Nothing Personal - It's Just Business
How many times has a dedicated and loyal employee found themselves on the opposite side of a desk or conference table frantically wondering how they are going to provide for their basic necessities, contribute to the household income, or keep their end of an implicit agreement while hearing the words "It's nothing personal, it's just business?" There are very few things in life more personal than severing a person from their livelihood. However, that proverbial table has turned.
In a July 2021 article for the Visalia Times, reporter Paul Davidson wrote, "Americans are quitting jobs in record numbers, typically to take another position." This mass employment transition has been dubbed "The Great Resignation," and it has apparently become the bane of Corporate America. Ian Cook of the Harvard Business Review wrote, "According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July 2021 (HBR, Sept. 15, 2021)."
The COVID-19 pandemic redefined how business is conducted from restaurants to higher education. Many businesses transitioned to modified formats, including curbside delivery, contact-free pick up, online streaming of new motion picture releases, virtual meetings, and indefinite remote work authorization. While these modifications made for safer business transactions and operations, there were some cascading negative side effects. For example, oil and gas companies were impacted by the drastic reduction of rush-hour commuters. City streets looked like ghost towns, which meant that transportation companies were also impacted.
In their study on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Elizabeth Mack, Shubham Agrawal, and Sichan Wang, reported that during the initial shutdowns in the United States (caused by the pandemic), consumers spent between 20% and 30% less on restaurants, entertainment, and travel (Sept. 2021). The result of this decline in consumerism was massive layoffs and business closures. We began to hear terms like "shelter-in-place" and "social distancing," which meant people weren't visiting places of business. Some industries were able to adapt much faster than others.
In a July 2020 article published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Alexander Bartlik and five co-authors reported:
"On average, the businesses reported having reduced their active employment by 39% since January. The decline was particularly sharp in the Mid-Atlantic region (which includes New York City), where 54% of firms were closed and employment was down by 47%. Impacts also varied across industries, with retail, arts and entertainment, personal services, food services, and hospitality businesses all reporting employment declines exceeding 50%..."
The disparaging economic numbers cascading around the globe led to the passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed into law on March 27, 2020, by former U.S. President Donald Trump. At the time, it was the largest economic rescue package in U.S. history.
On the heels of the CARES Act, was the Advance Child Tax Credit and Economic Impact Payments distributed in increments:
These two economic relief packages, generous extensions to unemployment benefits, and remote work options all helped to fuel the career migration that became the great resignation. While critics and detractors point fingers at everyone and everything from "liberal politics" to "lazy millennials," the fact is that the catalyst for the great resignation came long before COVID-19 or the CARES Act.
The Great Resignation was Preceded by the Great Termination
According to the article "Downsizing and Rightsizing" published by Reference for Business, the downsizing trend began in the 1980s and lasted through the 1990s. That same article also maintains that the trend was prompted by an increase in international economic competition in the late 1970s.
Large corporations believed that trimming their workforce to its bare minimum would increase profitability. However, the trend had a devastatingly unexpected result.
领英推荐
The obsessive downsizing trend gave way to a condition titled corporate anorexia.
According to the Mayo Clinic:
"Anorexia (an-o-REK-see-uh) nervosa — often simply called anorexia — is an eating disorder characterized by an abnormally low body weight, an intense fear of gaining weight and a distorted perception of weight. People with anorexia place a high value on controlling their weight and shape, using extreme efforts that tend to significantly interfere with their lives."
The obsessive downsizing trend gave way to a condition titled corporate anorexia. The Oxford Reference defines corporate anorexia as:
"A malaise that affects businesses after a severe cost-cutting phase. The firm's ability to expand production to maintain its competitive position in the market may, for example, be compromised by a misguided pressure to reduce costs by downsizing, resulting in the elimination of personnel who made a long-term contribution to the company's viability."
In short, downsizing was proving to have the opposite effect than corporations were hoping for. However, the trend continued, as companies paid no heed to the alarming evidence that they were putting their economic health in grave danger by the practice of radical downsizing. After a while, employees began to show less loyalty as they realized there was likely not going to be any proverbial gold watches in their futures.
No Need to Show Me the Way Out - I Can Find it on My Own
Fast forward through years of corporate downsizing, through a worldwide pandemic, through remote work (enforced by shelter-in-place ordinances), and wage disparities, to arrive at the great resignation.
So here we are in the middle of one of the greatest industrial revolutions in the history of the world, but it's not just advances in technology driving this change. The underlying impetus is the social rebellion. Employees are no longer willing to complacently accommodate work environments where they are unappreciated or where there is a subliminal expectation to work above and beyond their compensation. They no longer feel obligated to be loyal to someone who is not loyal to them.
In a November 2021 Harvard Business Review article, Frank Breitling along with four co-authors, outlined six strategies to help companies retain talent in the era of the great resignation:
The reality is that when an employee leaves their current job, they are in search of something that they are not being provided. One solution, as Breitling and his co-authors imply, is for employers to find out what their employees are missing before they are reading a resignation letter.
Instead of searching for blame, search for solutions. After all, it's nothing personal, it's just business.
Experienced in research, planning, budgeting, executing, and evaluating operations involving the public. Liaise with the news media and provide guidance to senior leaders on decisions that impact mission success.
3 年I am sharing this article internally at Intel. Well done.
Management Consultant | People Success ?? | Leadership Enthusiast | DEI Consultant | Instructional Designer| Alignment Strategist| Project Manager| ?????????????
3 年I couldn't agree more with this article, Rex A. Holiday, Ph.D. ! Sadly, we often push and ask org leadership to observe, review and analyze stay interview and exit interview results for correlations. What is your workforce saying during exits, what are they telling you during stays. Again, replaceable. Employees come and they go, HR is least effective in this area and proves it incompetencies by not aggressively providing solutions to reduce costs and hold leaders/managers equally accountable. The brunt of these loss falls back on employees, as organizations place steel handcuffs on pay increases/annual increases, blaming it on economic palavers and all what not! Trust is broken, seasoned employees raise middle nuggets and move on because they see beyond the org politics and lies. It is a MESS!