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The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

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Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#21

Post by MattGaiser »

lostcolony wrote: post #17
MattGaiser wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if it were accurate, wouldn't companies spend more effort on retention and engagement over hiring? This is a data point that I have seen claimed for years and years and yet companies don't act on it. Companies are either making a near universal error that has been well publicized at this point or the number is wrong and hiring is nowhere near that expensive. Amazon is a very data driven company. But they have no…

It's an average, not a universal. Confronted with the data, you COULD choose to increase engagement, or look to reduce cost of churn. Amazon delays equity a lot, so it may look financially sensible to churn through people. Beyond that though, companies make plenty of universal errors. Can you think of any other errors the -average- company makes, that may cost them money?

I can think of plenty of companies that do plenty of things wrong, or at least seem to be wrong. I can't think of many things virtually all of them do wrong, especially ones that are so well publicized and are at the organizational level rather than the individual team level.

I can see equity being a reason for Amazon, but it is hardly just equity granting companies that are this way.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#22

Post by nopcode »

I resigned during the pandemic.

The lockdown stripped my job to the essentials: No colleagues, no coffee corner, no nice fancy office, no treats (lunches, dinners, drinks), brainstorms, etc. I was left with something that was boring me to death. I felt perfectly happy in that job for 5 years before covid.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#23

Post by MattGaiser »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #14
MattGaiser wrote: post #6

> $9,000 a year to keep each disengaged worker and between $25,000 and $100,000 to replace them. Given how job tenure has plummeted over the years, I have a hard time believing this is accurate. Does anyone know a place where retention efforts come anywhere close to hiring efforts?

For employers it's game theory. If employees are commodities then it's better to keep the pay structure and have X amount of attrition than to pay everyone more to keep attrition low.

But if employees are commodities and companies can get away with thinking that way, that number is either inaccurate or everyone is getting it wrong.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#24

Post by srswtf123 »

I can’t imagine why people might be discontent…

All that’s really being asked of us is to give up all our productive years in service to people with no ethics, to make them richer. People who are more than happy to use you up and toss your corpse on the pile when you die. Is that really too much?

How dare you think you deserve something for your toils. Your masters have worked you incredibly hard — harder than you thought possible! Why should you get the credit when their wrist is sore from cracking the whip? You didn’t even think yourself capable, and look what you can do with proper motivation!

Now return to work, or you might find yourself without healthcare in a pandemic.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#25

Post by wayoutthere »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #4

Pretty obviously can't have a real great resignation without significant wage increases, which would most likely increase inflation (or more accurately, be symptomatic of latent inflation that hadn't yet reached prices).

Which is exactly what’s happening. Our starting offers are up 15% over pre-pandemic and we’re still having trouble closing the candidates we want.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#26

Post by wolverine876 »

mumblemumble wrote: post #10

46% -> 48% That's not exactly a huge surge. Perhaps we're not seeing a big shift in worker attitudes, so much as we're seeing a big shift in what people are talking about right now.

When you are dealing with over a 100 million people (as a very conservative estimate of the US working population), that's a meaningful shift.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#27

Post by lostcolony »

MattGaiser wrote: post #21
lostcolony wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an average, not a universal. Confronted with the data, you COULD choose to increase engagement, or look to reduce cost of churn. Amazon delays equity a lot, so it may look financially sensible to churn through people. Beyond that though, companies make plenty of universal errors. Can you think of any other errors the -average- company makes, that may cost them money?

I can think of plenty of companies that do plenty of things wrong, or at least seem to be wrong. I can't think of many things virtually all of them do wrong, especially ones that are so well publicized and are at the organizational level rather than the individual team level. I can see equity being a reason for Amazon, but it is hardly just equity granting companies that are this way.

You call it out yourself; it may not even be "the company" is seeing much change in retention, but different parts of the org are. Others have solid retention.

But retention also isn't an easy metric to solve for. It's not "just do X and watch that number improve". The closest thing companies do is throw money at people, but that only works if you're so far higher than the rest of the market that people are looking at a massive paycut if they go somewhere else, and that still is only one data point affecting those averages. Certainly, no company that I left could have kept me by throwing $9k more at me; I made more than that with every company change I made, let alone what actually caused me to start looking in the first place.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#28

Post by wayoutthere »

iammisc wrote: post #19
rektide wrote: post #2

i find myself quite sympathetic to this perspective. to revitalize, some serious change is needed, that opens a wide number of people a sense of agency & possibility & opportunity. with the titanization of industry, there's less & less compelling ways to employ oneself, & re-enabling upstarts & small scale competitors (who are not simply bought out & plucked up as soon as they show promise). it is the difference betw…

Why are you being downvoted? You're absolutely right. There's fewer and fewer ways to be self-employed these days. Even traditional avenues of wealth creation (real estate rentals, for example) have been closed to everyone except those with the most capital. Whereas you used to commonly see apartments rented by some older widow who had acquired a few properties or inherited them. Today, more and more seem to be owned…

HN is very much against the whole anti-work movement and still likes to push a bootstraps narrative as a collective. It makes sense when you think of what Y Combinator is and the kinds of people it attracts.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#29

Post by wolverine876 »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #4

Pretty obviously can't have a real great resignation without significant wage increases, which would most likely increase inflation (or more accurately, be symptomatic of latent inflation that hadn't yet reached prices).

> significant wage increases, which would most likely increase inflation

Or it could decrease corporate profits, as more goes to their workers and less to their managers and shareholders.

Hasn't it been at an historical extreme the other way? If so, the adjustment should be expected and shouldn't be inflationary.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#30

Post by wolverine876 »

wayoutthere wrote: post #28
iammisc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you being downvoted? You're absolutely right. There's fewer and fewer ways to be self-employed these days. Even traditional avenues of wealth creation (real estate rentals, for example) have been closed to everyone except those with the most capital. Whereas you used to commonly see apartments rented by some older widow who had acquired a few properties or inherited them. Today, more and more seem to be owned…

HN is very much against the whole anti-work movement and still likes to push a bootstraps narrative as a collective. It makes sense when you think of what Y Combinator is and the kinds of people it attracts.

What are you suggesting as an alternative? Less economic opportunity?
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