In the era where proficient people are unable to find a job, have you seen a situation where people are fleeing their stable careers? Your obvious answer will be "No". But now let me tell you about such a phenomenon which is also known as "The Great Resignation 2021" in which employees voluntarily resign from their jobs. It was first started in the USA in April 2021 and to date, 19 million US workers and counting quit their job till 2022.
According to statistics, in October 2021 nearly 3% of the USA workforce resigned from their work. A recent survey administered by Microsoft portrays that 41% of employees across the globe are looking to quit their job. In Germany, one-third of the companies are confronting problems due to the non-availability of labor, over 4lakh posts are vacated. Nearly 14million exited the labor market in OECD countries. Not only the workers were switching their jobs, but are pursuing different careers.
In September 2021, a study reported by Amazon India showed that about 51% of job-seeking adults were gazing for vacancies in enterprises where they had no experience. About 68% were peeking to switch industries.
Economists exhort that strong safety nets and unemployment allowances provided by most governments to the people who lost their jobs in this pandemic as a reason for attrition. The mismatch of demand and supply was also a major reason for this exodus. The figure for unemployed people in August 2021 was 7.4 million whereas in the same month 10.4 million jobs were made available in the US.
If we try to understand the psychological aspect of the population then because of the pandemic the outlook of people towards life had changed a lot, people have been now used to healthy work-life balance. For years we as people lived a monotonous life, their life schedule revolved around the same hectic schedule. People planned their week based on their work calendar when they will meet a person, or even go for a movie.
We skipped vacations or even dine out with our family for work, we prioritized work meetings over family and ourselves. The pandemic has changed all of this it held up the mirror it forced people to see the unpredictability of life to reflect on what matters to them. Many ascertain that it does not work they want to continue, people began re-imagining their lives many locked up their city homes and moved to the suburbs they realized they don't want to wait until retirement for greener pastures many quit full-time jobs and began freelancing. Millions realize life is too short to stick it out in the wrong career many turn their hobbies into full-time jobs.
India tech corporations are also enduring high attrition due to a mismatch in demand and supply of software engineers. Big tech companies like Infosys, Wipro, and TCS are striving to fill their posts even after India got a humungous tech pool.
The main reason for tech attrition in India is startup growth and the adoption of e-business by the MNCs during the pandemic. In 2020 only 8 startups swiveled into unicorns whereas, in 2021, 43 startups reach this valuation. The growth in the start-up ecosystem gives birth to the requirements of tech employees for its growth.
The second reason for this attrition is the pandemic itself, because of which corporations have to shift their mode of operation from physical to online for their survival. This resulted in huge outsourcing of services to both foreign and domestic companies. During the pandemic, IT companies identified the need of delivering vital services to the market which changed the
tables for them. Organizations expedited digital adoption and shifted to e-commerce mode to self-sustain themselves creating a hefty demand for technical assistance. According to some reports, the Covid19 fast-tracked the digital upheaval and its velocity by an average of 6 years. The adoption of contemporary technology has revamped the company structure and the 2020 Global Managed Services Report by NTT suggests that 45℅ global corporations are examining outsourcing more work in the coming months.
High attrition and resignation are visible from the end of employers, and corporates have realized the fact that they can't stifle the employees any longer. The corporate history explains it very adequately, employees were impelled to work 10-12 hours a day and we're not allowed sufficient paid leaves and then too paid with sheer paychecks with which one can hardly sustain his life. The availability of more jobs can curb stomp the ruthlessness of the corporates and give employees the freedom to swap their jobs. This can be seen as a worker's revolution. With the rising resignation rates, the companies are also disquiet.
To subsist the emerging crisis they are coming up with exotic new schemes to entice new workers and dissuade their current employees from leaving the organization. Companies are providing better paychecks and flexible hours of working to their employees. Employers are trying to build a sustainable work environment by taking feedback from their coworkers and encompassing changes.
Slice, a credit card company is providing 3-day work to their several employees. Bharat Pe, a fin-tech company is providing BMW bikes to their tech employees. Tech giants are hiring employees at a massive scale to meet their requirements. During the last 9months, India's top IT companies have hired 1.7lakh employees and planning to recruit at this pace for the next quarter to meet their requirements.
Though with too many positives there also comes a gloomy side of it. As employees are now being a part of this herd mentality. People are just ignoring the fact and couldn't evaluate their satisfaction with their job as if now they got into the myth that resignation means a hike in salaries. As if now it looks like workers are making corporates accept their undue demands but if corporates form an alliance to curb this thing, it would be a disaster. All people couldn't be away from their job for months or don't have plenty of money to survive for months or start their businesses.
It is difficult for employees to switch jobs and adopt the new culture of an organization. Employers find it difficult to retrain new employees from scratch, which involves the unnecessary allocation of time and money, and when we see this at a global level and not a viewpoint of a single company, then we see the actual flaw in this system. If things continue in this manner country will witness a downfall in GDP.
Swapping of jobs and companies can result in a quick increment in pay scale but not the holistic development of one. Analyzing big players of companies like Google, and Microsoft they were also the ones who were loyal to the company and came to be in this position from a basic entry-level position. At the end of the day, it's quite skeptical to should a person leave his/her job or not, this question ain't got any specific answer. As this kind of phenomenon will continue to stay in the coming future one should adopt something that he/she rejoices to do and also got a good monetary value with it.
Authored by Harsh Mittal