It's Not The Great Resignation, It's the Great Embrace

The Great Embrace

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The Great Resignation. The Great Regret. The Great Retirement. The Great Reshuffle.  There are a lot of workplace trends to keep up with, but at the heart of them is one: the Great Embrace.

Coined by Dan Springer, CEO of DocuSign, the Great Embrace is the concept that people are embracing what really matters to them at work. The pandemic made many of us reconsider where our priorities and values lie when it comes to work; now, we’re embracing those new priorities and values and changing our relationship to work.

“The key to the Great Embrace lies in what really matters in our lives: our families, our community, and our craft,” Springer writes. “The pandemic has awakened in the global workforce a renewed desire for meaning, balance, and responsibility in both work and life.”

What everyone’s embracing is different. For some, this means embracing a work-life balance where they work from home, always. For others, it’s embracing mission-driven work, and seeking out a company that does something they truly believe in. 

This is what the Great Resignation is all about — leaving a job in search of something better, something that fits your ideal work life. The Great Embrace is all about embracing what kind of work actually works for you and your life, and sometimes that means leaving to do something new.

If you haven’t yet embraced how you want work to look for you, there’s never been a better time to start dreaming. Even if you don’t dream about work or have a dream job, if you dream about working on your own schedule, or working for a company that uplifts women in the workplace, or getting free therapy or mental health days from work, there’s likely a position out there now that mostly fits the bill. 

The Great Embrace hopefully makes the working world better, too. This trend can push companies to truly consider their employees as people and listen to how they want to work. That might mean offering more remote work options; better and more comprehensive benefits, like mental health benefits or flexible work; or getting direct with candidates during interviews about what they value to ensure it’s the right culture fit before they sign the offer.

If companies listen to what people are embracing, people joining those companies can be happier, better, more engaged and excited about work. 

The Great Embrace encourages us to dream of how we really want to our relationship to work to look like, and to search out companies that fit that dream — instead of us changing our expectations to fit what a company’s looking for.

Whether that’s to be paid what we’re worth, work for something we love, or gain the balance we need to live a life we dream of, we’re embracing work that works for us. We’re not just running away from jobs; we’re running to ones that serve us. 

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This article reflects the views of the author and not necessarily those of Fairygodboss.

Have you “embraced” a new relationship to work in the last two years? Share your answer in the comments to help other Fairygodboss members!