Quiet quitting, the gender pay gap: Was 2022 a tipping point for workers?

In 2022, Australians faced a soaring cost of living and rising inflation that meant ever-tighter purse strings. But wages, for the most part, failed to ease the pain.

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While the majority of organisations are budgeting in salary increases, says Cynthia Cottrell, leader of Mercer Pacific’s Workforce Consulting and Products business, it’s clear that on average, this increase will not match the rate of inflation.

From her research with Mercer, Cottrell has found that Australian employees are less likely to approach their employers for a pay rise. Instead, they’re more likely to seek a wage increase by just looking for another job. It’s a “real warning to all employers in this country” that they need to make bold changes if they want to retain employees.

Lagging wage growth is an even greater issue for women. Data released earlier this month from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows that for the first time in 2022, progress to close the gender pay gap has stalled. Their data reveals that the disparity between men and women’s salaries remains at 22.8 per cent, or, on average, $26,596.

Closing the gender pay gap is “difficult, given clear demarcations in the Australian labour market,” says Baird, where women make up the bulk of professions that are underpaid. Until we change this, she says, and the seniority of women within their professions, we can’t expect to see the pay gap close. “We need structural change,” she stresses.

The “great resignation”

One thing the pandemic did was force us to reevaluate our work/life balance. Increasingly, workers left their jobs in search of greater flexibility and fulfilment. In February this year, the Bureau of Statistics reported a surge in the number of workers job-switching.

Now, with unemployment at an all-time low, “employees are absolutely in the driver’s seat,” says Cottrell. Workers, she says, are no longer solely interested in better wages and benefits. “The pandemic created the sense that work could be much more than just the nine to five. Work needs to be more meaningful.” She says that the challenge employers face now is to make work better, fairer, and more accessible. And, she adds, this needs to be done in collaboration with employees.

Quiet quitting

As the cost of living grew, inflation skyrocketed and workers shouldered increasingly heavy workloads, the idea of “quiet quitting” went viral. Rather than quit their jobs, workers simply did the bare minimum. They started at nine and clocked off at five. They took a full hour for lunch. They stopped going above and beyond. Quiet quitting was the antidote to “girl boss” and hustle culture.

While Cottrell agrees that quiet quitting has been a global phenomenon, she points out that Australia is unique in the sense that workers really have the upper hand in the job market, given such low rates of unemployment. “Job switching is at an all-time high, and employees are voting with their feet.”

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So, what’s next?

The technological hybridisation of hybrid work is a sector to look out for, says Waters-Lynch. The share of new patent applications supporting work from home technologies has doubled since 2020, for instance, signalling that the hybrid work model is here to stay. “Meetings work well when everyone is either on Zoom or everyone is physically in the meeting room,” says Waters-Lynch, “but don’t work super well hybrid.” He cites poor audio and camera quality, and the positioning of cameras so that it doesn’t feel like people are looking you in the eye, as issues in this space. There’s an “anthropological effect”, he says, where it can be hard to pick up on body language or make eye contact that are key factors in building trustworthiness.

Waters-Lynch also expects to see greater investment in premium, central office spaces, with higher amenities, and more spaces for cultural interaction. After all, if the hybrid work model is here to stay, then people will need greater incentives to go into the office.

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