Jan. 20, 2022

Taylor Massey couldn’t take it anymore.

She’d wake up at 3 a.m., work until as late as 10 p.m. and then do it all over again.

“I would work 80-plus hours some weeks,” said Massey, who worked in a director role for a corporate food service provider.

“Working in a corporate setting and in the demanding food service industry, where there’s a very large help-wanted need … I took a step back and realized … I can’t do it.”

She left her job late last year and now runs her own business, Thyme Cafe, which focuses on catering and has a restaurant inside Signature Flight Support at 3501 N. Aviation Ave.

And she’s far from alone. Of the nearly 500 people who responded to our recent SiouxFalls.Business work/life survey, 22 percent said they had changed jobs in the past year.

And while most aren’t actively looking for a different one, almost four in 10 said they would be willing to change for the right opportunity.

Jenna Bathke can relate. After 16 years in mortgage banking, she wasn’t planning on leaving her job during the pandemic.

“However, the right opportunity approached me, and I felt it was time to make a change,” she said.

Several years ago, the same employer had approached her about making a move, but working from home was important to her and not a benefit that business offered.

Fast-forward to 2020, and it was an option.

“Because they too were tasked with providing their employees with a work-from-home option and to their surprise, it proved to be effective in the mortgage industry,” she said. “This was a big influence on my decision to change employment. I hope employers realize the work/life balance that the ability to work from home offers their employees, and I hope that post-pandemic, the ability to shift from in office to work from home, even if on an as-needed basis, continues to be offered in the workplace.”

Employers increasingly are focused on retention, said Denise Guzzetta, who plans additional programming around the topic in her role as vice president of talent and workforce development for the Sioux Falls Development Foundation.

“They know they have to keep the people they have,” she said. “A lot of times, they’re all about finding the next person, but when talent changes jobs, it puts you further in the hole. So we’re talking about retention strategies. What can we do to shore up the talent that we have internally and utilize that talent to attract more talent?”

Experienced talent increasingly is seeking autonomy, the opportunity to achieve mastery in their profession and a connection to the purpose of the organization, she continued.

“That’s what keeps people engaged,” she said. “When they love their job, it’s because they have those mechanisms in place, and that’s critical.”

For Bathke, the flexible office approach has provided countless benefits, she said, including reduced commuting time and expense.

“It has allowed me more time with my family as I live outside of Sioux Falls, so I am now able to pick our kids up earlier from day care at the end of the day and have more time to spend with them in the mornings,” she said.

“While the decision to leave my former employer was difficult, I still remain friends with my previous boss and several of my old co-workers. After a year at my current employer, I know I made the right decision to make the move in 2020, even during a pandemic.”

As for Massey, being her own boss means she still works a lot, but not “anywhere close to the amount of hours I put in previously,” she said. “I can actually look at starting a family and having kids, where before it wasn’t an option that was on the table. I’m very glad. My husband even asked me, ‘How does it feel to not go to work?’ I still work. But it’s not really work if you love it.”

Survey respondents also told us about their workloads, stress level, changing pay and more. Click below for that story.

Sioux Falls respondents: Working more and stressed approaching two years into pandemic