Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

gallup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 264 posts

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

#11

Post by bscvbscv »

cblconfederate wrote: post #3

> To engage workers, managers must fulfill the 12 essential elements of engagement Hm. There are few jobs that can become life goals, most are boring. And with a years long pandemic and uncertain future, to work or not to work? Work for what purpose? No level of engaging is enough if people can see through the ruse. If anything i d expect more people to go solo

> few jobs that can become life goals, most are boring.

Humans have been doing "boring" work their whole lives for millions of years, it has never been a problem.

The problem is that people are working for organizations that are DOING HARM to them and their people. Not only is their work not productive, it is destructive. Not only is their work meaningless, but it endeavors to undermine meaning itself.

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

#12

Post by hinkley »

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?

I remember when it was all the rage to point out how the CEO to build up a company might not be the best choice to keep it working smoothly once it begins to see the limits of growth.

Maybe this is true of everyone and simply less documented. Silicon Valley has hijacked “disruption” but in many ways the old definition still applies to the same people. Tom was a disruptive influence so when he demanded a raise we let him go instead.

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

#13

Post by MattGaiser »

cratermoon wrote: post #9
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?

> I have a hard time believing this is accurate How does that follow? It certainly seems that spending $9K/year or less compared to coughing up 3 to 10 times that to hire proves that attention to retention is nowhere near that given to hiring.

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 problem churning through people like crazy. They are a company with hire to fire, so if hiring an SDE cost $50,000, they are letting managers spend 50K to fiddle with attrition stats.

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

#14

Post by Mikeb85 »

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.

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

#15

Post by [deleted] »

bscvbscv wrote: post #11
cblconfederate wrote: post #3

> To engage workers, managers must fulfill the 12 essential elements of engagement Hm. There are few jobs that can become life goals, most are boring. And with a years long pandemic and uncertain future, to work or not to work? Work for what purpose? No level of engaging is enough if people can see through the ruse. If anything i d expect more people to go solo

> few jobs that can become life goals, most are boring. Humans have been doing "boring" work their whole lives for millions of years, it has never been a problem. The problem is that people are working for organizations that are DOING HARM to them and their people. Not only is their work not productive, it is destructive. Not only is their work meaningless, but it endeavors to undermine meaning itself.

[deleted]

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

#16

Post by amanaplanacanal »

MattGaiser wrote: post #13
cratermoon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a hard time believing this is accurate How does that follow? It certainly seems that spending $9K/year or less compared to coughing up 3 to 10 times that to hire proves that attention to retention is nowhere near that given to hiring.

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…

But those numbers are averages, my case is special because of X, Y, and Z. I’m sure every manager can rationalize this away.

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

#17

Post by lostcolony »

MattGaiser wrote: post #13
cratermoon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a hard time believing this is accurate How does that follow? It certainly seems that spending $9K/year or less compared to coughing up 3 to 10 times that to hire proves that attention to retention is nowhere near that given to hiring.

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?

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

#18

Post by handrous »

bscvbscv wrote: post #11
cblconfederate wrote: post #3

> To engage workers, managers must fulfill the 12 essential elements of engagement Hm. There are few jobs that can become life goals, most are boring. And with a years long pandemic and uncertain future, to work or not to work? Work for what purpose? No level of engaging is enough if people can see through the ruse. If anything i d expect more people to go solo

> few jobs that can become life goals, most are boring. Humans have been doing "boring" work their whole lives for millions of years, it has never been a problem. The problem is that people are working for organizations that are DOING HARM to them and their people. Not only is their work not productive, it is destructive. Not only is their work meaningless, but it endeavors to undermine meaning itself.

I'd say boring isn't the same thing as (perceived) meaninglessness. I kinda like lots of work that's considered boring, personally—but pointless, wasteful, meaningless, or unappreciated? Let alone harmful? I won't become disengaged, because I'll never be engaged to begin with.

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

#19

Post by iammisc »

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 by large landlord corporations. Public economic policy (lack of anti-trust enforcement) is not helping.

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

#20

Post by bartread »

> because the highest quit rate is among not engaged and actively disengaged workers.

As opposed to what, exactly? What are you expecting to see? Highly engaged employees mass quitting? The situation described in this piece sounds fairly normal to me. People who aren't that fussed about their jobs, or actually dislike them, are always much more likely to quit.

The real question is whether there has been an increase in the percentage of employees who are not engaged or actively disengaged. The article might answer that question but I'm afraid I'd disengaged before I got to that point.

Post reply on HN