4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in April
Most of those resignations in April were recorded in the private sector (4.18 million).
Among industries, trade, transportation, and utilities (979,000) recorded the biggest loss, followed by professional and business services (809,000) and accommodation and food services (797,000).
More than 50 million Americans quit their job over the past year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Although the Great Resignation has been a massive hurdle for employers to overcome, Marc Detampel argues it’s also a great opportunity to reset your employee value proposition. Detampel is the managing director of Felix Global, a Chicago-based firm that offers full-service recruitment, leadership development, career transition and executive search expertise to top employers worldwide.
“Make sure that your employee value proposition, which includes your company culture and how you support work/life balance, is well articulated,” Detampel told HRD. “How people are expected to be working and how they're going to stay connected with their colleagues and leaders has never been more important.”
The talent war is intense – and childcare benefits are critical
One in five children, either currently or at some point during their life, have had a seriously debilitating mental illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
However, this need is not always met: less than 30% of working parents say their company offers child care benefits that meet their needs, found the survey of 2,023 parents with children aged 12 and younger, conducted from Jan. 14 to 22, 2022.
Currently, 81% of working parents say a company’s childcare benefits are important to the job consideration process. Sixty percent of them would stay in their current jobs if they had subsidized child care and another 60% would stay if given on-demand child care. However, only 22% and 25% of workers, respectively, currently have access to these benefits.
A majority of working parents have or have considered scaling back their hours at work (74%), taking on less demanding roles (71%) and pursuing freelance jobs (69%) to be more available for their children. This comes at a time when millions of workers are quitting their jobs and employers are having a hard time finding the workers that they need.
“This presents a major opportunity for employers who are focused on attracting and retaining talent, especially in a competitive job market like the one we’re in today,” said Figurski. “Employer-sponsored childcare benefits are one of the most impactful benefits to offer employees moving forward.”
Supply chains in the age of scarcity
In recent months, several respected (or at least large) media outlets have started calling the post-pandemic, Ukraine conflict era the Age of Scarcity. Indeed, from the perspective of supply chain managers the disruption to sources of supply will characterize supply chain re-alignments for the next several years. The current era demonstrates how quickly trade relationships can unravel.
For supply chain managers, this translates to supply disruptions driven by factors that are both difficult to predict and difficult to manage. A brief perusal of news headlines reveals a wide-ranging list of culprits: the pandemic, international relations, politics, technological disruptions, war, climate change, labor relations and raw material hoarding. There’s also the time lag for building up new infrastructure to meet the exploding demand of a global middle class.
All these factors drive an era of inflation accompanied by reduced choices for global consumers. Coming from an era when Westerners have had a huge variety of goods competing for their attention to an era of both reduced quantity and variety will be a shock as much for supply chain managers as for consumers.
Few things erode value and profits like inflation. Inflationary periods are particularly dangerous for companies because so many managers and leaders want to attack the price increases directly. They try to draw a line in the sand on cost increases with their suppliers, which is understandable on the one hand yet can drive suppliers to cut corners or reduce service levels.
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When Shifting Strategy, Don’t Lose Sight of Your Long-Term Vision
When introducing new strategies in response to the ever-shifting business landscape, executives must take care to align them with the larger picture of where their organization is heading — the company’s “vision.” That’s because when vision and strategy are at odds, employees, shareholders, and customers may lose confidence. To achieve this alignment, executives need to evaluate whether proposed short-term strategic shifts are consistent with the longer-term vision and resist the pressure to those strategies that run counter to it.
Given the time and effort it takes to develop and execute new strategies, it’s best not to introduce them too often. But there are instances when short-term strategic shifts are unavoidable — especially in today’s ever-changing business context. Take, for example, the need to respond to calls for social change or demands from investors to turn around poor financial results.
When responding to these kinds of pressures, executives must take care to align the strategic shifts they introduce with the larger picture of where their organization is heading and what it aspires to accomplish in the future — the company’s “vision.” After all, strategy — overarching decisions about priorities and resource allocations — should be all about translating that vision into action. When vision and strategy are at odds, employees, shareholders, and customers may lose confidence that management has a coherent and consistent plan for moving the company forward.
Will geographic pay policies help reduce turnover?
For in-office or hybrid employees, the geographic pay locations are most often determined by their nearest work location (45%) or reporting location (31%). Meanwhile, over half of full-time remote workers are tied to location of residence, says WorldatWork.
Is dependency beneficial?
But is eliminating base pay dependency on location a wise move? Only 7% of organizations report geographic pay policies as ineffective for reducing turnover, according to the survey of 858 U.S. employers and 312 full-time business professionals.
And 73% of employees expect their pay to differ based on a geographic location.
Since 2020, about 2.4% of Americans, or 4.9 million people, say they’ve moved because of remote work. And almost 1 in 10 Americans plan to move to work remotely, report Bloomberg, citing studies from Upwork.
Almost three-quarters (72%) of HR leaders and 61% of employees say that the stress resulting from cost-of-living increases is negatively impacting employees’ work. Now, 72% of senior executives plan to leave their employer within the next two years, according to another study.
Is Your Hiring Process Costing You Talent?
As the Great Resignation persists, job seekers are looking for better wages, better benefits, and better remote work options. They’re also losing patience with cumbersome hiring processes. To make sure your hiring process is a positive experience for candidates, the author suggests asking yourself these four questions: 1) Is your time-to-decision fast enough? 2) Do you share information on company culture? 3) How is your correspondence? and 4) Are you providing value up front?
More than 20 million Americans quit their jobs in the latter half of 2021, leaving many companies struggling to find talent to refill their ranks. With 11.3 million job openings, which is about 5 million more than unemployed workers as of March 2022, job seekers certainly have the upper hand — and they’re demanding more from future employers.
Job seekers aren’t only looking for higher pay and better workplace benefits. They’ve also lost patience with ever-cumbersome hiring processes. They know that they are in demand, and they want to see that employers recognize their value.
Create a hiring process that is a positive experience for candidates to foster a good relationship from the start. By asking yourself the following four questions, you can make sure your hiring experience isn’t causing you to lose future talent.
ISM report notes slight May manufacturing gains
Manufacturing output, for the month of May, eked out a slight gain over April, while remaining in growth mode, according to the most recent edition of the Manufacturing Report on Business, which was issued today by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM).
The report’s key metric, the PMI, came in at 56.1 (a reading of 50 or higher indicates growth), for a 0.7% increase over March’s 55.4 reading, marking the 24th consecutive month of growth, at a faster rate, as well as the 24th consecutive month of overall economic growth.
May’s PMI reading is 2.7% below the 58.8 average over the last 12 months, with June 2021’s 60.9 and April’s 55.4 marking the respective high and low readings for that period. What’s more, March and April’s PMI readings represent the two lowest monthly PMI readings since September 2020’s 55.4.
ISM reported that 15 manufacturing sectors reported growth in May, including: Apparel, Leather & Allied Products; Printing & Related Support Activities; Machinery; Nonmetallic Mineral Products; Computer & Electronic Products; Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products; Transportation Equipment; Paper Products; Petroleum & Coal Products; Plastics & Rubber Products; Fabricated Metal Products; Chemical Products; Miscellaneous Manufacturing; Primary Metals; and Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components. Each of the six largest manufacturing sectors— Machinery; Computer & Electronic Products; Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products; Transportation Equipment; Petroleum & Coal Products; and Chemical Products—saw moderate to strong May gains, added ISM. The lone industry seeing a decline was Furniture & Related Products.
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The Link Between Remote Work and Employee Happiness
The ability to work remotely is linked to an increase in employee happiness of up to 20%, according to recent research from Tracking Happiness.
The report was based on data from a survey conducted in April 2022 among 12,455 respondents from around the world.
People who come into the office 100% of the time give their work happiness a score of 5.9, on average, on a 1 (unhappy) to 10 (happy) scale. In contrast, people who spend 100% of their time working remotely give their work happiness a score of 7.04, on average.
People who have had their ability to work remotely reduced the most since the peak of the pandemic tend to report the lowest work happiness scores.
The researchers found the happiness of Millennials tends to increase the most vs. other generations as a result of working remotely.
The researchers found employee happiness tends to decrease significantly if commute times go beyond 60 minutes.
About the research: The report was based on data from a survey conducted in April 2022 among 12,455 respondents from around the world.
PwC on Getting Serious About the Realities of Climate Risk
When viewed collectively, the combination of stakeholder pressures and the sheer urgency of the climate challenge might seem to suggest an unambiguous way forward for companies. But political and institutional realities are simultaneously creating crosscurrents and placing CEOs in the middle of bigger socioeconomic debates.
Striving for a “just transition”
Carbon pricing is a useful case in point. Research conducted by the World Economic Forum and PwC found that an international carbon price floor could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 12% over business-as-usual projections, and at a cost of less than 1% of global GDP (much, if not all, of which would be offset over the longer term by reducing the economic losses caused by global warming).
Although a 1% contraction in GDP is relatively small, lower-income countries that rely on coal could be disproportionately hit. Only by redistributing the revenues as a “carbon dividend” could these adverse effects be avoided.
How should a CEO’s business decisions reflect the uncertainties around tensions such as these, and balance the needs of people today against the needs of future generations? Business leaders will increasingly be called to answer uncomfortable questions — and shareholders, customers and employees will be listening closely.
Bringing investors along
Another challenge is the fact that investors and other stakeholders may be more interested in the short term than the long run. Better ESG performance can drive superior returns, but that takes time. And even though the financial system will realign around a low-carbon world, it won’t happen overnight.
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Number of remote workers declined in late 2021
According to the report, most employees who worked from home preferred doing so and attributed their preference to work-life balance and less time commuting. They were also more likely to look for a new job if they are required to return to their offices, according to the report.
These findings reflect the growing dislike of remote work employees across the world over the notion of returning to offices - a growing trend among organisations now that vaccinations are widespread and the pandemic's effects on society are showing signs of decline.
In a similar study last year from Joblist, 51.5% of employees admitted that they left their organisations or are considering on doing so because they refuse to return to offices.
A study from Ipsos late last year also revealed that 40% of their respondents would consider looking for another job if their managers want them back at the office full-time.
Majority of the respondents said they want their employers to be more flexible in implementing return-to-office schemes, and according to analysts, businesses who do not recognise the emerging importance of flexibility would lose talent.