The great office break-up

One of the non-medical side effects of Covid-19 has been the pain felt by employers as they try to hold on to staff.

This struggle for employee retention is no surprise to the economists who predicted large numbers of people would leave their jobs as life returned to normal, coining it the great resignation.

Figures from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics are bearing them out. Resignations peaked there in April and remained high all summer, before growing again in September, the most recent month for which data is available. In all, 4.4 million US workers quit their job that month, up 164,000 on the previous month. The same month saw 10.4 million job openings.

As opposed to layoffs and discharges, which are involuntary separations initiated by the employer, quits are typically initiated by the employee and serve as a measure of workers’ general willingness or ability to leave jobs.

According to the World Economic Forum, resignations are highest among mid-career employees, and highest in the tech and healthcare industries. While the causes could be anything from fear of the pandemic to a reassessment of their lives, the migration to working from home almost certainly played a part.

“Remote working is akin to a long-distance relationship and we know that they tend to fizzle out,” says Robert Mac Giolla Phadraig, chief commercial officer of Sigmar Recruitment.

Not being bound by proximity to their employer has opened up employees to new experiences and new opportunities, he suggests.

“To continue the dating analogy, when offices reopened in September, one half was asking the other half to come home, to give living together another try. Some deepened their commitment but others said, you know what, I like the new set-up, which is why we are seeing more churn now than ever. It was a war for talent, now it’s a battle for retention,” he says.

Shifts

One of the biggest shifts has been the way in which we identify with our work. Work is no longer somewhere we go but something we do.

Working from home has also shifted our sense of what matters. In his own case, working from home has given Mac Giolla Phadraig the opportunity to greet his children when they get in from school. “I value that small change and don’t want to lose it,” he explains.

Having that flexibility is important to more employees than ever. If an organisation can’t accommodate it, demand for personnel is so strong right now that they will go elsewhere.

Work is now less about corporate culture and more about the individual experience of work.

“The fear factor of change is massively reduced too. I can leave my job and still be in the same room,” he adds. There is no return to “normal”.

“I do think what we are seeing now will result in lasting change because a lot of what we are seeing in terms of work-life balance was happening already, it has simply been accelerated through Covid,” says Siobhan O’Shea, client services director at Cpl, one of the country’s biggest recruitment agencies.

Cpl’s Remote Working Report backs this up, with 44 per cent of respondents saying their priorities had shifted towards a better work-life balance and the option to work remotely.

“In many cases, those who worked in sectors most impacted by lockdowns are re-evaluating whether they want to stay in those industries for the long term. They may have unskilled while out of work and are now looking to move on and develop their careers in other directions,” she says.

Values

A Government study suggested that up to 20,000 hospitality sector workers moved to new jobs after coming off the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP), she says.

“For some, the shift to remote working has realigned their thinking about working life and they are assessing their values and commitments through a new lens. The home office has opened eyes to how wasteful commuting to work is. When the excessive costs of living in the city including, housing and childcare are added to the picture, people are questioning how they use their time and if the balance between work and family life is worth the stress involved,” says O’Shea.

At the very top level, however, the great resignation may not be all that great. “At C-suite level, I haven’t seen it,” says Mark O’Donnell, managing partner at Odgers Berndtson in Ireland, an executive search, leadership services and talent management firm. “What we have seen is that people have remained interested in moving to the right position. That has been a feature throughout the pandemic,” he says.

That stands in stark contract to the experience of the financial crisis which began in 2008 and continued to dampen appetites for job change for the next five years. “At the time of the economic crash the music just stopped in terms of moving, no one wanted to move jobs, they didn’t even want to know,” he says.

This time around senior talent has remained both open to, and proactive about, seeking out new opportunities for career enhancement. What’s more, because companies have continued investing and expanding here, opportunities are there for them to pursue.

“What we definitely see is that people continue to be open to change and to developing their career,” he says.