Wild World of Work in 2023?

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What It’s About: The workplace is just friggin’ weird right now.

People are still quitting their jobs or refusing to return to work in record numbers. According to a study from Pew Research Center, low pay (63 percent), no opportunities for advancement (63 percent) and feeling disrespected at work (57 percent) were the top reasons for U.S. employees leaving their jobs in 2022. Additionally, 45 percent of employees who quit their jobs in 2021 cited lack of flexibility in the workplace as a major contributing factor. Remote work is a hot issue. The interesting thing is how people are simply ignoring employer mandates to return to the office.

In parallel, there is a rash of tech layoffs. Up until recently, these tech companies could not fill vacancies and were “stealing” from each other. Today, thousands of tech workers, including a disproportionate amount on foreign work visas, are out of work. See this and the accompanying chart.

On the other hand, many organizations are still having a hard time getting people to work. Service companies seem to lead the pack (hospitality/food and beverage/ agriculture/ health care, transportation, etc.) And Barclays Bank investment research group, confirms that employee retention remains the hottest 2023 work issue.

So What?: Leadership is bouncing between the very different models of Chief Twit, like Elon Musk, and Chief Happiness Champ, like Zoom’s Eric Yuan. I’m betting on the Eric Yuan’s. Sure, Musk is an alien genius, but his style is not sustainable. Zoom is far from perfect but they’re doing a lot of things right regarding being people first.

Now What?: I’m suspicious that tech companies are going through artificial, and socially constructed layoffs. Do not expect loyalty from these companies. It’s a commercial and transaction trade off between you and them.

However, there are companies and leaders that take employee loyalty seriously .They see people as the source versus a line item resource. They are proud of their people first track record, and have the data to prove it. Please check out this Fortune article to get a sense for what it means taking people first seriously.

Please do not expect reciprocal loyalty from CEOs with little commitment to putting people first. Their priority commitment is to the shareholder and not you. That is a wrongheaded, short term view of the world and the relationship with employees is primarily impersonal. Overall, I believe it’s not in the long term interest of the organization.

I’m betting on the people first leaders. They want high value and profit too. They just deeply believe people are the source of their success.

Think Big, Start Small, Act Now,

- Lorne

One Millennial View: As an observer, there just seems to be a lot of excuses these days. As of Nov. 21, Musk reported that Twitter added 1.6 million users that week, an all time high, which suggests the layoffs didn’t negatively affect the platform. However, do people care? When you dedicate hours and years of your life to an occupation, you should have a deep care for what you’re doing. Ideally, your job should not be easy to obtain, and it should not be easy to quit. It took education, competition, skill, effort, and was earned. If you feel otherwise and don’t feel like sustaining or protecting it, that’s problem number one. While we wish leaders to be people first, we as people, have to also give a darn.

- Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis.

Wild World of Work in 2023?

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