What is the Great Resignation? Is it real? What does it mean? Here are some important facts and figures to try and help clarify...
Firstly, the Great Resignation is a term that was reportedly first coined by Anthony Klotz, an organizational psychologist at Texas A&M University. It refers to the growing number of people - from frontline workers to executives - voluntary quitting their jobs in search of something else.
Is it real? Oh, it is very real and there are plenty of statistics to prove it. According to Microsoft, over 40% of the global workforce are considering leaving their employer this year. In the US alone, a record 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in August 2021 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). Resignations peaked in April and have remained abnormally high for the last several months, with a record-breaking 10.9 million unfilled jobs in the US workforce at the end of July (Harvard Business Review).
The findings of Ian Cook's research study determined that resignations are up across the board, but that they reached the highest within the tech (4.5%) and healthcare (3.6%) industries. The data suggested - unsurprisingly - that "rates were higher among employees who worked in fields that had experienced extreme increases in demand due to the pandemic, likely leading to increased workloads and burnout".
So why is this happening?
According to Klotz, it is in part due to the fact that the pandemic has made workers reevaluate what they are getting out of their jobs. Laszlo Bock, CEO/Co-Founder of the human resources company Humu, cites that while there was a lot of talk of essential workers - but society actually treats them as essential *jobs* with the workers themselves being highly replaceable (NPR).
So a strong argument exists that it is about self-respect and a dramatic shift in values. People do not want to be seen as workers, but instead want to be valued as complex human beings with rich, intricate lives with needs and concerns in and outside the public sphere.
Aaron McEwan, from global research and advisory firm Gartner, has a particularly strong take on this. He claims that, "The movement of talent is so significant and so sharp that it's different to probably anything we've seen in living memory."
As he explains it, the pandemic has fundamentally altered the "psychological contract between employers and employees". While historically, a company only had to compete by providing a great worker experience: a good salary, a nice office, how many benefits they can offer. But if people no longer want to be seen as just workers, the balance of power is shifting from employer to employee. "They're not just interested in the experience they can have at work, they're interested in what an employer does to enrich their life experience," says McEwan.
There is evidence to suggest that it is also being fuelled by fundamental shifts in how people think about the role of work in their lives more broadly. Many people are choosing to place more emphasis on their personal lives and are setting ambition to one side. An example of this would be 'career downsizing'; accepting a role with fewer hours to allow for more personal time. Others have realized that they would rather be working for themselves than for some large faceless corporation, and have taken the leap into freelancing their talents or building their own businesses.
Another result of the paradigm shift between employees and employers can be seen in workersnot outright quitting, but negotiating for hybrid working conditions - something which some leading companies are suggesting is going to be essential in order to retain top talent.
Across the board, there seems to be a push toward better work-life balance and better physical, emotional and mental wellbeing.
There is no doubt about it; whatever the main motivators at work, the Great Resignation is very real.
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