The Great Resignation is seemingly over. That doesn’t mean that the pandemic hasn’t transformed our relationship with work.

Work-life balance is no longer a luxury but a necessity. As Ramp Capital writes:

“If the Great Resignation and the working from home movement taught us anything, it’s that life is all about balance. People quit in droves because they were unhappy with their work situations and thought better opportunities laid elsewhere. Many people who started working from home realized how much happier they were.”

In an economy with a 3.5% unemployment rate your employer is lucky to have you. As Tim Denning writes:

“Your boss is lucky to have you. You can always get another job – and their ability to hire fast and replace people is never great. So tell them how you work. You no longer do back-to-back meetings. End of story.”

Smart employer are going to have to do more than order employees back into the office. They are going to have to make it attractive. As Fred Wilson writes:

“I don’t think the answer is restricting flexibility around where people work. That feels like table stakes now for knowledge workers. I think the answer is figuring out how to get people back together more frequently in ways they want to convene in person.”

There is no perfect solution. Absolutists are inevitably wrong. All there is trying, adjusting and hoping for the best. As Ben Carlson notes:

“Having a good work-life balance means sometimes you wish you were working harder and sometimes you wish you were spending more time with the people you love…I would love to share the secret to a happy life that’s perfectly calibrated. The truth is that there are no secrets to this stuff.”

Perfection is impossible. Balance is fleeting. Good luck out there.