Everyone is calling it the Great Resignation like people are choosing unemployment. They're not. They're choosing different employment. They're quitting specific companies to work at other companies, or quitting industries to work in other industries, or quitting traditional employment for freelancing. The resignation is targeted, not universal.
Everyone is calling it the Great Resignation like people are choosing unemployment.
This is a brand problem. Not a 'consumer brand' problem, an employer brand problem. Companies with genuinely good cultures, fair compensation, flexible work options, and meaningful missions aren't seeing mass departures. Companies that relied on inertia ('it's too hard to find a new job') and cultural pressure ('just grateful to have a job') are hemorrhaging talent because the pandemic eliminated both of those retention mechanisms.
Zoom went from 10 million daily meeting participants in December 2019 to 300 million by April 2020. That's not growth. That's a civilization-scale behavioral shift that happened to have a brand name attached.
What kills me is watching companies respond to this by... offering ping pong tables and pizza parties. The employer brand equivalent of putting a new logo on a bad product. People aren't leaving because your office lacks amenities. They're leaving because your management is bad, your pay is unfair, your flexibility is performative, or your mission is hollow.
The employer brands that will win the next decade are the ones willing to do the real work: pay transparency, genuine flexibility (not 'flexibility with an asterisk'), management training that actually produces good managers, and missions that extend beyond shareholder returns.
I'm at Nemo and I love it and I'm not going anywhere. But I'd be lying if I said the Great Resignation hasn't made me think about what I want next. Not yet. But eventually. The door is open in a way it wasn't before.
I'm writing this with Truffles on my lap and Barnaby yelling at a bird outside the window.