The American worker has changed. But has the workplace?

Recently, a colleague asked me to attend a meeting at 8:00 pm in order to discuss a project he wanted to explore at work. I said no and offered alternate times during standard work hours.

And just the other day, I was at a board meeting and the chair asked for volunteers to help with a task. There was a deafening silence. Normally, I would jump up and help. But this time, I very vocally said, I can’t.

Soon after, I got a LinkedIn message from an old coworker who wanted to “pick my brain” about how to use TikTok. I sent him my YouTube channel and told him to watch my videos.

We’re living at a time when we have more to do than ever before. Beyond work, we have responsibilities and tasks that demand our time and attention, but we only have 24 hours in a day. And frankly, most of us are tired.

Nowadays, the American worker is not just saying no to extra work, they are also leaving jobs that don’t serve their passions and purpose — and that’s a good thing.

Months before the Covid-19 pandemic started, Yale professor and historian Frank Snowden published a book about how pandemics spark paradigm shifts in societies. When traumatic events like pandemics happen, it causes people to face their own mortality, which makes them reevaluate their lives and their priorities.

“Epidemic diseases reach into the deepest levels of the human psyche,” he said to the Guardian in 2020. “They pose the ultimate questions about death, about mortality: what is life for? What is our relationship with God?”

As our friends, colleagues, and loved ones contracted the virus, and some unfortunately died, that trauma has caused people to reevaluate their lives. The American worker has changed. But American workplaces and work cultures have largely remained stagnant. Worse, workplaces are in denial of how much Americans have changed. Before the pandemic, American workers worked longer hours than most workers living in developed nations, while lacking breaks and paid time off. Prior to the pandemic, hustle culture ran rampant throughout workplaces and corporate thought leadership. But as the pandemic wore on, many workers felt like they had to keep working even though it felt like the world was ending. And as corporate profits soared to the highest levels since the 1950s, American workers’ mindsets about their workplaces soured.

@jareenimam #stitch with @shouldntthisbeobvious apparently the tax rate in Canada isn’t so bad #getthatraise #bettercareer #workculturematters #workingtoohard #moneymoves2022 ♬ original sound - Jareen Imam

As offices start opening up, it’s clear that many companies want workers to go back to how things were before the pandemic. Goldman Sachs is demanding its employees return to the office 5 days a week, according to a Fortune interview with the investment firm’s CEO David Solomon. Labor experts believe this mandate can signal other companies to start asking the same from their employees.

However, many workers want the flexibility of working from home, not because of Covid-19 safety, but because they want to reclaim more of their time. More than 50% of American workers said in a survey that they are willing to take a pay cut to be able to work from home. But in a time of rising inflation and higher cost of living, those pay cuts can be financially damaging.

Additionally, many American workers are feeling overworked and unhappy. The Society for Human Resource Management, SHRM, reported in May 2021 that 48 percent of U.S. workers feel mentally and physically exhausted at the end of the workday, while another 41 percent reported feeling burned out from their jobs. And for the first time in more than a decade, there’s been an increase in U.S. workers who feel disengaged at work, according to a January survey by Gallup.

Hustle culture is dead — at least for now. The pandemic and all of its tragedies have caused American workers to reevaluate what matters to them and it turns out, it’s not work.

In a 2021 survey that polled workers about how they feel about work, many respondents didn’t have positive things to say. Many wanted more pay, location and work hour flexibility, more purpose in their work, and the ability to step back from work responsibilities and focus on their personal lives.

Anne Helen Petersen writes in her book, “How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation,” that burnout happens when devotion becomes untenable: “When faith in doing what you love as the path to fulfillment, financial and otherwise, begins to falter.”

It’s not just companies that want things to go back to normal, it’s also governments and institutions. But realities have changed. Those who didn’t have the privilege of working from home, those working in retail, hospitals, warehouses, utilities, construction, sanitation, transportation, hospitality, and more, had to go into the office. They had to put customer needs before their own personal safety — and now we’re seeing a massive labor movement as more workers aim to unionize — that’s not a coincidence. People are unhappy with corporate and economic needs trumping human needs.

@jareenimam Reply to @phillyphil504 denial is a strong emotion @jareenimam #BigComfy #workingtoohard #getthatraise #workculturematters #bettercareer #findingpurpose ♬ Violin - Grooving Gecko

During the height of the pandemic, I was working as a journalist and manager at a big media company. I was working about 12 hours every day, and I was also expected to work late into the night and on weekends during breaking news — for no extra pay. When my grandmother died, I asked for a day off so that I could write her obituary. I missed her funeral because I had to cover the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. When my family, most of them healthcare workers, were suffering because of the pandemic, I wasn’t able to take time off in order to help them. I wasn’t given any space or time to grieve. During that time, I didn’t feel supported by my company, managers, or team. Eventually, I felt so much despair from the lack of support, I resigned.

I’m one of 4.5 million Americans who quit their jobs during the “Great Resignation.” That’s about 3 percent of all employment. And resignations aren’t slowing down. Workers are now more empowered to seek out jobs that align with their values and goals — that might mean working from home or working 4-days a week instead of 5.

As companies face this new reality, whether they want to or not, I think the biggest thing employers need to focus on is compassion. Using brute force to demand workers to go back to how life once was in 2019 isn’t going to work. People want to reclaim their time and lives. Employers who aren’t able to provide more paid time off, better benefits, and more work flexibility will inevitably have a harder time hiring talent. It’s not because the American worker is lazy, it’s because the American work culture is broken.

Now that we’ve gone through this societal trauma, American workers are seeing they deserve better.