Last month, I read an article at the Tech Republic news site that said “Most employees plan to quit this year.” It went on to offer guidance under the heading of “What HR Leaders Need to Know.”
The article quoted statistics, based on a survey that struck me as having an anemic sample size, including:
A global survey of 750 professionals by HR software company Leapsome found that 82% of full-time employees plan to change jobs in the next 12 months, with nearly half (46%) planning to do so within the next six months. Of those employees planning to quit, 77% cited their company’s performance review process as a major contributing factor, with compensation and benefits (76%) and work-life balance (74%) also ranking highly.
Tech Republic
Running the risk of having this labeled an “OK Boomer” post, let me push my grizzled old self to the keyboard and say: “Maybe 80% of employees don’t know how good they have it.” (Sorry, that’s not my one-liner, I’m only 165 words into this).
Bear with me while I step into the forbidden land of math.
Let’s assume that the 20% of employees who aren’t changing jobs have good jobs, make enough money or feel they have work and life teetering near a balance point. That means the other 80% are going to go from what they consider a bad job to what someone else considers to be a bad job.
That’s probably always been the case. The job I had for the final 31 years of my career began in a similar kind of switch. I was a consultant with an ongoing engagement at a small insurance company, supporting their networking and systems development operations (computer stuff). I worked alongside their Director of Information Services for almost two years. The guy was unhappy with his job, and, as was often the case, his boss bringing in a consultant didn’t make him feel any better. I tried to make the best of it.
My regular working hours were 8:30 to 5:30. The insurance company had flex-time and the IT Director worked 7:30 to 3:30. I had to be at his office at 7:30 (accommodate the client). We would work all day, then he would go home but I had to go back to my office.
One day, having had enough of the insurance company’s “poor treatment,” “lack of respect,” “ridiculous demands on his time,” he resigned. I was asked to help the company write a job description for his replacement. I turned it in along with an application.
A week later, I was attending (still as a consultant) New Employee Orientation. There was a representative from each department in the room. At some point, they explained their department’s role in the operation. The man I was replacing, working out his two-weeks’ notice, talked about Information Services. The meeting was being run by the Vice President of Engineering. He was introducing all the new hires as well as the speakers. When he got to me, he referred to the IT guy – let’s call him Bob. He laughed as he said.
“Most of my colleagues know Dan. He’s been here for almost two years as a consultant. He’s replacing Bob, who is leaving to begin a consulting career. That means one of them is making a mistake.”
I don’t know about Bob but, as I said, I stayed for 31 years. During that time, I had my share of bad days, but having previously worked for three companies and visited 50-100 others as a consultant, I never thought my particular misery was any worse than what I’d find somewhere else.
This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner, and would like to join in on the fun, you can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.
All five of my current books are now available in audio book form thanks to Amazon KDP’s Virtual Voice process. The voice is AI generated, but I can honestly say, it’s pretty darn good. The audio books are reasonably priced (all below $7 US) and, if you already own the Kindle version and want to add an audio version, you can do that for $1.99. There is a five-minute sample on the book page for each book. If you’re interested, click on any of the Dreamer’s Alliance book links below the image or on the link below for my latest book.
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