We have repeatedly dealt with what happened in the world of work with the pandemic and the lockdown and today with what we can call, with a rather improper term that is waiting to be replaced with something more cogent, return to normality.
As often happens, the laboratory of the disruptive processes of the status quo of advanced capitalism is located in the United States. Something important is happening there especially on the job offer side. Now those looking for work or wanting to change it intend to do so under certain conditions which he has clearly in his head and which makes him convinced that we are entering a new era in industrial relations.
Many workers, during the pandemic, have become aware of their importance and also of their indispensability. Which objectively tipped the balance of the labor market on their side.
Workers have realized that they can find better ways to make a living: higher wages, stable hours, flexibility. In general they expect more from their employers and they want to get it.
Job refusal?
In the United States, more than 2021 million people voluntarily left their jobs in 40, many in the trade and hospitality sector. Soon terms were coined to describe this phenomenon: the Great Resignation, the Great Renegotiation, the Great Reshuffling, the Great Rethinking.
What has happened, however, is that people have not given up their jobs to devote themselves to gardening. The need to bring home a salary has not disappeared. On the contrary. Public aid during the pandemic ceased already in the autumn of last year and in January 2002 the savings rate in America fell to its lowest level in ten years, 6,4%.
It happened that all over the country, for the workers there were new opportunities to reject what they had once been forced to tolerate: rigid bosses, precarious jobs, poor consideration of their role, abuse from customers. And to make companies work, managers must now start listening to the people who work there.
People have started to realize that they can capitalize on the abundance of job opportunities. Especially the low-wage workers who hung up their aprons and went knocking on companies with the "personal cerasi" sign hanging on the door. Even white-collar workers, supported by the general tightness of the labor market, have begun to present their employers with the conditions to stay.
Rethink workspaces
Tim Ryan, president of PwC US, the world's largest management consulting firm, told al New York Times that, in this new post-pandemic situation, it is the employees who have the power. The company is considering making its entire workforce work remotely, a change that is estimated to cost PwC a $2,4 billion investment.
return employees to offices companies must think about profoundly reviewing not only the approach to human resources, but also putting a hand to the very spaces where the work is carried out.
Emma Goldberg of New York Times has published a note from Disney in which Mickey Mouse's company, recognizing this need, is preparing a plan to facilitate the return of employees to the office by developing two pilot projects: hybrid work and the renewal of the common spaces where it can be done.
What kind of work?
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that many of those who left their jobs last year are actually people who are changing jobs.
Anyone who takes this step is addressing the leisure, hospitality and commerce sectors. In the leisure and hospitality sector, the attrition rate has risen to 6% from 4% at the start of the pandemic; in retail it jumped to 5% from 3,5%.
Among the white-collar workers, the resignations were less numerous. The churn rate in the financial sector, for example, declined at the start of the pandemic and is now below 2%, while in the media and technology sector it has remained almost constant, also below 2%.
With the change of occupation it generally occurs an increase in salary. In the last year, wages in America grew by 10% in the leisure and hospitality sector and by more than 7% in the retail sector. Workers have also agreed to increase working hours, while the percentage of people forced to work part-time has decreased.
The imbalance between the baby boomer group retiring and the smaller group entering the workforce has contributed to tightening labor supply.
A turning point
However, the general attitude has changed: workers will hold employers to account and demand more from them in terms of pay, professional and human resources.
Goldberg reports Ms. Sharon quit her job at a pizza restaurant to take an administrative assistant position at a law firm, a job she held on a temporary basis during college.
For many workers frustration has given way to ambition for a better occupation with career advancements, function changes, stable hours, sick leave, maternity leave, pension plans, security protections, holidays. A TikTok video that went viral showed a sign displayed outside a McDonald's that read "Nobody wants to work anymore" with one next to it annotating "Nobody wants to be exploited anymore".
Even some large Wall Street groups, known for their narrow-mindedness and traditional approach to work, recognized that the old way could no longer hold. Only Goldman Sachs, where workers are called to work five days a week, continues to perseveringly support the need for face-to-face work in the office.
The hybrid solution
Many companies have descended into the misty territory of the hybrid work. BlackRock, for example, asks employees to come to the office for three days, while Citigroup asks for at least two. Wells Fargo and BNY Mellon notified employees that their return to the office would be gradual and partial and would not, under any circumstances, involve a five-day-a-week commute.
And it was. According to data released this week by the Partnership for New York City, only 8 percent of Manhattan office workers return to the office five days a week. In the rest of America the office occupancy rate barely reaches 40%.
A recent survey of over 10.000 offices found that nearly 20% of American employees return one day a week, about 10% two days a week, only 5% three days a week. A percentage still four or five days and more than 50% only occasionally.
Wednesday is the most popular day to go to the office, according to data from occupational safety firm Kastle.
The Impossible Return to the Office (RTO)
The forced recall to the office five days a week would lead to a torrent of resignations such, in some situations, as to paralyze the business or to provoke very strong reactions and resistance.
Apple, for example, which has required its employees to return to the office three days a week, has received an open letter from workers staunchly opposing face-to-face work.
Three thousand Apple employees wrote in no uncertain terms and diplomacy:
Steve said, “It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. Let's hire smart people to tell us what to do." Here we are, we're the smart people you hired, and we tell you what to do: get out of the way, there's no one-size-fits-all solution, let us decide how best to work, and let us do the best work of our lives.
At that point, Apple told its employees that the company would reduce the requirement to work in the office from three days a week to two optional days.
The rebirth of trade unions
Newly established trade unions have embraced the cause of remote working and have reaped enormous benefits in terms of membership. The Nonprofit Professional Employees Union, for example, has grown from 12 organizations and 300 workers in 2018 to about 50 organizations and 1.300 workers this year.
A member organization closed a deal whereby companies would cover travel costs for forced commuters; another got management to agree to provide a written justification to any employee forced to return to the office.
Even if a job is still a job, the morning wake-up call no longer causes that unpleasant pang in the stomach, but can give way to the awareness that there will be more respect and appreciation in the workplace.
Sources:
Emma Goldberg, All of Those Quitters? They're at Work, The New York Times, 13 May 2022
Emma Goldberg, The Rules for Hybrid Work Were Always Made Up, The New York Times, 22 May 2022
Colby Smith and Caitlin Gilbert, America's red-hot labor market, The Financial TiMonth, May 25, 2022
