By Stephanie Diana Eubank
I don’t know about you, but when I was making my first resume in high school, the constant adage was that you shouldn’t look like you are job hopping. You need to stay at a company for as long as you can. It looks good on a resume. However, this has not been the case for many decades now. Especially not in the remote work community pre and post-COVID.
According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, as of 2022, the average employee stays in the same role for 4.1 years but only stays at the same employer for an average of 3 years. So far, the data matches the average onsite worker as well.
As remote work is only 2020 becomes more of a norm than the 5.7% before COVID, remote workers jumped to 17.9% of all US workers in the US labor market per the Bureau of Labor and statistics as of 2020. However, as of May 2022, 35.4% work remotely.
For clarification, let’s define what tactical job-hopping means. Tactical job hopping refers to leaving one job or company to go to another within a 1–4-year time frame. This is done to either shift careers because of changes to the industry or personal changes or to gain a higher title or higher pay. When discussing tactical job hopping, the concepts that are outside of an employee’s control, like industry-wide layoffs (like that constantly happens in the financial industry to the point it is almost suspicious if you have been at the same company more than four years) or jobs that have outsourced industry-wide or have faded out due to automation.
Now those semantics are out of the way, let’s address another reason people use tactical job hopping that they won’t say in an interview. Tactical Job Hopping to escape a toxic work environment. This reason is especially true for remote workers. There is an adage that people don’t quit jobs. They quit managers. Well, this can also be the case for tactical job hopping.
Also, it is possible to create a toxic work environment in a remote workplace. Unfortunately, it is an easier task in a remote workplace than one might want to think about. The ease of developing a toxic remote workplace environment is often due to managers not being taught to manage and not being instructed on how to manage a remote workplace. Remote work takes a different kind of management style. As I have researched and published before, remote leadership must lead with empathy and true authenticity and communicate more inclusively and creatively. Where remote work has room to build healthy leadership boundaries, it takes more effort to show respect and openness to employees as a leader in remote work.
When leadership is toxic tactical job hopping allows onsite and remote workers to find an organizational culture that addresses these issues. Being able to leave a toxic work situation is liberating and allows employees to prioritize their mental health and prevent burnout. When employees prevent burnout through things like quiet quitting (establishing healthy boundaries) and acting on their wage (prioritizing work and life balance for better mental health without hurting the chain of command or leaving themselves open to being pigeonholed into one job or career field) burn out is prevented and helps to not just better productivity in an organization but also helps keep a stable economy moving by having a stable workforce.
This helps break the toxic work culture concept of staying for the sake of a resume duration to show a new company. When tactical job hopping is considered by an employer, we prevent burnout and embrace new hires that are talented and emotionally mature. Tactical job hopping to not stay at a toxic workplace by not following the old construct of staying in the same company until they are done with you helps break the toxic work culture by breaking the cycle and not staying at a company longer than one should. Staying in a toxic workplace too long can cause workplace PTSD and this can take years of working in a nontoxic work environment and therapy to lessen the stress of workplace PTSD.
Which begs the question of Organizational Leadership, what can be done to prevent this in an onsite and remote workplace?
- Have Human Resources (HR) learn to spot signs of poor leadership and not just regard it as people leaving for better pay or benefits. Investigate high turnover.
- Invest in training managers on how to manage. Don’t just assume if they are good at their job, they can lead your team.
- Train your managers on how to manage a remote workplace. Remote leadership is a different ball game altogether.
- If you are having trouble knowing where to start developing remote leadership training check out my new consulting firm wickedbofthewestremoteconsulting.com
- Also, hiring leaders who are not typically those you think about for leadership in remote workplaces is another good idea. People who are better with interpersonal communication. To learn more about what types of leadership work best in a remote workplace, check out my consulting firm’s website and social media. wickedbofthewestremoteconsulting.com
There are also some good books on these topics to help spot tactical job hopping from a toxic employee or those hurt by the economy.
- https://amzn.to/3FbvNc0
- https://amzn.to/3XK25SI
- https://amzn.to/3GW6xIb
- https://amzn.to/3F8Qc1w
- https://amzn.to/3VECPM3
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References
Bureau of Labor and Statistics. (2022, September 22). Employee Tenure Summary. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Retrieved November 29, 2022, from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.nr0.htm.
Bureau of Labor and Statistics. (2022, May 11). 7.7 percent of workers teleworked due to COVID-19 in April 2022. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Retrieved November 29, 2022, from https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/7-7-percent-of-workers-teleworked-due-to-covid-19-in-april-2022.htm.
Liu, J. (2022, January 18). 4 shows a company is invested in remote work long-term. CNBC. Retrieved November 29, 2022, from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/18/how-to-know-if-a-company-is-really-committed-to-remote-work-long-term.html
McMenamin, L. (2021, April 19). Why long-term workplace trauma is a real phenomenon. BBC Worklife. Retrieved October 20, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210415-why-long-term-workplace-trauma-is-a-real-phenomenon
Robinson, B. (2022, October 12). Experts say that remote work is here to stay and will increase into 2023. Forbes. Retrieved November 29, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2022/02/01/remote-work-is-here-to-stay-and-will-increase-into-2023-experts-say/
Dr. Stephanie Diana Eubank DBA Remote Team Research (AKA Dr. Bear) 