How the Pandemic Helped People Earn the Salary they Deserved

By Mel Day, Marketing Moves CEO

Pre-pandemic, a very large proportion of the population – especially Gen Z and millennials – worked long hours, performed menial tasks, were underpaid and burnt out.

It created what’s become known as a toxic “hustle culture”, where office colleagues subconsciously (and consciously too, sadly) tried to outdo each other as to how long and hard they can work.

But why the need for this professional masochism?

Our old friend passion, that’s why.

Specifically, working for companies that aligned with an employees’ beliefs. Very often these were young companies, with charismatic CEOs trying to change the world by working 16 hours a day, and both expecting / encouraging their staff to follow suit.

If you didn’t, it wasn’t professional shame, it was something far worse: ideological shame.

In turn, this atmosphere conveniently kept the conversation away from the fact that many employees were being taken advantage of with low salaries.

24 months of Covid has changed this for many reasons, thank God.

It was dubbed The Great Resignation, and it’s still going. A higher proportion of people than ever before are quitting their passion jobs for higher salaries in companies that don’t necessarily align with their core values and beliefs.

Here’s why:

With everyone working from home, the threat of office stigma is gone, leaving low salaries open to exposure
Similarly, when the buzz of the office environment is taken away and replaced by endless video calls, the “soulless” job for more money probably has much the same feeling
Mental health has been thrust into the spotlight since 2019 and very often the bigger, higher paying players give a better work / life balance
Covid proved beyond any doubt that we cannot predict tomorrow. This kind of unstable environment makes people want to feel secure by earning more while they can
Not caring as much about your work means you don’t take it home with you. This means you can get much closer to making objective decisions about progression and training
Now that you’re getting paid more and can switch off, your work funds your passion, so you have more extra-curricular activities to enjoy
As Gen Z and millennials grow older, they too will have children – which need better paying jobs to feed, clothe and educate

So there we have it, just my thoughts on why more people than ever are making the move for predominantly money!

The BBC article to which this blog relates talked about people moving away from sexier companies, so I’ll leave you with this. In my view, rather than taking a job for its physical appearance, it’s about time we all got sapiosexial when it comes to work.