Unpacking the Great Break-up

The Great Break-up is the key reason why women want to move away from their workplaces, one senior lawyer has argued.

The HR Leader Podcast recently featured freelance general counsel Anna Lozynski, who spoke on the Great Break-up, a trend that has seen a huge uptick in the number of women professionals leaving their roles in the face of myriad employer shortcomings. Lozynski unpacked some of the core reasons for why the Great Break-up is occurring.

“In summary, the Great Break-up is basically a movement where women specifically are deciding to break up with their workplaces, choosing a couple of things, such as wellbeing. There can be some anxiety, particularly for first-time mums; when you’re stepping through phases and moments, there’s sleeplessness, and us good old mums tend to put ourselves last when it comes to self-care.

“In those moments when really we need more support, more self-care and all those kinds of things to kind of keep going. So that juggle, I guess the research is showing that women are saying it’s too hard,” said Lozynski.

Lozynski touched on the strenuous path to leadership that a number of women professionals face across the Australian workplace, which is yet another key reason why they are leaving their roles.

“The other thing is that there’s also research around women in leadership and how perhaps the path of women in leadership is different to the trajectory of men, which are often due to the biases that are held and prevalent in most workplaces,” said Lozynski.

“So, there’s sort of a bunch of reasons, but really at their core it’s wellbeing, it’s satisfaction, and it’s perhaps also, and these are my words and my interpretation, less the research, but choosing a path which is more flexible and empowering and is easier to some extent.”

In terms of women returning to the workforce after a hiatus for whatever reason, Lozynski believes that some organisations aren’t properly set up to facilitate that.

“Corporates love [a] one-size-fits-all policy because it’s efficient. But what we’ve been seeing, I think just slowly occurring, is the rise of individualisation, and that’s a lot for a corporation and a workplace to deal with.

“So, I think we’re in this really messy area where women want to come back into the workforce. Our societal structures aren’t necessarily set up to facilitate that. For example, the childcare that I want to send my child to, because I’m choosing to have him at home with me and do home-based care, the waitlist is up to 16 months,” said Lozynski.

“And then if you need to come back at the twelve-month mark or the nine-month mark, because that’s what you feel that’s the appropriate thing to do for your career and to preserve your career in that workplace. You can often see that instant disconnect.”

Kace O'Neill

Kace O'Neill is a Graduate Journalist for HR Leader. Kace studied Media Communications and Maori studies at the University of Otago, he has a passion for sports and storytelling.