Introducing: What in the World

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1:29From the BBC World Service, this is the documentary, the home of original storytelling. I'm Hannah Gelbart and I'm here to tell you about our podcast, What in the World, which helps you make sense of what's happening in the world. And in this bonus episode, we're bringing you two topics that people have been talking about on social media. Firstly, have you heard of job hugging? It's when you stay put in a job instead of hopping from one to another. And later, you're also going to hear about my experience with rejection therapy, which is where you deliberately put yourself in situations where you might get rejected to see if it can help with social anxiety.

2:07But for now, let's get to work.

2:13Right now, work feels pretty unstable. There are layoffs, hiring freezes, the threat of AI, like people sending out hundreds of applications and hearing nothing back. And there are all of these workplace buzzwords flying around. Things like bare minimum Mondays, the great resignation, quiet quitting. And today we're talking about another one of these words, job hugging. It's basically when you stay in a job that you are no longer really emotionally invested in because it feels too risky to move elsewhere. And it's the opposite of job hopping, which is where you move around quite quickly because you might get better pay or a promotion.

2:47and I read an article by a business leader who said that if you're one of these job huggers, you are killing your future. So today we're asking if job hugging could be holding you back or if it's the right move in an uncertain world. I'm Hannah and this is What in the World from the BBC World Service. We wanted to hear your experiences of the job market and job hugging at the moment so we have been asking you to get in touch. This is Maddy in the US. I think in the past, you could really rely on your education and your professional network for job security. But nowadays, things feel so much more fragile.

3:22And maybe it's just a game of comparison. But what I think is going on is that there's a lot of different factors like our health care being tied to our employer. And the fact that AI is a threat to several of our jobs that we had even a few years ago considered safe enough to go to college and study for. We're going to get into this now with BBC business reporter Ima Morrow. Welcome back. Thank you very much for having me. Given all of this economic uncertainty, it does make sense that people are sticking in these jobs. Is job hugging actually a new trend or is it just a new name for something that we were already seeing?

3:55I think it is a new name for something that's not totally new. We are seeing more of it now because of the way economies around the world are changing and how the labour market is changing. If you compare it to quiet quitting, so that was kind of a trend a couple of years ago where people were sort of not going above and beyond in their jobs, kind of not maybe pushing themselves, not putting themselves forward for extra work, things like that. But they were staying in their jobs. And I think in that sense, job hugging is sort of like quiet quitting's kind of sad cousin, because either way you are staying in the job.

4:27But I think quiet quitting was a bit more about agency. It was sort of taking back a bit of a sense of a work-life balance, but you weren't necessarily worried about losing your job. Whereas I think with job hugging, the thing is people are worried that there could be layoffs, there could be cutbacks in their job. so they don't want to look a bit further afield and just hang on to the security that they already have. What do the numbers say about how many people are job-hugging at the moment and is it something that we are seeing in younger workers, people earlier in their careers? In Singapore, resignations are lower now than they were after the 2008 financial crisis.

4:59So for any viewers and listeners who might be too young to remember that, that was a time when companies everywhere were laying off people cutting jobs. So you'd be kind of mad to leave a job voluntarily because there would be so little chance of finding something else. So I suppose it's the difference between if people think that there are better opportunities elsewhere. And right now, a lot of people don't feel like if they leave their job tomorrow, they'll be able to find something, A, just find a job and B, find something better than what they already have. What are some of the reasons people give when they're asked why they want to stay put?

5:29Yeah, AI is a big one in that article that you mentioned. Employers don't know kind of what AI is going to do to their businesses, to their workforces. So employees don't really know if they could be basically replaced by a computer in a few years. So they want to kind of hang on as long as they can. When a lot of Gen Zed entered the workforce kind of pre-COVID, job hopping was in vogue. People did really have this sense that why would you stay in the job you're currently in when you could get a better salary, better perks, better working conditions elsewhere? But now that there's kind of a correction to there are a lot fewer opportunities for workers of all ages, but particularly younger people.

6:06the kind of workforce they entered is not the same as the workforce right now. But there are also some benefits to staying in a job for a long time too, both to you in terms of your career, but also to employers. Hiring people costs money. The more you have to do it, the more money you're spending on recruitment. Low turnover is what companies want. So people staying in roles for a long time helps that. But employees are saying, well, if I can go to this place, why would I stay here unless you give me better benefits? What kind of issues does it create for companies and for people who end up stagnating in jobs?

6:39Yeah, so disengaged staff is really bad for business. And in turn, that's really bad for the economy. So last year, it's estimated that employee disengagement cost the world$10 trillion in lost productivity. Basically, if you're spending X amount of money on staffing employees, you want to see a good return on your investment, essentially. But if you flip that around, you have all these employees saying, well, why are you just treating me like a number? Why are you just treating me like another big cog in the machine? I'm not going to go above and beyond. If I don't feel like I'm getting my return on my investment.

7:06And there was another study that found that employee well-being increases when they have that kind of intrinsic sense of value at their work. They feel like, you know, their job is going to get better. Their pay is going to get better in the future. When employees don't feel like that, like a lot of them do now, partly because of AI, that can create problems for employers. That article that I think we both read where the business leader says that job booking is killing your future. That kind of sent a bit of a spasm. I was like, OK, if you're staying in something until you're feeling comfortable and gaining the skills, are you actually potentially damaging your future career prospects?

7:40Is that fair? I don't think there's many kind of plumbers, nurses, farm labourers who are particularly worried about AI coming for their jobs. And the reason they're not worried is because they have skills that AI can't replicate. So there's a huge element of kind of what skills do you have in this conversation? Again, one study found that if all the world's workforce was 100 people, 59 of those would need upskilling by 2030. So it's all about kind of if you can find opportunities elsewhere that will give you the tools and give you the skill set to be more resilient against things like AI and cutbacks.

8:12I think the tech sector is a good kind of canary in the coal mine. Because again, if you think back to pre-COVID, and COVID wasn't necessarily the cause of all this, but I very much see pre-COVID as the tech companies, they couldn't expand fast enough. They wanted more workers than they had because they had all this work to be done. Whereas now a lot of them are kind of maturing as companies because they were these really rapidly expanding startups, you know, back at the kind of start of the 2010s and further back into the noughties. But they're slowing down in their kind of output. Some of them, like Facebook, have invested a lot of money in the metaverse, which hasn't really worked out too well financially for them.

8:47So they're making cutbacks. They're slowing down. So their workers are kind of thinking, instead of going from one tech company to another, I'm going to stay where I am because there are no other companies offering me better pay right now. And there's this emotional pressure as well. Like it feels like if you're not moving around fast and growing and getting promoted, then, you know, there's stigma attached to it that you're seen as stagnating. But then the idea of taking those risks can produce a lot of anxiety. Yeah. And I think anxiety is the big kind of over looming factor when it comes to job hugging.

9:17People are really afraid that if they leave a job, they won't be able to simply walk into another one. And if they do, it won't be as good as what they have now. Whereas I think if you go back six or seven years in a lot of industries, staying in your job was like leaving money on the table. It was like, why would you show loyalty to a company if they're only going to give you, say, a 1 % pay rise? Whereas you can get a 5 % pay rise if you move to this job and then you can get another one if you move to that job in 10 months. That's not really the case now. If we go to early careers, how long should people be staying in their first or second jobs?

9:48How do you know when you've outgrown a role and you're at risk of hugging it? I think it goes back to that skills thing. So if you are kind of in a position where there is no obvious next step for you, like the next kind of rung up on the ladder, and you can't, your employer isn't giving you any kind of opportunities to upskill and to develop yourself and your skill set so that you could move into another slightly higher role. I think that would be kind of a sign for me to either look elsewhere or look to see where you can kind of be a bit more proactive and upskill by yourself. I think historically companies invested a lot more in their workers in the sense of like they would train you to do certain things.

10:26But as the companies kind of make cutbacks and they want to sort of, you know, make kind of cost savings here and there without affecting the bottom line, they're less willing to kind of pay for their employees training, pay for, you know, kind of various upskilling seminars, qualifications, things like that. Yeah. So if you've been in a role for a couple of years, you feel like, hey, I've got this, I've got the skill set. Actually, maybe a smart move would be to hug your job whilst also beginning to update your CV, look for opportunities elsewhere, put in those applications if they are available.

10:55Yeah, I mean, a good kind of rule of thumb is it's easier to get a job if you have a job. So a lot of kind of career coaches and kind of experts in this area would say kind of don't just leave a job with no plan. And like a plan could be, you know, doing a master's, doing some sort of full time kind of upscaling and training education. But generally speaking, employers like to see you're in a role right now because it means you're sort of a little bit more proactive and you might stay at the company a bit longer. Ema, thank you so much. Thank you. A lot of people are feeling the squeeze right now and loads of you left comments on our episode on the BBC World Service YouTube channel.

11:34Tony said that stability is worth more than climbing the ladder for more money and more stress. And Thomas said that job hopping works well when you're in your 20s and 30s, but when you hit your 40s and 50s, it's a tougher market because you're more expensive than the majority of the competition. So he says he understands the hugging. Thanks for those comments. and after the break, I'll be back with another episode where I tried something that was well out of my comfort zone, rejection therapy. From the BBC World Service, this is the documentary, the home of original storytelling, and a special double episode brought to you by What in the World.

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14:28From the BBC World Service, I'm Hannah Gelbart and this is the documentary. We've been talking about the job market and why more people are staying put in their jobs for longer. And one of the themes that comes up when we talk about job stability is that people are trying to move on to the next step, but they keep getting rejected. Now, rejection taps into one of our most primal fears. And there's a trend I've been seeing on social media that might be a way to manage those fears. It's called rejection therapy. And the idea is that if you put yourself out there, you do things in public or ask for things from strangers where you're likely to get rejected, you can build a tolerance for it.

15:07And apparently this is meant to be good for you, so for this episode, I've decided to try it out. I'm normally really confident, but I'm actually feeling a bit nervous about this.

15:22Hi, can I come sit down at your table? Yeah. How's it going? Good, thank you. How's your day gone? Not bad, yeah. I'm doing a bit of a social experiment in putting myself out there. I was wondering if you were going to say no, actually. Someone I'm meeting for the toilet. Oh, really? So when she comes back, I'm going to have to skedaddle? Possibly, yes. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thanks for letting me join. Hi, do you work here? I do, yeah. I was wondering, can I have a nap in one of these beds? Can I just try it out? Yeah, of course. Yeah, how long can I stay here for? All right. So policy is that as long as it's not something which is, you know, inappropriate, then you can.

16:01Okay, cool. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to approach again. Hiya, good afternoon, how are you doing? Fine. Can I drive your cab? Don't be silly. Oh, thanks so much for your time. Okay, so that last one was a bit of a flop, but I did it. We're going to be getting into what projection therapy is and if it could help with social anxiety. I'm Hannah Gelbart and this is What in the World from the BBC World Service.

16:33I'm in the studio and we have Claudia Hammond a psychologist and BBC presenter back on the podcast hey Claudia thanks for having me how are you you were very brave yes I've been doing some really weird things how did you find it the funny thing is I was most anxious before it actually started so when I was thinking about going and speaking to people what I was going to do what I was going to say and actually walking up to the first person I felt my adrenaline really really spiking. I'm not a socially anxious person. I think I'm really confident. But that first thing really scared me. And once I'd done one, the second one came easier and the third one came even easier.

17:06And I didn't even mind it whether they said yes or no. Was that because people were so nice to you, really? Yeah. Most people just wanted to chat. You know, I went and did my little experiments and then they wanted to have a follow up conversation for the next 10 minutes. People were so friendly and welcoming. And I really didn't expect that. Yeah, this is what people find really in experiments where they get people to talk to strangers deliberately. actually most of the time people get a really good response it's actually quite rare to get rebuffed why do you think this trend is taking off now is it because younger people have more social anxiety well i think it's really interesting because obviously we have you know lived through the pandemic and so some younger people have missed time at school or maybe time at college university and just had a time when they couldn't socialize for a while and so that can make coming back to socializing more difficult what we do know is that there is an increase in perfectionism people are more worried now younger people about how other people are judging them and so I wonder whether that might make people more shy of speaking to strangers worried that the people will you know not appraise them in a good way and so doing something like this to try to counter that might feel like a positive step to people that they're trying to do something also they're fun to watch they are fun to watch and they feed into that algorithm don't they and I'm guessing that you can take that into your everyday life you can put yourself out there at work you can pitch that idea to your boss or whatever.

18:24But the stakes do feel a little bit different, don't they? If you're putting yourself in that kind of situation where you're asking for something or going out of your comfort zone in a work environment or a family environment in a relationship, the stakes are a little bit higher if they say no. Yes, it is different if you are inviting rejection in that way. And people, we hate rejection. You know, you can do brain studies where the brain centers of the brain are activated that would normally be activated for pain. You know, we find social rejection really painful you can just get people to play computer games where they get left out you know people are throwing the ball across the screen never throw it to you and we start to show these pain responses because we really really do hate rejection why is that why are we so afraid of rejection i think in one way we have evolved to be very social beings we need to get on with other people humans do survive by cooperating and actually by the willingness of strangers to do things and cooperate with me made me feel much more included.

19:19Yeah. So in fact, you weren't getting rejected, really. You know, in a way, the idea of this self-help technique, you know, it's not a proper form of therapy. It's not being tested. But the idea is that you get used to being rejected. But actually, what you found was that most people were nice to you. So you weren't really being rejected. You were actually discovering that strangers are really nice, which is exactly what the research shows. It depends on how mad the idea is. Obviously, a taxi driver is not going to let me behind the wheel of this taxi. I'm not insured and he doesn't know I'm not going to crash his car.

19:49So this trend is based on something called exposure therapy. Can you talk me through where that comes from and what the point is? Yes, so exposure therapy was developed across the 1950s and 60s. Sometimes it's called systematic desensitisation. And the idea is usually gradually you get used to the thing you're afraid of. So I don't know if you're afraid of spiders, then you start looking at some pictures of spiders and you are taught at the same time by a psychologist to deal with the stress of that reaction, perhaps taught some breathing exercises and very gradually you might build up to seeing a real spider, a tiny one, and you might end up in the end maybe holding a tarantula in the end if you get there.

20:26And this can be done for social anxiety as well. And it's often part of cognitive behavioural therapy, the behavioural bit that many people have these days, the behavioural bit is going out there and doing these things. But it would be done very gradually and with the support of a therapist. It's also very different from the TikTok and Instagram trend where people just put themselves out there completely on their own and film themselves asking things from strangers. And we have been hearing from some content creators about their experience of rejection therapy. Hi I'm Sophie Jones I started rejection therapy about two years ago and I started it because I found self-development after going through mental health struggles and I felt like I'd reached a wall on my journey I'd learned all I could learn at that time in my life and then I came across the concept of rejection therapy exposure therapy this whole idea of putting yourself in uncomfortable situations to overcome your fear and I honestly never expected it to change my life in the way it has and it happened so quickly as well within three days of me doing rejection therapy I noticed this inner confidence coming out the fear of rejection keeps us in this bubble and it limits us and by doing rejection therapy I feel like it's opened the doors to life it's popped that bubble and gone oh you know being judged and perceived isn't actually as scary as I think oh I am in control of how I feel oh if someone rejects me I decide how that makes me feel that is life-changing.

21:50So Claudia, what are some of the benefits of being rejected? I mean in a way I think the benefits are more the benefits of speaking to strangers and finding out that most people are nice rather than the hardening yourself to the rejection. In a way if you want to harden yourself to rejection a better way of dealing with it is to ask is there something going at something else going on for people when they're mean to you. So if I don't know if a friend councils an evening out and you assume well this is clearly because they hate me and they're always going to hate me and everyone hates me actually what's going on for them are they just exhausted have they had a really bad day what's going on in their life or if someone is a bit rude to you offhand in a shop you don't know what's going on for them so I think a more effective way is to to ask interrogate why someone has rejected you so that's kind of developing empathy putting yourself in their shoes and thinking about what might go on for them because I think it's not all about us.

22:43It's not always about us. Obviously, I did my experiment here in London in the UK, and we've got one very well-known set of social rules. We tend to be quite cold, particularly in big cities, I think. But this is different in different parts of the world. Other cultures are so much warmer when it comes to making conversation with strangers. Yeah, there are real variations around the world in kind of what the social rules are about when you do and don't talk to strangers. So it will really depend on where you live and that you kind of need to get it right for the place that you live in. I want to bring it back to the some of the weirder experiments that we have been you know seeing on on TikTok and Instagram regarding rejection therapy in this trend and you know the ethics really of involving strangers in this kind of experiments you are asking people to do things you're either filming yourself or sometimes you're filming them as well does the fact that it's being filmed change the outcome of the experiments and is it okay to do this kind of thing with strangers?

23:35Yeah I think there are real ethical issues around it because particularly if the person is being filmed as well as you say sometimes they are sometimes they aren't that makes them feel uncomfortable but even just knowing the situation is being filmed might make people feel uncomfortable and suspicious and also we don't kind of want to stop people being nice to people and if you you realize that actually this was all just kind of done for a laugh then people may feel it was slightly at their expense and they might feel used they might feel used and then not be as nice to someone who really does need some help the next time.