In a recent episode of my podcast, Work From Your Happy Place, I interviewed Broadway actor and musician, Eric Gutman. We spent a good amount of the discussion talking about how many individuals from the performing arts industry may not go back to those jobs once theaters begin opening up again. Gutman himself, an acclaimed actor, became a mortgage broker during the Covid shut-down to pay the bills. Now, he’s not necessarily rushing to return to his previous work.
Covid was a disrupter in every industry. It caused every one of us to press pause on our lives, whether we wanted to or not. For millions of people, it was also a realization that, if there was ever a time to make some different choices in your professional life, it’s now!
I hear conversations about how people are “lazy,” ''don’t want to go back to work,” and “would rather make money on unemployment.” Here’s the other take on that; people have moved on and found other work - that’s why they’re not coming back to the lower paying jobs. Bad pay, bad schedules...why go back to that? The pandemic gave people other experiences. They had to shift, they spent more time with their families, they thought about what was important to them and what value they brought to the table.
Then they asked themselves, “Why struggle when I can find better pay, more stability, and a schedule that allows for a better work-life balance?”
A lot of workers got that chance to reevaluate their lives and are choosing differently.
I’ve seen it in the direct sales industry, where there was a huge shift to people moving their entire businesses online.
I’ve watched the lack of dockworkers and shortage of containers negatively impact every industry that relies on shipping and transporting goods of all kinds.
I’ve watched actors, theater workers, and stagehands find different work outside of the performing arts. Even on Broadway, many people have left town or made a conscious decision to not work the long and strenuous hours anymore.
The National Restaurant Association’s 2021 State of the Restaurant Industry report looked at the impact of COVID-19 on their industry and found that:
- More than 110,000 eating and drinking places were closed for business either temporarily or for good nationwide (as of December 1, 2020).
- The eating and drinking place sector finished 2020 nearly 2.5 million jobs below its pre-coronavirus level.
- At the peak of initial closures, the Association estimates up to 8 million employees were laid off or furloughed.
- The restaurant industry ended 2020 with total sales that were $240 billion below the Association’s pre-pandemic forecast for the year.
With many businesses mastering effective and efficient meetings, training, and general communications in the virtual space, business travelers are choosing not to travel as much as they did pre-Covid. With business travel remaining low, the entire travel industry has taken a huge hit. In addition, the commercial real estate landscape has begun to spiral as leases are coming up on buildings with the occupants wondering if they need to re-up those leases. After all, if half of your people are working remotely, do you really need 30,000 sq ft of office space?
The Covid disruption kicked every one of us off the hamster wheel - and that was something that was desperately needed for many industries and a lot of individuals. It made us re-evaluate, well, everything, and for the first time in a long time, it made us make some new choices and decisions. We went from, ‘I’ve got to survive right now while my industry is shut down’ to ‘I did something else during that time’ to ‘I’m not sure I want to go back.’
If there was ever a time to make some different choices in your life, it’s now! There are opportunities out there, and they may look different than the ones you’ve chosen before. Not only is that okay, but it may be the very thing you need to be less stressed, more secure, and in a happier place in your life.