CFOs and finance team leaders continue to contend with labor shortage issues in 2024. While the labor market's momentum has now begun to swing back in favor of employers, finance leaders should be aware of the trends and terms that are shaping the workforce and how they might impact their teams.
The search for the right balance between work ethic, compensation, and non-work life is long entrenched in human nature. From ancient Egyptians "calling out" to brew beer, to trends like quiet quitting today, employees have always desired rewarding and well-compensating work that still allows for a healthy work-life balance.
Social media continues to play a significant part in forging new trends — while some are just old trends with new names — for younger generations who seek this balance. This shared awareness has led to greater transparency with positive and negative effects.
Here are 8 trending workforce terms CFOs should be aware of in managing their teams in 2024.
1. Resenteeism
In what has been deemed the "natural successor to quiet quitting," this term has been used to describe employees who are staying in their jobs only because they can't afford to quit. It also appears to be a sarcastic spin on the term presenteeism, which involves employees working too hard to the point where it inhibits their productivity.
2. Rage Applying
Job applications are just a few clicks away, and employees who are frustrated at work may apply for jobs en masse as a way to vent their frustration. This frustration, referred to as rage applying, can be negative for both finance executives as well as employees. CFOs who want to build successful teams, and employees who want career growth, should prioritize quality of fit for open positions. But with rage applying, this quality isn’t prioritized, which can lead to finance chiefs losing talent. For employees, it can mean earning a reputation as a job hopper.
3. Acting Your Wage
Commensurate measurement between compensation and work ethic always has a subjective component, but salary transparency laws and increased comfort in discussing salary openly have led to a willingness for some employees to openly craft their work ethic around the perceived fairness of their compensation.
This has resulted in what is known as “acting your wage,” or employees only working as hard as they perceive their compensation justifies. CFOs who want to have an impact on peoples’ careers should create a meritocracy, but also be aware when their staff evaluate the benefits and costs differently, which can become a workplace inhibitor. Good, frequent communication and presence from leadership, along with a clear path on possible growth and career progression for employees, is the antidote.
4. Lazy Girl Jobs
This term, coined by Gabrielle Judge, whose Instagram account @antiworkgirlboss has racked up nearly 200k followers has taken social media by storm by challenging traditional workplace ethics. The term, which Judge insists is not limited to women, is the type of job that is work from home, not too technical, decent paying, and doesn't have difficult performance goals to achieve.
Positions in social media management, digital marketing, content strategy, graphic designing, account management, and more have been labeled as such.
5. Career Cushioning
Always keeping an eye out for new opportunities is nothing new. However, as the job market increasingly exists in a virtual world and economic uncertainty persists, employees are becoming even more proactive. The term career cushioning refers to the increased maintenance required to keep online résumés updated, tracking the availability of certain jobs, and updating LinkedIn profiles with future opportunities in mind.
As layoffs have hit industries hard to start 2024, CFOs should be proactive and aware of how their teams think about this kind of risk and prepare to have options.
6. Boreout
Seemingly the evil twin of burnout, boreout is the feeling of being overworked because the employee is sick of being bored. CFOs should be aware of this problem, as it has deterred young people from pursuing accounting. Leadership can actively evaluate their teams’ engagement, find ways to collaborate with other parts of the organization, or use technology to eliminate redundant work.
7. Bare Minimum Mondays
Many employees have taken a bare minimum Monday approach to start the workday off on an easy footing. This term describes how some employees simply just don't work as hard on Mondays. While a natural reaction might be for leadership to a return to office policy that includes Mondays, enforcement and actual engagement will be a challenge to the organization’s culture.
8. QuitTok
Loud quitting, where an employee quits in such a way that it causes intentional harm to the business, has extended into another new trend — QuitTok. Employees are now creating "#QuitTok" content, or live streaming and posting details about their layoffs on social media. Videos of people being laid off have gone viral on social media, and these can have significant ramifications for both employees and employers, some of which may have legal implications.
Avenues such as social media can provide new ways for employees to make themselves appear as victims and talk badly about the company. The effect of QuitTok can be a double-edged sword. It can bring greater accountability to leadership and how they let go of employees, but may also cause those employees to be unhirable after posting negative videos.