Is Greener Grass all that Matters?

According to CNBC, 80% of people who resigned during the “Great Resignation” regret their move.  For me, this indicates a missed opportunity on the part of employers who could have invested in helping their employees tell themselves an accurate story about their careers. 

Business often deals with data and numbers because it’s easier to gather that information, we have metrics and math to help us out.  It’s easy to measure the number of dollars you’re making, the number of hours you work, the number of days during the week you’re required to put on actual pants and come to the office.  And because of this, it’s easy to see how a different job might stack up to those numbers and tempt you away from your current position. 

But what about purpose?  What about culture?  What about the strength of your relationships at work?  These are human concerns that don’t lend themselves easily to mathematical metrics but matter greatly to employee performance and job satisfaction.  Both employees and employers often have trouble highlighting these “soft” perks but in reality, we do have a way of measuring the impact these things have on our lives:  Stories. 

Understanding how stories work and how to frame things in a narrative structure not only helps you build relationships and inspire the people you work with, it also helps you understand what’s actually important to you and offers a more comprehensive picture with which to gauge your career.  If you’re not able to step back and see the complete story of the work you do, you’ll be more easily distracted by the numbers and perhaps make a hasty decision that’s not taking your whole character into account.