As a possible employer, you must be wondering what the Great Resignation Era actually means in physical or real terms. In other words, how is this economic trend actually affecting or could possibly affect my business?
There are multiple ways that it affects businesses and companies worldwide, but one of the most important factors is arguably productivity.
Image ‘Productivity in Healthcare’ by Yann Ropars CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Flickr.
As described by Mariah Espada of TIME, with concerns of a recession now in motion, productivity levels are a major worry for employers and company executives. She explains that with the rising phenomenon of quiet-quitting, thanks to its popularity and spreading influence on Tiktok, productivity scales have begun showing to employers and executives the effects it certainly has.
The stats – Productivity’s biggest drop since 1948
Espada explains how the U.S. nonfarm worker productivity level in the second quarter has fallen 2.5% since the same period last year. This makes it its steepest annual drop since 1948, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
According to Reuters, it also declined sharply at a 4.6% annualized rate, after having declined by an upwardly revised 7.4% in the first three months of the year. Companies and businesses are looking at productivity scales in particular as a main metric for excellence, with some going as far as checking on employees’ keyboard activity.
Major tech companies like Google are signaling that they are slowing hiring and could lay off staff amid concerns about overall productivity.
The same has been said for Twitter, which just recently lost over 50% of its workers after a sudden layoff by Mr. Elon Musk, stating how Twitter’s productivity and profits were downfalling.
Further, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also reports that the economy profited at only $10.9 trillion, which represents the cumulative loss in output in the U.S. nonfarm business sector due to the labor productivity slowdown since 2005. It corresponds to an average loss of $95,000 in output per worker.
What’s to blame?
According to Anne Johnson of The Epoch Times, quiet-quitting is the prime reason for productivity downfalls, going as far as saying how employers are too busy looking at the Great Resignation Era as a whole and not the effects of quiet-quitting alone.
Employee engagement has declined for the first time in 10 years. In a 2021 Gallup poll, based on a random sample of 57,022 full- and part-time employees, just over one-third were engaged with their job.
Johnson also explained that:
One byproduct of the pandemic shutdown is a worker’s desire for work–life balance. People no longer want to put in 12-hour days. Family and leisure time became just as or more important than work. Corporate America’s up-or-out philosophy doesn’t mean anything to these workers. And they prove it by doing only the bare minimum.
Image ‘Work life Balance’ by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free.
Granted, quiet-quitting and the Great Resignation Era are frustrating or may even seem irrelevant to some company executives. Managers and employers often pride themselves on knowing if something’s wrong with a worker. Therefore, they should go about identifying and improving communications with any known quiet-quitters.
If you are a manager or employer, it may feel like you’re now working for the employee’s needs rather than the company’s needs. You may even consider this unfair to the business order of things. But, as explained by Johnson, you don’t need to see it that way. Employees are simply now in business for themselves; they have realized how they do not have to give their employer any underlying loyalty or love to be able to work.
The best piece of advice is, instead of working for you as their manager, show the quiet-quitter that they are working with you to meet the company’s objectives and goals.
Whether this is increasing their benefits, pay, or offering hybrid work, to giving them a bigger voice or say in the company’s operations and choices for employees. In the end, by keeping your employees happy, their productivity should show for it. For questions or advice, reach out via the Contact Me tab up above!
Business Wellness 