• According to the United States Department of Labor, a record 4.5 million individuals resigned from their jobs/positions in November 2021, a figure that is a touch higher than the previous high (September 2021, in which 4.4 million workers quit). As I discussed yesterday on the latest episode of the Contingent Workforce Weekly podcast, there’s so much more to the so-called “Great Resignation” than just workers leaving their jobs over compensation concerns. Plenty of individuals are worried about workplace conditions and equitable treatment, disillusionment with career trajectories and company culture, and a general unhappiness given the stakes of the pandemic. It’s no longer a question of when workers will come back, but rather how: two questions must have the proper response for workers in 2022: 1) “Is this what I want?”, and, 2) “Is this what I need?”
• Instagram’s former Global VP of Marketing, Melissa Waters, joined Upwork as its new Chief Marketing Officer. Exciting times continue for the digital staffing giant as they continue to innovate around the evolving world of work and talent, especially on the heels of several new executive additions last month to its product and experience (PEX) and engineering teams.
• It’s refreshing to see some new takes on the workforce management technology industry, especially from tech veterans like Utmost’s Annrai O’Toole. Annrai’s recent “2021 recap” included a thought that the Future of Work Exchange is incredibly passionate about: getting work done. “You need to step back and think about the core problem: a manager is simply looking for the best way to get work done. What is the fastest, most cost-effective way to get a task performed?”
• Vaccine mandate legal drama takes center stage again today as the Supreme Court hears oral arguments (after cutting their holiday period short) on two separate accounts. There’s not so much clarity on exactly how these short-term cases will proceed given that they are part of the court’s “shadow docket” and not its regular calendar of hearings/issues, but rather, as succinctly stated by CNN, how “the ruling may provide a window into the court’s thinking that may be instructive to lower courts and serve as a precursor of what will happen when the court is faced with the same or a similar issue in the future.” In short: action coming out of these two arguments may influence how other court and legal systems around the country deal with vaccine mandates when they face their delayed rollout next month.
• Pediatric hospitalizations and COVID cases in children are on a worrisome trajectory, meaning that the specter of remote school still hangs in the air. Some school districts across the United States are shuffling between remote and traditional in-person learning, with some major universities delayed a return to live classes until late January (many, many elementary, middle, and high schools have also delayed post-holiday returns to the classroom). While I don’t believe that we will see full-scale, longer-term remote learning as we did throughout the 2020-2021 school year, there is something here for every business leader to keep an eye on. Working parents are already stressed over exposure in the classroom; adding the pressure of a possible return to remote learning is, frankly, devastating. Business leaders must be prepared to offer more flexible working environments in the event that schooling changes ebb-and-flow over the next several weeks as Omicron blazes through the population.

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