When Is a Promotion Not Really a Promotion?
By: Leigh McKiernon Responsibility inflation is quietly reshaping the workplace, asking employees to contribute at the next level while often being paid at the last one. Every economic cycle leaves behind its own fingerprint on the workplace. The recession of the early 1990s gave us downsizing. The early 2000s celebrated outsourcing. The 2010s introduced us to hustle culture, a period in management history during which employees were encouraged to mistake chronic exhaustion for professional fulfilment. Then came the pandemic, followed by inflation, hiring freezes, geopolitical uncertainty, AI, and an employer-led labour market that shifted the balance of power back towards organisations. Every era has its management innovation. Our era has discovered responsibility inflation . The quantity of work expands. The complexity of the work expands. The accountability expands. The emotional labour expands. Curiously, however, the compensatio...