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Who Is Driving the Great Resignation?

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Re: Who Is Driving the Great Resignation?

#21

Post by Guest42 »

daxfohl wrote: post #16
willvarfar wrote: post #8

My own personal data point is that, with COVID, some tech companies are embracing remote work and suddenly I can enter a much wider and higher paid job market without having to relocate. Companies that aim to get butts back in the office are going to have a huge brain drain.

The opposite effect could be in play here too: remote employees feel less connected to their team and are more willing to quit.

Anecdotally, I've seen 4 people leave for career advancement versus 1 that left due to wanting to be in the office.

Re: Who Is Driving the Great Resignation?

#22

Post by cbhl »

You know what else mid-career employees tend to have?

Children.

Constantly changing return dates is stressful for parents; you can't buy/build/sell a house that fast. Especially if kids have now gotten to run around in the burbs in a nice detached house away from the Bay Area. If the key decision makers aligned return-to-office with the school year and said "we will not ask you to return until an August where The Vaccines are widely available for kids" then I think you'd have a lot less attrition in that group.

Re: Who Is Driving the Great Resignation?

#24

Post by imglorp »

willvarfar wrote: post #8

My own personal data point is that, with COVID, some tech companies are embracing remote work and suddenly I can enter a much wider and higher paid job market without having to relocate. Companies that aim to get butts back in the office are going to have a huge brain drain.

One slight variation on remote: last year we learned which companies are loyal to, and value, employees. Plenty of companies released people preemptively, simply to make a couple of quarters look good.

If the relationship is going to be that minimally frangible, people will hesitate to relocate to a company town at great impact to their family, only to repeat every time a shadow crosses some book.

Remote people can have some defensive stability.

Re: Who Is Driving the Great Resignation?

#25

Post by matsemann »

daxfohl wrote: post #16
willvarfar wrote: post #8

My own personal data point is that, with COVID, some tech companies are embracing remote work and suddenly I can enter a much wider and higher paid job market without having to relocate. Companies that aim to get butts back in the office are going to have a huge brain drain.

The opposite effect could be in play here too: remote employees feel less connected to their team and are more willing to quit.

The fact that I hadn't seen my coworkers in a year made it easier to switch. No denying that. Loved my previous workplace, great people, great work. They went above and beyond in all matters. Would probably not have risked a move in normal circumstances.

Re: Who Is Driving the Great Resignation?

#26

Post by monocasa »

aaron-santos wrote: post #18

I love how asking people why they are leaving is not on the list. Instead it's gathering metrics and data. If you treat people like numbers, that's sort of the explaination right there. Anything to avoid actually building a working relationship.

You need both. It's important to see the forest through the trees, but it's also helpful to not run into the tree right in front of you.

Re: Who Is Driving the Great Resignation?

#27

Post by sbarre »

The focus in the article on mid-career people was interesting.

I wonder how many of those people are (finally?) realizing that hoping for advancement in the same company is the slow path for most people, and that taking your skills and experience somewhere else in a hot market is - all other things being equal - often a better option for your own career growth.

All things are not equal of course, so I'm sure it's more complex than that..

But anecdotally I know several mid-career people who have changed jobs in the last year in part because they had never bothered to look at what they could actually get with their skills and experience, and were shocked to find out they were seriously undervalued and underpaid at the job they had been at for many years.

Re: Who Is Driving the Great Resignation?

#29

Post by willvarfar »

lrem wrote: post #19
aaron-santos wrote: post #18

I love how asking people why they are leaving is not on the list. Instead it's gathering metrics and data. If you treat people like numbers, that's sort of the explaination right there. Anything to avoid actually building a working relationship.

Asking why they leave is risky. You might learn things you don't want to learn.

Standard advice is to be falsely positive in exit interviews. The internet is awash with guides to not burning bridges etc.

Re: Who Is Driving the Great Resignation?

#30

Post by nightpool »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #13

Someone on YouTube made an interesting point that what we’re seeing is people quitting jobs they would have left much earlier, but couldn’t because of the pandemic. Basically a lot of people deferred quitting in 2020 and now the 2020 batch is quitting with the 2021 batch.

Yes, the article you're commenting on already makes that point :)

    It’s also possible that many of these mid-level employees may have delayed transitioning out of their roles due to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, meaning that the boost we’ve seen over the last several months could be the result of more than a year’s worth of pent-up resignations.
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