Did Hustle Culture Backlash Cause the Great Resignation?

It wasn’t too long ago that aspiring professionals, corporate climbers, and entrepreneurs accepted a career truth: That to get ahead and succeed, they needed to hustle. This “rise and grind” mentality permeated much of the 90s and early 2000s, and until recently, was etched into the psyche of the modern worker, giving rise to the term “hustle culture.”

?It was born in the era of major tech firms offering on-site amenities – coffee bars, ping pong tables, napping pods – designed to keep workers working well past the traditional 5 p.m. quitting time. Corporate “culture” meant pulling all-night hack-a-thons and pounding energy drinks, a world where work-life-balance weighed heavily in favor of the former. Side hustles and multiple jobs became the norm, while tech powerhouses like Marissa Mayer touted her 130-hour work weeks as necessary for success.

But that was then… today the tide may be turning: 77% of workers think hustle culture is toxic, according to a recent survey by Monster Intelligence . And that sentiment is playing out in workplaces all over the country as the so-called “Great Resignation” spreads like wildfire, causing talent shortages and staffing challenges.?

The Great Resignation is not necessarily a post-pandemic phenomenon, mind you, since the phrase was first coined in 2019?by Texas A&M's Anthony Klotz. But the shakeup of the last two years has no doubt accelerated it.

In September alone, a?record?4.4 million U.S. workers voluntarily quit ?their jobs. Mid-career employees between 30 and 45 years old are the ones resigning the most, with higher rates among those in high-demand fields like healthcare and tech.

And perhaps the younger generation will be following suit. Gen Z is especially averse to hustle culture, with 60% saying in a Microsoft survey that they are merely surviving or flat-out struggling. Women have also been particularly impacted: 42% percent of women said they feel burned out often or almost always in a 2021 report by McKinsey.

Could the silver lining to all of this be that more people will say goodbye to the rise-and-grind lifestyle? Meet some workers who did just that by deciding to leave the hustle behind to seek out a more balanced life.

Getting her career stars to align

Allison Jones left her full-time job managing an international travel company in 2012 to dedicate more time to building her own business, but she found herself on another hustle hamster wheel – this time, of her own making. “I approached my business the same way I'd always done everything – more effort, more hustle and constant action,” she says. “I sacrificed friendships, relationships, and most of my child-bearing years just trying to ‘make it’ doing the type of work that I loved.”

Once the pandemic hit, she realized that trying to outwork its impact was a losing battle for her mental and physical health. “By July 2020, I was so sick of being burnt out that I was finally able to surrender my workaholic badge.”

Jones decided to combine her passions for spirituality, astrology, and yoga to earn income on her own terms. “If your work and business model is built on simply trading hours for dollars, there just aren't enough hours in the day or week for that to make sense.?You have to get creative,” she says. Her new work life revolves around offering a suite of services including spiritual business coaching, astrology readings, private yoga and meditation classes, and group programs on manifestation and money mindset.?

Her favorite type of client? “The burnt-out hustler, often a Gen X'er,” she says. “I love helping these people learn how to do less and receive more. In some ways, hustle culture is the real pandemic.”

Escaping a 24/7/365 Workplace

The thing Alex Tiffany hated most about his former?career as a corporate lawyer was the "always-on" nature of the work.?“I was expected to frequently check my phone and email at all times of the day and evening, and was often forced to cancel evening and weekend plans at short notice due to work demands,” he says.?Once, he even got reprimanded for not responding to an email quickly enough when he was on vacation abroad.

During the pandemic, Tiffany spent a lot of time at home thinking about what he wanted out of his career and life in general.?“I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to be chained to a desk?for 13+ hours per day – and expected to respond to emails at all hours – for the rest of my working life.”?He decided to resign.

High turnover at his firm was nothing new because of the intense working culture. “Their response to my resignation was,?in essence: ‘Well this is the way we operate, and this is what our clients expect.?If you don't want to work like that, fine, goodbye,’” he says.?Their reaction reassured Tiffany that he was making the right decision.

Today, he’s building a travel blog/online platform?called Just Go Exploring that offers detailed guides, itineraries, and travel information for off-the-beaten-track destinations around the world. He works about eight hours a day but sets his own schedule.?

Tiffany admits that embracing the hustle culture at the beginning of his career gave him the financial security and skill set to make such a move with less risk, so he has no regrets.?

Moving away from the hustle… literally

Veronica Hanson calls herself a “recovering American Dream addict.” Prior to COVID, she and her husband lived the hustle life – she as a saleswoman, he as an auditor –?to create the white-picket-fence dream for their family of four. But after working remotely during the shutdowns, and then having to leave their home state of Oregon because of wildfires, something clicked.?

“We fled to Arizona with one-way tickets and kept working remotely from a resort. Eventually the air returned to normal, but after two and a half weeks, we decided to fully commit to an international move,” she says. By November 2020, the Hanson family relocated to the Dominican Republic.

“Our personal family unit is forever changed because of seeing how easy life can truly be without the American grind and social expectations,” she says. “We have been conditioned to work hard for an employer to earn a lot of money, but the truth is working hard doesn't always mean more money. Being willing to take risks, diversify, and do what other people are unwilling to do has been more financially lucrative for us.”

Prior to the pandemic, she admits she would have dismissed such a move as impractical for a family. “I remember thinking during the first few months that something was bound to happen to make us realize we would need to go home, but the other shoe hasn't dropped, so we're just going to keep living this dream nomad life.”

Rebelling against remote work?

While many people embraced the shift to working from home during the pandemic, for Joe Johnson, it was a wake-up call. As a long-time digital marketer, he loved his job, but always thought how cool it would be to work remotely. So when the pandemic took hold in early 2020, he was enthusiastic about the switch to at-home work. “It was great – the ability to do chores while working, the lack of pressure to jam onto a crowded train. I almost couldn't believe how lucky I was,” he says. But the novelty wore off quickly.??

Johnson found himself working a little later each night just to “get ahead” for the next day.

What started as an occasional occurrence became something he was doing every day. “Having email and Slack on my phone only made things worse. In the end, it felt like I was never detached from work,” he says.

He’s not alone. Monster Intelligence research revealed that 63% of workers surveyed said the shift to work-from-home has made them continuously work to outperform coworkers.

By Autumn 2020 he was jaded. “I hated the thought that I'd have to live this 'Groundhog Day' scenario for the foreseeable future,” says Johnson, so he started planning his escape. He had already been running a coaching business as a side gig for a few years, and by February 2021, he quit his day job to give his full attention to his business, 9 To 5 Nutrition.

Though it’s still lots of hard work and sometimes long hours, Johnson likes being in control. “I work where and when I want to, and the feeling of being self-sufficient is unbeatable. I now realize that hustle culture isn't virtuous – it just leads to burnout and eventually becomes toxic,” he says.

Will the Great Resignation kill hustle culture for good?

Marina Vaamonde, founder of?HouseCashin , a marketplace for off-market houses for sale, recently had one of her employees resign due to “hustle culture.” “My employee told me that the main reason he quit was that he realized that he should be?working to live rather than living to work,” she says.?He explained that even good employees are generally looked down upon if work isn’t the be-all, end-all of their lives, and he needed to move away from that.

“I respected his decision and still talk to him to this day,” says Vaamonde.?

Since that experience, she has implemented policies that put more boundaries between work and life. “For example, we now have a policy where nobody is required to reply to work emails or Slack messages after work hours,” she says.?

Whether it was the pandemic that forced people to rethink their lifestyles or just a general mindset shift among the next gen workforce, Vaamonde thinks that hustle culture is old-school thinking. “I think older employees grew up in a time when there was little to no discussion about jobs being too demanding or not fulfilling enough. They simply did the jobs and got on with it,” she says. “But younger employees are growing up in a time where they're encouraged to pursue happiness and question what they want from life and how they want to live their lives.”

Some of the more traditional, conservative employers like law firms and the banking industry are going to take longer to come around, predicts Tiffany.?“Many firms that appeared to be embracing flexible working during the height of the pandemic have now already started demanding that everybody returns to the office five days per week.?To be fair, it's often what their clients expect,” he says.

That said, employers in other sectors may become more committed to promoting work-life balance going forward, adds Tiffany. “I think it's likely that some employers may even end up trying to compete with others to be the most ‘employee-friendly’ in their sector.?Overall, this is a great thing for employees.”

Considering that the average work week in America as of August 2021 was 44 hours, with 41% saying they worked 45 hours or more, there’s still a long way to go. But perhaps a workplace revolution has only just begun. “People are realizing that the old model is detrimental to their health and wellbeing. They are starting to ask themselves how they can work smarter instead of harder,” says Jones. And companies are starting to accept that burnt out employees cannot generate more productivity, sales or profit. Says Jones: “Hopefully that trend will continue so that America no longer has to ‘run on Dunkin’… but maybe on chamomile tea instead.”

If you like learning about hiring trends like hustle culture, check out Monster Intelligence , where we share the latest insights from job seekers, as well as the latest hiring data.