What’s Happening to our Workforce? As we continue to deal with the pandemic, it is common to have conversations with family and friends turn to experiences they’ve had within the past week. One family member described how they had gone to a local restaurant, one of their favorites, but had to wait an unusually long time to be seated and to be served. They explained that many tables and booths were open, but people just were not being seated in them. They noted a message on the door from management apologizing due to a limited workforce. I heard family say, “I don’t get it. No one wants to work.” Is that true? Are people just not interested in working anymore? Or is there something else going on? Morale seems low across all industries. At a networking event this past month, the conversation was permeated by whether companies were going to mandate vaccines and what that would mean for existing employees as well as new hires. There was also much discussion about the challenges finding and hiring qualified staff. You could see the disillusionment on people’s faces. I heard it from people in the real estate market, people in senior housing and healthcare, people in the non-profit sector, and even people in the funeral industry. So, what is going on? One person mentioned “The Great Resignation.” – people resigning themselves to either suck it up and deal with what’s happening in the workforce or change their situation drastically. According to https://www.fastcompany.com/90679444/this-is-whats-really-behind-the-great-resignation Although labor shortages in the service industry might be the most visible ... tech and healthcare have actually seen the most people quit in the last few months, and burnout has been one of the driving reasons. As for the other reasons? While lack of childcare options and low wages are at the heart of many job vacancies, the other reasons people are quitting en masse are the same reasons people have always left their jobs: lack of flexibility and lack of opportunity—meaning, lack of work-life balance. That makes sense. Many in the workforce were incredibly disappointed when they were told to return to their offices after having worked remotely for so long. They claimed that they were more productive when they could manage their schedules around everything else they had to do, including managing their household. Then, once they did return to the office, they just couldn’t seem to get out of their “funk” – that dread that there could be something better than what they were doing. In an article posted at https://hbr.org/2021/09/who-is-driving-the-great-resignation , the authors conducted an extensive analysis of “more than 9 million employee records from more than 4,000 companies” across multiple industries. The results were two key trends: 1. Resignation rates are highest among mid-career employees. Employees between 30 and 45 years old have had the greatest increase in resignation rates, with an average increase of more than 20% between 2020 and 2021. It’s possible that many of these mid-level employees may have delayed transitioning out of their roles due to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, meaning that the boost we’ve seen over the last several months could be the result of more than a year’s worth of pent-up resignations. And of course, many of these workers may have simply reached a breaking point after months and months of high workloads, hiring freezes, and other pressures, causing them to rethink their work and life goals. 2. Resignations are highest in the tech and health care industries. We also identified dramatic differences in turnover rates between companies in different industries. While resignations decreased slightly in industries such as manufacturing and finance, 3.6% more health care employees quit their jobs than in the previous year, and in tech, resignations increased by 4.5%. In general, we found that resignation 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. Alright, we know that work/life balance has become not just a wish for employees anymore, but it is now a game-changer. People are putting their foot down and saying, “No, I am not going to sacrifice those things that are important just to bring in an income.” So many companies are looking for qualified employees and offering more flexibility and incentives that job-seekers can now be more selective. Companies are evaluating the costs of losing business because they don’t have the staff, to paying people more and offering more flexible schedules. But that doesn’t explain the issues with morale. Some jobs required people to continue to come to the office because remote work was not an option. These people have complained that they wished they could spend more time working remotely, especially if they have children or elderly parents at home. Some people said they felt like their job didn’t give them a sense of meaning, that what they were doing didn’t bring any value to the company or to the customers. Others have said that their employers didn’t seem to appreciate them, making them feel like they were expendable. And finally, I have heard many people talk about the importance of earning a living wage. These folks just want to be able to provide for their families. There needs to be much more research and much more analysis. If we want to create better work environments and better workforces, we should evaluate the costs and benefits of changing the way we do business to better accommodate employee requests (within reason). We still have a long way to go, but change can be a good thing. If you found the information in the article helpful, please pass it on.