The Great Regret: why workers are wishing they hadn't quit their jobs amidst Covid-19

80% of resigners say they want a do over

Workers are being plagued by the great resignation regret. Image: iStock

Millions of Australians took a step back from work and career progression amid the peak of COVID-19, but was it a mistake? 

The Great Resignation may have been one of the hottest terms of 2021 and 2022, but all that’s changing as we enter the era of The Great Regret. 

While over 50 million workers resigned from jobs across the US throughout 2022, new research from Paychex shows eight in 10 workers regret handing in their notice amid The Great Resignation. 

In Australia, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that from February 2021 to February 2002, which also marked the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, 1.3 million Australians resigned from their jobs, which equated to almost 10 per cent of the total national labour market.  

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At the time, the reasons for saying goodbye to demanding jobs were clear as people sought more flexibility, better working conditions, pay increases, a better alignment of personal and employer values, as well as the time and space to focus on mental health and finding a greater work-life balance. Others resigned to follow passions in completely new fields or to focus on turning side hustles into full-time careers. 

But as the cost of living continues to rise and economic uncertainty lingers in the air, a record number of people are now wondering if they did the right thing.  

“The Great Resignation has lead to much regret by employees seeking new opportunities,” Jeff Williams, Paychex’s vice president of enterprise and HR solutions toldCNBC of the 80 per cent of people who regret their decision to resign. 

“Among those regrets, employees were most likely to miss their co-workers. Those friendships create a sense of community among employees, creating a positive company culture. Another thing employees missed about their previous job.” 

Worse still, only 54 per cent of Paychex’s survey respondents were happy with their mental health following the resignation, and just 43 per cent reported having found the work-life balance they were searching for, with the promise of a better life still beyond research for over half of those who quit in search of it. 

So why are we now seeing a period of regret? 

Quiet quitting and the resenteeism era all follow in the footsteps of the Great Resignation. Image: Getty.

For many, what seemed like (and often were) unreasonable workloads, difficult workplace cultures and employer expectations are now being reassessed as another temporary side-effect of COVID-19, lockdowns and months spent working at home. 

What once felt like an unscalable mountain of never-ending unhappiness is now emerging as a temporary collective experience people were forced to suffer through. The long hours, emails at 3am, underperforming colleagues and being asked to work for a reduced salary are all, for the most part, a thing of the past now that children are back in school and a sense of social normalcy has returned. 

In other words, just because we couldn’t see the end of the tunnel through the burnout didn’t mean it wasn’t there, and now it is, with more employers than ever allowing hybrid working solutions and showing a greater understanding of mental well-being. 

As for those wanting to return to their old jobs? There’s both good and bad news. A whopping 30 per cent of employers survey said they’d be unwilling to rehire former employees who quit during the Great Resignation, which is definitely not so great. But, the good news is that almost just as many employers (27 per cent) said they both would hire a former employee back and had already done so. 

While some employers are reluctant to rehire old talent because of concerns around “loyalty, expected compensation and underlying suspicion of the employee’s motives,” Williams says that if you are wanting to reach out and potentially return to your former workplace, there are positive signs.   

“Many employers either want to give or have given people their jobs back, with medium-sized businesses the most likely to have done so already.”

Originally published as The Great Regret: why workers are wishing they hadn't quit their jobs amidst Covid-19