I think I have commented on my love of “buzzwords” enough – that we can just jump into the “great resignation”/reshuffle/reprioritization/recognition/whatever …
SO a significant number of people are choosing NOT to go back to jobs they obviously found “unsatisfying.” Trying to come up with a single reason “why” is pointless – because there (probably) is no SINGLE reason.
Sure, if you sell management seminars to “upper management” then packaging some buzzword tripe that reinforces what upper management has already been doing will get you some paychecks. Then the reality is that it is buzzword trip seminars targeted at “upper management” that created the environment for the “great whatever” to transpire.
To be honest the “gig economy” has been coming for awhile. If you look at the history of humanity the aberration is the “hourly wage”/weekly schedule NOT the “gig economy.”
For MOST of human existence the major form of “employment” was subsistence farming. The industrial revolution moved folks off of farms into factories – and also created “management” as a job category.
Henry Ford and the assembly line is always a great example of how UNPOPULAR “factory work” tends to be with “sentient beings.”
Higher wages cut down on turnover and the “$5 day” may have kickstarted the “middle class” – at the cost of “job satisfaction” and “purpose.”
part-time good/part-time bad
Of course if you are trying to build a company on “gig workers” or think that it is possible to grow/build a culture with only “part-time” employees – you are chasing an illusion.
There was a study done way back when – it was probably the 1980’s – I remember reading the book in the 1990’s that summarized the “secret management miracle technique” that they “discovered.”
I’m sure some actual research would find the study – but since I ain’t doin’ any real research today – the short form: “major university” did a study of “global companies” and “discovered” that the employees that were emotionally involved in their work were MUCH more productive than the employees that were NOT emotionally involved in their work.
yup, hopefully that is blindingly obvious. The (wrong) takeaway is that “pay” isn’t a major motivation to increase performance. Salary/pay/total compensation is like oxygen – if you have plenty then getting “more” is not a high priority, but if you don’t have enough, it is EXTREMELY important.
The same with “job security” – you either have it or you don’t – but threatening employees job security will just motivate employees to find a better company to work with.
The beatings will continue until moral improves
Remember the key to “employee productivity” is “emotional engagement.” SO you could have highly engaged part-time employees just like you can have “disengaged” full-time employees.
Communication
How do you build “engagement?” Well, you gotta communicate in some form.
The WORST thing “management” can do is “no communication” – this is the old “mushroom treatment”, “keep ’em in the dark and feed them excrement.” Of course if YOU hate your job and want to make sure that everyone reporting to you hates THEIR job – then the “mushroom treatment” is the tool for the job.
If you fancy yourself a “leader” and are focused on things like “growth” and “long term success” – then regular communication is required.
20/70/10
One of Jack Welch’s tactics when he was running G.E. meshes neatly with the “employee engagement” theory.
No, I don’t think Mr Welch was heavily influenced by the study in question. Mr Welch was influenced by years of ACTUAL employee performance data.
The percentages the “engagement theory” folks came up with don’t really matter – maybe it was the top 10% of employees were much more engaged than the other 90% AND that top 10% was also more productive than the entire other 90%.
If memory serves the bottom 90% are also two distinct groups – maybe it was 70% “not emotionally engaged” (i.e. “emotionally neutral” – but still of some value to the organization) and the bottom 20% were “actively disengaged” (i.e. “hostile” – these folks were actively working against the organization)
SO Mr Welch recognized that the top 20% of G.E. employees were the “high performers” – i.e. these are the folks getting big raises and promotions. The 70% were still good workers and had the potential to become top 20%-ers – so they received smaller raises and training, then the bottom 10% were “eased out” of the organization.
Hidden in plain site with the 20/70/10 concept is that the organization is tracking employee performance and giving regular feedback. Most companies seem to find ways to avoid giving regular “employee feedback” – for any number of convenient reasons.
Obviously when Jack Welch was running G.E. they didn’t have a labor shortage or any issues with hiring new employees. If you are a smaller company then “easing out” the bottom 10% probably isn’t practical – but keeping someone around that is actively hostile to “company goals” is always a bad idea. How you deal with that problem employee as a small company will obviously be different than how a “large multinational conglomerate” deals with the problem (and if that “problem employee” is also a family member – well, that is another issue).
ownership/recognition
“Emotional engagement” is just another way of saying “ownership” – i.e. do employees feel a sense of responsibility/obligation for the performance of the company? are employees “invested” in the goals/purpose of the organization? if they are “obligated” and “invested” then they are “engaged.”
Of course that sense of engagement can be destroyed by mistreating employees – sentient beings are NOT going to willfully work for an organization that treats them like disposable cogs in a machine for a sustained period of time.
No, that doesn’t mean you coddle employees – it means you communicate honestly with them. No, you are not fooling anyone with the “mushroom treatment” – if you aren’t communicating people will still talk, and most likely that “internal gossip” will be negative.
How you choose to reward employees is part of company culture – some folks are motivated by “employee of the X” type awards, some aren’t (my opinion: unless they come with a cash bonus – keep your useless award).
IF you want employees to act like owners – you might want to consider actually making them owners. btw: The reason “CEO” compensation has outstripped “regular employee” compensation is simply because CEO’s tend to get stock options.
Personally the CEO making a LOT more than “generic employee” doesn’t bother me in the least.
IF the CEO is acting in the best interest of the organization, providing real leadership, and a positive company culture – then it (probably) isn’t possible to pay them “too much.”
HOWEVER – if the CEO is using the organization as their personal piggybank, and creating a negative company culture – then it (probably) isn’t possible to dismiss them “too soon.”
Company culture
Dan Ariely has written some books on “behavioral economics” (“Predictably Irrational” is the one I read a few years ago).
Mr Ariely comes to mind because the conclusion of one of his experiments was that “social obligations” tended to produce higher returns than “financial compensation” – I think he had people do a monotonous task and the ones that felt a “social obligation” did the task longer than the ones that were compensated/paid.
Connecting the dots = employees that are “engaged” have a sense of “ownership” that includes a “social obligation” beyond monetary compensation. (but remember “total compensation” is like oxygen …)
I’m sure we could easily find (a large number of) people that “work” harder as “volunteers” for non-profit organizations than they do for their “paycheck job” – e.g. in the former they are “engaged” in the latter they aren’t.
Of course “creation” is always harder than “destruction” – i.e. “creating a positive company culture” requires concerted effort – if it was easy then you wouldn’t see (functionally) the same management books written/released every year …