The January blues can affect us all. Returning to work after the festive season, while the weather is cold, grey and wet can leave people feeling the new year slump, with some even choosing to take the decision to quit their job.
Speaking to The Independent, UCL School of Management Professor Anthony Klotz explores the difficulties of returning to a work environment after the intensity and emotion of the holiday period:
“There’s this very normal contrast effect where we’ve all just spent two weeks with family and friends enjoying leisure time, and then we come back to work.
“There’s maybe nothing wrong with work, but it’s less happy and less satisfying than what we just did. It’s very normal to feel this roller coaster of emotions.”
Professor Klotz’s upcoming book Jolted explores the science of why we quit or stay in our jobs. Often these decisions come from single events, or ‘jolts’, as he outlines. Moments when we are forced to rethink our relationship with work.
Returning to work after the holidays could be one of those ‘jolts’ as Anthony Klotz tells the Independent,
“What precedes impulsive quitting is a spike in negative emotions caused by an event. It can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, where it’s the final incident in a long-term accumulation of stressors that have led to burnout.”
Often these jolts can be external, happening away from work over the holidays, and can put things into perspective, making you realise that your work is not what you want or need right now.
Professor Klotz advises careful consideration after experiencing a ‘jolt’:
“Consider what are the things I really love about this job? What are the things I don’t like so much? Sit with those questions for a while and get a check on how green the grass is on the other side.”
He recommends assessing four key “buckets” and how full they are: enjoyment of your day to day work tasks; happiness with the people you interact with on a regular basis at work (e.g., boss, coworkers, customers); how much you feel that your work has a meaningful impact on others or society; and the amount that you share the same values as your colleagues and company.
If three or four of the “buckets” are on the low side, or even if one is unbearably low, you’ve likely reached the point where a change is needed.
“That change could involve looking into a new job or career change, but there are other good options, like speaking up to try to change your current work situation or leaning back from your work so that you can invest more time and energy in other parts of your life.”
