When COVID-19 hit hard in early 2020, many companies adopted very flexible policies to help their customers. It became easy to cancel— without penalty—flights, hotel stays, restaurant reservations, and many other commitments we made. This was a great response to the uncertainty that came with the pandemic.

But it seems to have triggered a cancel mentality that extends well beyond flights and hotel reservations. Increasingly, we are experiencing people backing out of commitments unrelated to COVID-19. At the Health Care Compliance Association, the rate of cancellations we receive from confirmed speakers for conferences, the rate of no-shows for job interviews with our human resources department, and the backing out of other commitments people make to the association have all skyrocketed over the last couple of years. And I hear that many of your organizations are experiencing similar trends.

At the same time, we are now reading more about “quiet quitting,” where employees are simply ignoring or outright refusing to perform tasks they consider to be above and beyond the scope of what they expect for their roles. Regardless of how we feel about quiet quitting, the fact of the matter is employees report feeling burned out and stressed more than ever before, with many experts now saying that remote and hybrid work environments exacerbate this feeling.

So, what’s it mean? Maybe nothing, other than a temporary blip in our environment. But perhaps it is indicative of lingering issues that will have a more profound and long-term impact on our organizations.

Quite possibly, the added burnout and stress people are reporting is partly a result of feeling overcommitted, so the cancel culture I describe and the quiet quitting are all related to the same underlying issue.

For HCCA, we’ll adjust and find ways of navigating. But the implications for your organization’s compliance programs are more difficult to predict. If the relationship between our employees and us—and the level of commitment our employees have towards compliance obligations—is deteriorating, we have our work cut out for us.

More than ever, the need for a “culture of compliance” is rising to the top. It may be the single most crucial element of our compliance programs.

I’m curious how so-called cancel culture 2.0 is impacting your organizations and what you’re doing about it. Send me your thoughts.