Employees Become Mercenaries Because Companies No Longer Give Them Meaning.
They want flexibility and connection too. A new model must be invented.
Like a small wind of panic in the companies. Every day, employees are resigning. In France, one million of them have quit their permanent job in six months, 20% more than before the epidemic. In the United States, nearly 50 million employees have left their employers in 2021. This movement could last.
37% of “field workers” (physically present to perform their tasks) were planning to escape from their jobs in the short term, according to a survey by the consulting firm BCG conducted in the spring of 2022 in six Western countries.
Selling to the highest bidder
For now, this “great resignation” seems to reflect the upturn in employment. With unemployment at less than 5% in OECD countries, the lowest rate in nearly half a century, workers are quitting for a few handfuls of euros or dollars, especially as inflation is eating away at their purchasing power.
After decades of being stuck, they become mercenaries ready to sell themselves to the highest bidder. The word “mercenary” comes from the Latin “merces” which means “wage” …
As the researchers point out, the resignation rate is high but not unprecedented. In the growth peaks of 2001 and 2008, this rate (which relates resignations to the number of employees) was even higher. Then it dropped by almost half when the activity calmed down. The coming recession could therefore put a stop to the itch.
But this time it could be different.
During the epidemic and the lockdowns, many working people had an unprecedented opportunity to reflect on their career and life choices. And the sudden unleashing of telecommuting, long considered utopian, has proven that different work organizations can be effective - improving well-being in the process.
Moreover, it would be naive to believe that money alone drives the labor market. Employees, especially younger ones, have other reasons to move, even when the labor market relaxes. An economist at the Atlanta Federal Reserve, Julie Hotchkiss, has assessed their preferences. She shows that in the decision to enter the U.S. labor market, younger generations are less responsive to wages than baby boomers.
Catalog of contradictory injunctions
The conclusion of the American researcher is the same as that of many corporate human resources managers: “Employers will likely have to use non-wage incentives as well to persuade workers to take their available positions.” And also to keep those who are already there engaged.
As a result, companies are competing with offers unimaginable five years ago. Club Med is offering its Parisian employees the chance to telecommute from one of its European resorts. The American accommodation rental platform Airbnb no longer imposes a workplace on its employees. Goldman Sachs bank requires its employees to take at least one week of vacation in a row per year. And there are plenty of examples like this.
Employers will have to go beyond that, shake up their organization, and find a new way through a catalog of contradictory injunctions that has grown even larger during the Covid years. Employees want career prospects, while the flattening of hierarchies and low growth are atrophying them. They demand autonomy at a time when firms are engaged in bureaucratization that hinders initiative.
Meaning and fragmentation
Employees also want more flexibility in work hours and locations, while their employers need them at will to satisfy customers anytime, anywhere. They are demanding more fairness as the gap widens between those who can choose where they work and those who cannot.
Even more complicated: employees are asking for richer human relations while working from home. And they demand meaning in their work, while productivity has been manufactured for decades by the fragmentation of activity.
The challenge is such that companies will have to reinvent an “affectio societatis,” a willingness to associate for a common goal. This concept is the prerogative of lawyers. In French law, for example, it is the basis of the company, as defined by articles 1832 and 1833 of the Civil Code.
Company directors and managers must take hold of it, going beyond the shareholders alone. Because to involve employees in the company of the 21st century, it will no longer be enough to pay them. They will have to be more deeply involved in the company, “interested” not only in the money but also in the company's objectives and the means to achieve them. Otherwise, they will become old-fashioned mercenaries, devoid of any form of attachment. To the detriment of both societies, the company-society and the society-union of men.
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