of getting work done. A way that enables us to focus on our health, better work-life balance, and optimized modes of working on an individual basis. Sesil Pir, Head of Employee Experience at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and founder, believes that “perhaps this is a new way of activism for all of us global workers. Perhaps, it is not a quit but a reach for something other.” Rather than labeling this as a trend of quitting en masse, we choose to view this as a “Great Awakening” instead.

How has the pandemic influenced your perspectives on work? Have you quit your pre-pandemic job for an alternative post-pandemic future? Drop us a note and let us know!