The Great Resignation
The past year during lockdown we have seen many stores/companies crippled and often seen their physical offices/stores shut. The closure of offices/stores have left many individuals without a financial income with many parents becoming teachers during the lockdown. The situation has allowed them to spend time with their children and re-evaluate their career, health, and work-life balance. This has often resulted in many individuals leaving their jobs to seek better/higher paid jobs that align with their values and life.
What is the Great Resignation?
The phenomenon of many people leaving their jobs after the COVID-19 pandemic ends is called The Great Resignation which was proposed by Profession Anthony Klotz of Texas A&M University. Anthony Klotz predicted that a large number of people will leave their jobs after the COVID pandemic ends and life returns to “normal”. Managers now have to navigate the rippling effects from the pandemic as current employees are re-evaluating their careers while the job market is hot with new roles. According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, nearly 3% of the US workforce resigned in October following a record high in September. Resignation can also be people taking sabbaticals, early retirement, or dropping out of the workforce for caring responsibilities.
The Great Shuffle
As many people resign from their current employment, many will seek to find new jobs that will pay higher and fit within the new work-life balance they have been accustomed to during lockdown. Many factors have contributed to The Great Shuffle of employees across most sectors. Here are some factors:
Work-Life Balance
During the lockdown, many of us experienced working from home to slow down the rate of infection of COVID-19. While working from home we have found many benefits such as seeing our children more as many did not have to spend time in traffic. Others may have found that they have saved more money, have more free time to enjoy hobbies, or focus on mental health.
Working from Home
During the year of lockdown, employees and companies have found whether working from home ensured the same or improved productivity when compared to working in the office. As companies started to implement working from home technologies from Citrix, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, and other providers at the start of the lockdown, they now find themselves with a fully integrated working from home system. Many companies are now offering to work from home or a hybrid of office and home which has opened up roles to a wider demographic.
Entry Level Jobs
The pandemic ravaged sectors such as hospitality and retail dominated primarily by young workers that are still looking for careers that work best for their values. With many individuals without jobs during the lockdown and in need of a job with income, many moved jobs creating mass vacancies in the retail and hospitality sector. Uptake of roles in retail and hospitality sectors might be low due to the pandemic exposing how fragile they are.
New Opportunity, Higher Pay
Lockdown has provided the perfect opportunity for people to re-evaluate their current lifestyle and career. With factors such as work-life balance to consider, many would look to move to new roles with working from home benefits and other benefits that can suit their new lifestyle. The job market is filled with talented individuals looking for new roles. Many roles may have been vacant due to individuals retiring early so there are plenty of roles that offer higher pay, with many companies open to improving the individual’s current pay.
Mental Health
Awareness of mental health has improved over the past year due to lockdowns and isolation periods. Some may have suffered burnout through the pandemic and demand for certain services increased dramatically such as doctors, nurses’ retail workers, and food delivery drivers. Many may have had enough of the stressful workload and look to move to a less stressful role that will help with their health.
How Does This Affect Employers?
As companies experience the great resignation and shuffle, they will look to keep their current employees, as training new employees needs a lot of investment to bring them up to speed. Many companies are offering higher wages to fill job roles quickly as well as improving their benefits such as providing work from home benefits. Wage increases and benefits improvement will affect the company’s profit, which in turn will increase the prices of products. Price increases could contribute to inflation. As companies are offering higher wages and better benefits they will need to offer these increases to current employees to keep them otherwise they will look to move. If current employees are suffering from burnout, companies will need to look into ways to reward them and help improve workload and mental health. Companies could see a lot of investment going towards their employees to retain and find new talent to fill vacancies. If vacancies are not filled in time, current employees continue to suffer burnout and the level of service could decrease therefore affecting company profits.
Summary
The great resignation and shuffle is the result of the year of lockdown and allowing time for individuals to re-evaluate their lifestyles. Many are exploring ways to find a job that reflects their values to help improve their work-life balance. The rise of automation during the pandemic could see a reduction in the workforce due to social distancing rules such as robotic waiters, self-service and video calls. Working from home will be competitive giving advantages to companies that offer greater flexibility to its employees. Many factors contribute to individuals resigning and companies will need to re-evaluate their policy to suit this new work culture and what people in the job market are looking for. Many believe The Great Resignation will be around for a couple of years but not hit the height of 2021. The UK is experimenting with 4-day working weeks as well Japan that are known to have documented overworked individuals in the country. Employers will need to embrace flexibility to attract and retain talent at companies. Companies that blame external factors for high turnover such as government leadership, the pandemic, unemployment benefits will struggle in the wake of the Great Resignation. Companies such as Fiverr have thrived during the pandemic that provides a freelance service marketplace for businesses to connect to freelancers for a certain pieces of work.