Workplace power balance: Are we entering ‘The Boss Era?’

CHARLOTTE — Employees may not like it, but analysts say the workplace is shifting back in favor of employers.

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced a few trends over the last few years, like work from home, quiet quitting, and The Great Resignation. But those are fading away, according to experts.

Now we’re entering what some are referring to as “The Boss Era.”

It’s a philosophy that retiree Joan Coggins knows well.

“You don’t have the privilege of a job. You work for it, earn it,” Coggins said.

Nick Juravich, a professor of labor studies, co-edited the book “The Pandemic and The Working Class,” and he says the pressure on workers has “really ratcheted back up.”

“I think bosses have really wanted to reassert control, whether that’s surveilling people through their computers if they’re working remotely, or getting them back in the office, or demanding that they be part of increasingly sort of rigorous and intensive forms of on-the-job surveillance and tracking,” Juravich said.

Greg Stoller, a lecturer on business topics at Boston University, says layoffs and a volatile stock market have changed the workplace dynamic.

“This is not a drill, this is not a blip,” Stoller said. “Right now, I think the pendulum is shifted back to the bosses being able to call the shots.”

Stoller says workers need to step up their game to ensure they continue to have a job.

“I think the onus is on the employee to work harder, so if you’re working from 9-5, I’m telling people to come in at 8:30, stay until 5:30,” Stoller said.

Some workers, like Joel Veilleux, see it a little differently.

“Us in the construction industry, we didn’t get the luxury to work from home. We were in the middle of it all.”

Still, he told me he can sympathize with those facing a new workplace reality.

“Nobody wants to go back to the office, nobody,” Veilleux said.

Stoller says employees should “try to go into the office as much as possible.”

“I think the pendulum has shifted that nobody owes you the right to work at home,” Stoller said.

A survey two years ago by the software company Beautiful AI said 60% of managers reported that if layoffs were needed, they’d start with remote workers.

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