The Great Resignation: Are we ready for it?

Patrick in the US recently quit his job and decided to do something new so that he can control his lifestyle. Seeing the resignation letter, the boss asked the reason for the resignation. In reply, he categorically said that he likes to take control of his own life instead of being a slave to the company.

When asked, what he plans to do? He said he would open a news webpage that will only provide positive news. Anyone who would log in to the webpage wouldn't find any news! Why? Because "no news is good news".

Patrick is just one of the profiles of people who are going for mass resignation post-Covid-19 and spoiled by the stimulus from the government. The Great Resignation is a phenomenon that describes record numbers of people leaving their jobs after the pandemic ends which many experts could not anticipate like the supply chain fiasco.

The economy is bigger than the pre-Covid period but employment is down by 5 million US workers. The trend is similar in Europe, Australia and other developed countries. Quitting rates are particularly high among low-paying industries.

As per the US Bureau of Statistics, the hardest-hit industries (in order of higher number of resignations) include leisure and hospitality; trade, transportation and utilities; professional and business services; education and health; manufacturing; and construction.

Interestingly, there is a direct relationship between growth and the number of resignations. According to a recent survey carried out by Fortune in collaboration with Deloitte, 73 per cent of the CEOs say that labour or skills shortage is the biggest external impediment to disrupt their business in 2022. Therefore, attracting, recruiting and retaining talents would be the biggest challenge for them in the post-Covid scenario. Good news for our HR friends!

Because of the above, a great shift from employer-dominant market to employee-dominant market is taking place. The power is shifting to employees which many of us have not seen during our lifetime. The trend may have been driven by "pent-up resignations" during the pandemic, generous government stimulus, and increased inflation, which reduced the buying power of employees and forced them to look for increment. Many retained people are burned out after working too hard for a long period, realising the importance of balancing family life.

In light of the challenges, the good companies have already taken certain steps to mitigate the impact like increased flexibility (balancing work from home and work from the office); more emphasis on well-being, mental health and increased pay; attention to culture; and ring-fencing. Some of the countries are even considering three to four days' work week instead of five to six days.

On the employee front, they are preferring part-time jobs over full-time, freelancing, investment in the stock market (a maximum number of new investors joined the market), and start-ups etc.

When I spoke to several senior executives of the country, many shrugged this off as not being relevant to the Bangladesh market. While I mostly agree with them, I can't help but stress the need to be aware of this growing global trend so that our executives are well prepared if such challenges hit us in a few years' time. Often the developed country syndrome reaches emerging markets like Bangladesh after a decent time gap.

It's a great opportunity for our young talents and senior executives to observe and learn from the crisis of others. Some of the clear take-outs that can also apply to the Bangladesh market include flexible work culture, managing burnout of good employees and managing mid-level attrition. Why rule out the possibility of the developed countries targeting the talent pool of Bangladesh?

Great Resignation may not be as relevant to Bangladesh as perceived by some. Hence, the question of readiness does not come from a mindset perspective.

In the current world of a constantly changing environment driven by innovation and digitalisation, we should not be comfortable assuming that the developed market phenomena are not going to impact us. Rather, we ought to understand what elements of the great resignation is similar to our market culture so as to better manage the risk of losing valuable resources at the cost of business growth and the risk of losing local talents to the developed market who are in crisis.

The author is a telecom and management expert.