Why ‘rage quitting’ is all the rage
It was sweltering inside the nightclub where Alexander was DJing, in the US state of Virginia. Though it was more than 40°C outside, the club’s air conditioning was broken. He berated the club owner for lying about fixing the air conditioning and for the equipment-frying conditions.
‘Rage quitting’ is a sign of serious flaws in a workplace
The Covid-19 pandemic has only intensified stressors that can lead employees to quit on the spot
- As rage quitting tends to be the culmination of a series of work issues, employers can avoid being left in the lurch by paying attention to the warning signs
- Higher-educated people are more likely to quit, because they think that their skills are highly transferrable and generalizable
- Those in lower-skilled, precarious employment can often quit with little notice
- These patterns exist in some form across job roles and industries, but will take different shape in different contexts
If an employee does rage quit, this should be a wake-up call to the employer
Six months after Alexander left the overheated club clutching his DJ equipment, he reconciled with the owner and went back.
Rage Quits
For those who rage quit, especially those with high ‘death anxiety’, the ‘rage’ component “may be more likely to be triggered by the fact that employers fail to provide enough safety measures to protect their employees’ health”.
- During the COVID-19 pandemic, safety has been a common catalyst for client-facing employees to quit in a rage.
- In 2020, quit rates generally went down as people held onto jobs. But resignations have surged in 2021, so that “managers and organizations and HR departments are really worried about retaining talent”.
The Great Resignation
Not everyone can afford to leave a soul-crushing job, or to depart with the final pay cheque in limbo, so it’s not always helpful for those who’ve landed on their feet to urge others to quit a terrible job immediately.
- Employers should pay more attention to ‘pre-quitting behaviors’, for instance by implementing stay interviews with existing employees.