Y'all are a bunch of quitters - The Great Resignation

[elysianfields]

Are you feeling JOLTed (Job Opportunity and Labor Turnover)?

Washington Post Article - JOLTS Report - Workers Quitting August Pandemic

TL;DR - Employers cannot find enough employees, and the latter are feeling empowered to leave their jobs at the highest rates ever recorded.

Methinks there are lots of FIREees among them, given stock market returns in recent years.

I've heard of lots of hiring bonuses anecdotally.

How will we ever replace those missing workers?  Immigration (gasp!) maybe?

ETA: Though OP failure, didn't add text to let the URL appear.  Doh!

[JLee]

So far my coworkers are leaving for more lucrative jobs - I suspect that's the case with many (most?).

[boarder42]

Read an article the other day that ~9% of working adults consider themselves to be on the path to FIRE. while another 39% are considering it.  maybe 9% of those 4.5MM that quit FIREd this group is coming of age with the most popular forums hitting 9-10 years old and that being a sweet spot for the high savers. 

[dougules]

I'm FIREing Friday, and I've been just telling everybody flat out that I'm retiring for lack of any good white lie.  I've been pretty surprised that very few people have had any trouble with the idea of a 43 year-old retiring.  They all know I have a professional income, no kids, and an old car, but still.  I think FIRE is beginning to become a mainstream concept, and seeing more people like me do it will get it there even faster.  A lot of my coworkers expressed interest, although we'll see if they're actually willing to make the trade-off in terms of luxuries, especially with kids and low-earning spouses. 

That being said, is there any indication that FIRE is any kind of significant factor in the tight labor market as it stands right now?

Also, we're in the middle of the baby boomers hitting traditional retirement age.  How much of it is due to the demographics of traditional retirement?

[ixtap]

It led to DH's management looking into alternatives to keep him part-time/consulting when he let them know they shouldn't put X,Y,Z on him for long term planning.

[J.R. Ewing]

I think we're seeing a lot of Boomers retire because their meager retirement savings have quickly doubled in value.  If we get a significant stock market crash, I wonder how many of them will try to return to the stock market?  I bet quite few end up returning anyway when they realize the stock market isn't going to deliver 15% a year going forward and their lifestyles are more expensive than they realized.

This isn't a knock on FIRE, it's a knock on regular consumer's who try to quit with a FIRE budget.

[ixtap]

I think we're seeing a lot of Boomers retire because their meager retirement savings have quickly doubled in value.  If we get a significant stock market crash, I wonder how many of them will try to return to the stock market?  I bet quite few end up returning anyway when they realize the stock market isn't going to deliver 15% a year going forward and their lifestyles are more expensive than they realized.

This isn't a knock on FIRE, it's a knock on regular consumer's who try to quit with a FIRE budget.

It depends. I know my parents annuitized quite a bit when they retired. It happened to be just months before the 2008 crash, so they continue to be happy with their decision, even though they are also up front that it was dumb luck.

[use2betrix]

In a worse-case-scenario I could Lean-FIRE, but probably only 50% of where I want to be.

I was very very close to quitting due to some work BS a couple weeks ago. My management got wind of this, and my contracting agency (I’m a contractor) reached out last week and told me that the company offered me a retention bonus of $10k if I stay through this year, and another $10k if I stay through June 2022..

Pretty awesome, yet still not enough to sway me to stay if things were to push me over that ledge.

[Arbitrage]

I'm FIREing Friday, and I've been just telling everybody flat out that I'm retiring for lack of any good white lie.  I've been pretty surprised that very few people have had any trouble with the idea of a 43 year-old retiring.  They all know I have a professional income, no kids, and an old car, but still.  I think FIRE is beginning to become a mainstream concept, and seeing more people like me do it will get it there even faster.  A lot of my coworkers expressed interest, although we'll see if they're actually willing to make the trade-off in terms of luxuries, especially with kids and low-earning spouses. 

Interesting.  At least with my co-workers/industry, I've found almost nothing but bafflement at my shift to part-time/coast-FIRE rather than continuing to claw my way up the ladder.  They've all been asking what my next full-time job is going to be, or when I'm going back to full-time, as well as (in many cases) wondering why I would even want to work fewer hours.  Mostly blank stares when I cite a desire to spend more time outdoors and with family. I haven't even bothered telling them that my future plan is to work even less. 

In contrast, my wife gets only well-wishes, understanding, and a bit of good-natured jealousy.  There is definitely still a huge sexist divide in labor expectations.

[Paper Chaser]

Most of the open jobs that I see in my day to day life are low paying service or manufacturing/warehousing jobs. These aren't going unfilled because of  people FIREing.

Here's the latest JOLTS report that came out yesterday:

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm

Raw data for "quits":

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t04.htm

If you look at the "quits" rate (the right half of the chart above), the highest sectors are
1) Accommodation and Food Services
2) Retail Trade

Those are the highest for every month back to April 2021. Low wage workers seem to be the ones quitting at the highest rates.

[katsiki]

In my part of the IT world, we are seeing a lot of salary competition and remote work options.  That is causing people to look which I can't blame them.

[PDXTabs]

Also, prior to the pandemic, there were some service workers who were working two or three jobs. Then they were forced to stay at home. Maybe they got good at cooking for themselves and don't feel like more than one job now. Maybe they got a raise to come back and can live on one job now. Jobs data is funny that way.

[dougules]

Also, prior to the pandemic, there were some service workers who were working two or three jobs. Then they were forced to stay at home. Maybe they got good at cooking for themselves and don't feel like more than one job now. Maybe they got a raise to come back and can live on one job now. Jobs data is funny that way.

A lot of the bare numbers raise as many questions as they answer. 

[chemistk]

In one of the few articles I skimmed through on this subject (can't remember which), it was pointed out that this period of supply chain uncertainty and empowerment of workers (especially low-skilled) to find greener pastures may very well be looked at as a significant shift for the US labor force.

Whether that comes to pass, the ripple effects from this (and the whole Southwest thing isn't helping) have already caused a lot of hand-wringing over the holiday season. Gasp! It would be a shame if people aren't able to buy as much useless shit this year.

Optimistically, wages and working conditions will improve across the board.

Pessimistically, the road to automation is kicked into overdrive because somehow the corporate world always finds a way to screw people over.

[dougules]

In a worse-case-scenario I could Lean-FIRE, but probably only 50% of where I want to be.

I was very very close to quitting due to some work BS a couple weeks ago. My management got wind of this, and my contracting agency (I’m a contractor) reached out last week and told me that the company offered me a retention bonus of $10k if I stay through this year, and another $10k if I stay through June 2022..

Pretty awesome, yet still not enough to sway me to stay if things were to push me over that ledge.

A retention bonus is great, but did they say anything about actually fixing the BS? 

[dougules]

Pessimistically, the road to automation is kicked into overdrive because somehow the corporate world always finds a way to screw people over.

Why is that pessimistic.  Automation is great if it's not giving companies leverage to abuse their workers. 

[Cranky]

I think we're seeing a lot of Boomers retire because their meager retirement savings have quickly doubled in value.  If we get a significant stock market crash, I wonder how many of them will try to return to the stock market?  I bet quite few end up returning anyway when they realize the stock market isn't going to deliver 15% a year going forward and their lifestyles are more expensive than they realized.

This isn't a knock on FIRE, it's a knock on regular consumer's who try to quit with a FIRE budget.

I think a lot of Boomers are retiring because they’ve hit their full retirement age with social security and whatever they’ve got in savings is fun money.

I think anyone who had to deal with the public in the last 18 months - retail, education, healthcare, airlines - can hardly wait to get away from that.

I think that families who scraped by with a couple of $7/hour jobs are finding better quality of life with one $15/hour job and less childcare costs.

[boarder42]

Not that it affects me since i'm out at the end of the year but my company is trying to stave off the exodus next year by announcing 5-15% market adjustment raises at the end of the month.  Normally we'd see these in December.  We have large ties to year end and I assume some other companies do as well - I bet the winter months bring a larger volume of turnover than we saw in september.

[PDXTabs]

I think a lot of Boomers are retiring because they’ve hit their full retirement age with social security and whatever they’ve got in savings is fun money.

I think anyone who had to deal with the public in the last 18 months - retail, education, healthcare, airlines - can hardly wait to get away from that.

I concur, I absolutely know some of them in both low pay and high pay service settings. Marketplace says that experienced educators have something like a 42% turnover rate right now.

EDITed to add: some of those are boomers that were going to work another five years but threw up their hands and retired.

[dougules]

Not that it affects me since i'm out at the end of the year but my company is trying to stave off the exodus next year by announcing 5-15% market adjustment raises at the end of the month.  Normally we'd see these in December.  We have large ties to year end and I assume some other companies do as well - I bet the winter months bring a larger volume of turnover than we saw in september.

What's driving the exodus at your company specifically, if you're willing to tell us?

[boarder42]

Not that it affects me since i'm out at the end of the year but my company is trying to stave off the exodus next year by announcing 5-15% market adjustment raises at the end of the month.  Normally we'd see these in December.  We have large ties to year end and I assume some other companies do as well - I bet the winter months bring a larger volume of turnover than we saw in september.

What's driving the exodus at your company specifically, if you're willing to tell us?

So they forced everyone back to office this summer.  That didn't go over well but the way my company works there are huge compensations tied to year end esp for employees who have been there at least 8 years and it increases more as you move further up your tenure.  So people typically leave our company early in the year b/c they leave less on the table.  We've already started to see an issue with hiring over our work location policy and due to shortages in all industries we're getting poached by competitors with better work policy.  We also are getting a terrible acceptance rate on offers compared to our typical rates.  What I personally think C suite management is missing here is they still aren't listening to their employees and pay is less a reason for departing than flexibility to work where you want.  We're a really old slow moving beast of a company.  Personally I think Boomers and GenX have a hard time thinking about people not just wanting more monetary compensation even when they are screaming it at them as loud as they can. 

[Sibley]

I think a lot of Boomers are retiring because they’ve hit their full retirement age with social security and whatever they’ve got in savings is fun money.

I think anyone who had to deal with the public in the last 18 months - retail, education, healthcare, airlines - can hardly wait to get away from that.

I concur, I absolutely know some of them in both low pay and high pay service settings. Marketplace says that experienced educators have something like a 42% turnover rate right now.

EDITed to add: some of those are boomers that were going to work another five years but threw up their hands and retired.

Dad retired in March this year. It was preplanned, COVID had nothing to do with it. Actually, COVID and the related work from home kept him working a few more months than previously intended. Sometimes it's just a coincidence.

[use2betrix]

In a worse-case-scenario I could Lean-FIRE, but probably only 50% of where I want to be.

I was very very close to quitting due to some work BS a couple weeks ago. My management got wind of this, and my contracting agency (I’m a contractor) reached out last week and told me that the company offered me a retention bonus of $10k if I stay through this year, and another $10k if I stay through June 2022..

Pretty awesome, yet still not enough to sway me to stay if things were to push me over that ledge.

A retention bonus is great, but did they say anything about actually fixing the BS?

It has been identified and escalated and an effort being made. I have a rather problematic employee that’s a poison to my departments culture that I’ll likely be letting go soon. Should fix a lot of problems.

[moof]

Some companies bring this on themselves.  Last year my company announced almost immediately after Covid hit that there would be no raises.  Now we're told that they think inflation is just a transitory blip, so the budget for raises was 3% when inflation since the previous raise two years prior was running about 7%.  Hard to blame folks for looking for a better job when your annual raises are less than half of inflation.

[JLee]

Some companies bring this on themselves.  Last year my company announced almost immediately after Covid hit that there would be no raises.  Now we're told that they think inflation is just a transitory blip, so the budget for raises was 3% when inflation since the previous raise two years prior was running about 7%.  Hard to blame folks for looking for a better job when your annual raises are less than half of inflation.

I'm curious if anything will change now that the Social Security benefit is up 5.9%.

[FireLane]

I love this thread title. I retired this year, so I'm proud to say that I'm a quitter!

Just this week, my wife's company gave her a 10% raise out of the blue, outside the usual review cycle. Smart employers know the Great Resignation is real and are taking preemptive steps to hang on to their good employees.

[Cranky]

I think a lot of Boomers are retiring because they’ve hit their full retirement age with social security and whatever they’ve got in savings is fun money.

I think anyone who had to deal with the public in the last 18 months - retail, education, healthcare, airlines - can hardly wait to get away from that.

I concur, I absolutely know some of them in both low pay and high pay service settings. Marketplace says that experienced educators have something like a 42% turnover rate right now.

EDITed to add: some of those are boomers that were going to work another five years but threw up their hands and retired.

I thought I’d have to drag my dh away from the university. I thought it would be *years*.

Instead he retired in May and he counted the days until he was done.

[MudPuppy]

I left my high-stress job for new role with lower pay, but less responsibility and partial WFH capacity. I have no regrets 6 weeks in. So my FIRE timeline is different, oh well.

[bryan995]

So far my coworkers are leaving for more lucrative jobs - I suspect that's the case with many (most?).

That's what I see as well (though I was recently one of the quitters leaving for more greener and lucrative pastures).
Most coworkers that left saw 20-40% increases.

I think its honestly a ripple of inflation sweeping through industry.  Which will hit the high earners first and then slowly cascade down to the lower earners.  Buckle up.

[bmjohnson35]

I have been out of the game since early 2020.  A LOT has happened since I left.  I definitely see a significant amount of help wanted signed for lower wages jobs and service jobs.  Many blame it on the extended unemployment benefits and other pandemic stimulus efforts, but I don't think it's that simple.  Based on several articles I've read, there is a lot of people in middle to higher pay jobs leaving for more pay, more flexibility or both.  The US's aging demographics is a known issue and supposed to only get worse over the next 2-3 decades.  Income has been largely stagnant for many in society for several decades.  Covid appears to be the catalyst, but I think that are a lot of reasons for the mass resgination and they have building for some time.   

[dougules]

So they forced everyone back to office this summer.  That didn't go over well but the way my company works there are huge compensations tied to year end esp for employees who have been there at least 8 years and it increases more as you move further up your tenure.  So people typically leave our company early in the year b/c they leave less on the table.  We've already started to see an issue with hiring over our work location policy and due to shortages in all industries we're getting poached by competitors with better work policy.  We also are getting a terrible acceptance rate on offers compared to our typical rates.  What I personally think C suite management is missing here is they still aren't listening to their employees and pay is less a reason for departing than flexibility to work where you want.  We're a really old slow moving beast of a company.  Personally I think Boomers and GenX have a hard time thinking about people not just wanting more monetary compensation even when they are screaming it at them as loud as they can.

I think I've seen the generational divide, too.  We used to be predominantly Gen X, and a toxic culture and unrealistic expectations led to a lot of burnout and mass turnover until things hit rock bottom in 2017.  The new team hired since is mostly Millenials, and they definitely have a different attitude.  They really seem to be particularly giving less of a fuck lately here for some reason.  I was actually thinking today that I was a little annoyed that they had been coming in at almost 9 and leaving at 3 lately.  Then I had the realization that maybe that was my Gen X mindset judging them.  That mindset hadn't served our previous Gen X team very well.  Why should they stay physically at work just to satisfy the clock? 

I was also having a conversation with my lead earlier about me FIREing and how there was just a bigger trend of people quitting or just not caring any more.  He said he thought everybody was done.  Like the whole country was just done with all the BS, and people just wanted to go off and do what they wanted to do. 

Ironically him (a millenial) being judgy about remote work and not taking COVID seriously was one of the straws on the back of my FIRE camel this year. 

A retention bonus is great, but did they say anything about actually fixing the BS?

It has been identified and escalated and an effort being made. I have a rather problematic employee that’s a poison to my departments culture that I’ll likely be letting go soon. Should fix a lot of problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXRYgjQXX0

Pay attention at 7:47

[Paper Chaser]

Pessimistically, the road to automation is kicked into overdrive because somehow the corporate world always finds a way to screw people over.

Why is that pessimistic.  Automation is great if it's not giving companies leverage to abuse their workers.

Lots of these low wage job openings are being replaced with automation, rather than supplemented by it. If you can't find people to take orders at your fast food joint, or sweep the halls in your office, or be a cashier at your retail establishment, then at some point it's cheaper/easier to replace them with a touchscreen or a robot.

https://time.com/5876604/machines-jobs-coronavirus/

This is of course bad for the lower wage workers of our society, and increases inequality:

https://news.mit.edu/2020/study-inks-automation-inequality-0506

[boarder42]

So they forced everyone back to office this summer.  That didn't go over well but the way my company works there are huge compensations tied to year end esp for employees who have been there at least 8 years and it increases more as you move further up your tenure.  So people typically leave our company early in the year b/c they leave less on the table.  We've already started to see an issue with hiring over our work location policy and due to shortages in all industries we're getting poached by competitors with better work policy.  We also are getting a terrible acceptance rate on offers compared to our typical rates.  What I personally think C suite management is missing here is they still aren't listening to their employees and pay is less a reason for departing than flexibility to work where you want.  We're a really old slow moving beast of a company.  Personally I think Boomers and GenX have a hard time thinking about people not just wanting more monetary compensation even when they are screaming it at them as loud as they can.

I think I've seen the generational divide, too.  We used to be predominantly Gen X, and a toxic culture and unrealistic expectations led to a lot of burnout and mass turnover until things hit rock bottom in 2017.  The new team hired since is mostly Millenials, and they definitely have a different attitude.  They really seem to be particularly giving less of a fuck lately here for some reason.  I was actually thinking today that I was a little annoyed that they had been coming in at almost 9 and leaving at 3 lately.  Then I had the realization that maybe that was my Gen X mindset judging them.  That mindset hadn't served our previous Gen X team very well.  Why should they stay physically at work just to satisfy the clock? 

I was also having a conversation with my lead earlier about me FIREing and how there was just a bigger trend of people quitting or just not caring any more.  He said he thought everybody was done.  Like the whole country was just done with all the BS, and people just wanted to go off and do what they wanted to do. 

Ironically him (a millenial) being judgy about remote work and not taking COVID seriously was one of the straws on the back of my FIRE camel this year. 

its interesting doing a quick google search gen x and boomers are more pro work remote than millenials and gen Z are and it pretty much stayed that way throughout the pandemic.  But when it came to returning to office the opposite was true and gen x and boomers were more likely to want to return to office while millenials and gen Z questioned the need.  It's odd these two things contradict.  Maybe its the messaging that millenials and GenZ don't like - I know our corp messaging was basically our culture is an office building and we need to be together.  Which translates in my millenial mind as this is how we've always done it so lets keep it up.  But regardless of the survey its still greater than 75% that want hybrid options at minimum while some show 25-30% of employees would prefer to be full time remote.  Looking at surveys done in June 2020 vs Jan 2021 its kinda crazy how well people adapted and changed positions - in June it was more 25/50/25 Home/Hybrid/Office.  By Jan it had skewed further to home and hybrid with 29/63/8. 

It's pretty obvious what the trend is - most people at my company went back and we compared ourselves to our competition who did the same and had more attrition - top management attributed this to our better "culture" and also claimed we were getting lots of new employees from other competition that had instituted a full choice model across the 3 options.  I still attribute this to our end of year compensation and massive golden handcuffs.  If people are staying just due to money you don't have a happy workforce and thats not the culture you want to breed IMO.  Short term I think we see heavier than normal attrition in the 3 2022 winter months.  Then medium term I think culture suffers greatly and you start to see the affects of not keeping up with the times due to people just coming in doing their job and leaving vs the vested interest we used to cultivate.  I don't think we'll truly know or see the affects for about 5-10 years and by then it will be too late.  But my stock has to be sold a year after I leave so this doesnt affect my finances.

[chemistk]

Pessimistically, the road to automation is kicked into overdrive because somehow the corporate world always finds a way to screw people over.

Why is that pessimistic.  Automation is great if it's not giving companies leverage to abuse their workers.

Lots of these low wage job openings are being replaced with automation, rather than supplemented by it. If you can't find people to take orders at your fast food joint, or sweep the halls in your office, or be a cashier at your retail establishment, then at some point it's cheaper/easier to replace them with a touchscreen or a robot.

https://time.com/5876604/machines-jobs-coronavirus/

This is of course bad for the lower wage workers of our society, and increases inequality:

https://news.mit.edu/2020/study-inks-automation-inequality-0506

More specifically, what's the incentive to create better working conditions if you can just replace a low-skilled worker with automation? As the job pool shrinks, the companies with positions available for real humans also don't have an incentive to create better working conditions for lower-skilled folks.

Whether or not you think lower-skilled workers are truly needed by society, having a large demographic perpetually un- or underemployed is not going to lead to a good time for anyone. I'm not necessarily arguing that companies have an obligation to employ people just to keep them complacent, but when profits suffer thank to a lack of consumers that Amazon, et. al. previously employed and then replaced with automation, it's got a good chance of biting them in the ass.

[bmjohnson35]

All of our kids were fortunate enough to work from home during the pandemic.  I know they resisted going back to the office.  Our oldest daughter works on the phone all day and it really didn't make sense for her to work from the office anymore.  Unlike some, her productivity went up while working from home.   

I worked for corporate America my entire professional career and I found its toxic culture to be a major motivator for me to FIRE.  I recently spoke to my former manager who informed me he is quitting in six months.  He has been FI for some time, but he has finally had enough.  Although many talked about leaving while I was working, most appeared to live paycheck to paycheck and the fear of change seamed to keep them in place. Many complained about management and was frustrated about stagnant pay, arrogant clueless upper management and on and on and on.  You would see the confident self-thinkers quit and move on, but many stayed and drudged along.  My former manager said that more people are leaving now than ever before.  People who thought would never leave are now gone.  It's as if the pandemic has changed peoples perspective and it has motivated them to push beyond their fear to seek something better. 

[boarder42]

All of our kids were fortunate enough to work from home during the pandemic.  I know they resisted going back to the office.  Our oldest daughter works on the phone all day and it really didn't make sense for her to work from the office anymore.  Unlike some, her productivity went up while working from home.   

I worked for corporate America my entire professional career and I found its toxic culture to be a major motivator for me to FIRE.  I recently spoke to my former manager who informed me he is quitting in six months.  He has been FI for some time, but he has finally had enough.  Although many talked about leaving while I was working, most appeared to live paycheck to paycheck and the fear of change seamed to keep them in place. Many complained about management and was frustrated about stagnant pay, arrogant clueless upper management and on and on and on.  You would see the confident self-thinkers quit and move on, but many stayed and drudged along.  My former manager said that more people are leaving now than ever before.  People who thought would never leave are now gone.  It's as if the pandemic has changed peoples perspective and it has motivated them to push beyond their fear to seek something better.

this x100

[katsiki]

So they forced everyone back to office this summer.  That didn't go over well but the way my company works there are huge compensations tied to year end esp for employees who have been there at least 8 years and it increases more as you move further up your tenure.  So people typically leave our company early in the year b/c they leave less on the table.  We've already started to see an issue with hiring over our work location policy and due to shortages in all industries we're getting poached by competitors with better work policy.  We also are getting a terrible acceptance rate on offers compared to our typical rates.  What I personally think C suite management is missing here is they still aren't listening to their employees and pay is less a reason for departing than flexibility to work where you want.  We're a really old slow moving beast of a company.  Personally I think Boomers and GenX have a hard time thinking about people not just wanting more monetary compensation even when they are screaming it at them as loud as they can.

I think I've seen the generational divide, too.  We used to be predominantly Gen X, and a toxic culture and unrealistic expectations led to a lot of burnout and mass turnover until things hit rock bottom in 2017.  The new team hired since is mostly Millenials, and they definitely have a different attitude.  They really seem to be particularly giving less of a fuck lately here for some reason.  I was actually thinking today that I was a little annoyed that they had been coming in at almost 9 and leaving at 3 lately.  Then I had the realization that maybe that was my Gen X mindset judging them.  That mindset hadn't served our previous Gen X team very well.  Why should they stay physically at work just to satisfy the clock? 

I was also having a conversation with my lead earlier about me FIREing and how there was just a bigger trend of people quitting or just not caring any more.  He said he thought everybody was done.  Like the whole country was just done with all the BS, and people just wanted to go off and do what they wanted to do. 

Ironically him (a millenial) being judgy about remote work and not taking COVID seriously was one of the straws on the back of my FIRE camel this year. 

its interesting doing a quick google search gen x and boomers are more pro work remote than millenials and gen Z are and it pretty much stayed that way throughout the pandemic.  But when it came to returning to office the opposite was true and gen x and boomers were more likely to want to return to office while millenials and gen Z questioned the need.  It's odd these two things contradict.  Maybe its the messaging that millenials and GenZ don't like - I know our corp messaging was basically our culture is an office building and we need to be together.  Which translates in my millenial mind as this is how we've always done it so lets keep it up.  But regardless of the survey its still greater than 75% that want hybrid options at minimum while some show 25-30% of employees would prefer to be full time remote.  Looking at surveys done in June 2020 vs Jan 2021 its kinda crazy how well people adapted and changed positions - in June it was more 25/50/25 Home/Hybrid/Office.  By Jan it had skewed further to home and hybrid with 29/63/8. 

It's pretty obvious what the trend is - most people at my company went back and we compared ourselves to our competition who did the same and had more attrition - top management attributed this to our better "culture" and also claimed we were getting lots of new employees from other competition that had instituted a full choice model across the 3 options.  I still attribute this to our end of year compensation and massive golden handcuffs.  If people are staying just due to money you don't have a happy workforce and thats not the culture you want to breed IMO.  Short term I think we see heavier than normal attrition in the 3 2022 winter months.  Then medium term I think culture suffers greatly and you start to see the affects of not keeping up with the times due to people just coming in doing their job and leaving vs the vested interest we used to cultivate.  I don't think we'll truly know or see the affects for about 5-10 years and by then it will be too late.  But my stock has to be sold a year after I leave so this doesnt affect my finances.

I think you are spot on.  Many (of all generations, I would say) are saying - why should we just go back to the office because we always went to an office?

I know for me it was quite an adjustment.  However, I now see little benefit to working from an office.  There are some small collaborative benefits but I think companies/people will figure that out in time, given enough practice.

[boarder42]

So they forced everyone back to office this summer.  That didn't go over well but the way my company works there are huge compensations tied to year end esp for employees who have been there at least 8 years and it increases more as you move further up your tenure.  So people typically leave our company early in the year b/c they leave less on the table.  We've already started to see an issue with hiring over our work location policy and due to shortages in all industries we're getting poached by competitors with better work policy.  We also are getting a terrible acceptance rate on offers compared to our typical rates.  What I personally think C suite management is missing here is they still aren't listening to their employees and pay is less a reason for departing than flexibility to work where you want.  We're a really old slow moving beast of a company.  Personally I think Boomers and GenX have a hard time thinking about people not just wanting more monetary compensation even when they are screaming it at them as loud as they can.

I think I've seen the generational divide, too.  We used to be predominantly Gen X, and a toxic culture and unrealistic expectations led to a lot of burnout and mass turnover until things hit rock bottom in 2017.  The new team hired since is mostly Millenials, and they definitely have a different attitude.  They really seem to be particularly giving less of a fuck lately here for some reason.  I was actually thinking today that I was a little annoyed that they had been coming in at almost 9 and leaving at 3 lately.  Then I had the realization that maybe that was my Gen X mindset judging them.  That mindset hadn't served our previous Gen X team very well.  Why should they stay physically at work just to satisfy the clock? 

I was also having a conversation with my lead earlier about me FIREing and how there was just a bigger trend of people quitting or just not caring any more.  He said he thought everybody was done.  Like the whole country was just done with all the BS, and people just wanted to go off and do what they wanted to do. 

Ironically him (a millenial) being judgy about remote work and not taking COVID seriously was one of the straws on the back of my FIRE camel this year. 

its interesting doing a quick google search gen x and boomers are more pro work remote than millenials and gen Z are and it pretty much stayed that way throughout the pandemic.  But when it came to returning to office the opposite was true and gen x and boomers were more likely to want to return to office while millenials and gen Z questioned the need.  It's odd these two things contradict.  Maybe its the messaging that millenials and GenZ don't like - I know our corp messaging was basically our culture is an office building and we need to be together.  Which translates in my millenial mind as this is how we've always done it so lets keep it up.  But regardless of the survey its still greater than 75% that want hybrid options at minimum while some show 25-30% of employees would prefer to be full time remote.  Looking at surveys done in June 2020 vs Jan 2021 its kinda crazy how well people adapted and changed positions - in June it was more 25/50/25 Home/Hybrid/Office.  By Jan it had skewed further to home and hybrid with 29/63/8. 

It's pretty obvious what the trend is - most people at my company went back and we compared ourselves to our competition who did the same and had more attrition - top management attributed this to our better "culture" and also claimed we were getting lots of new employees from other competition that had instituted a full choice model across the 3 options.  I still attribute this to our end of year compensation and massive golden handcuffs.  If people are staying just due to money you don't have a happy workforce and thats not the culture you want to breed IMO.  Short term I think we see heavier than normal attrition in the 3 2022 winter months.  Then medium term I think culture suffers greatly and you start to see the affects of not keeping up with the times due to people just coming in doing their job and leaving vs the vested interest we used to cultivate.  I don't think we'll truly know or see the affects for about 5-10 years and by then it will be too late.  But my stock has to be sold a year after I leave so this doesnt affect my finances.

I think you are spot on.  Many (of all generations, I would say) are saying - why should we just go back to the office because we always went to an office?

I know for me it was quite an adjustment.  However, I now see little benefit to working from an office.  There are some small collaborative benefits but I think companies/people will figure that out in time, given enough practice.

Yeah i think the issue is a CEO and BOD who all want to be in office b/c its all they know and they failed at working remotely.  They look at and listen to that 8-15% of people who share their views and some of whom say i'll leave if we aren't all back in office.  And they look at it from their perspective and say these people will actually leave and they share my view which is right so I don't want to  lose them. 

I don't care if I lose the people who don't share my view. <--- I've heard this line in 50 different ways from 4-5 different C-suite employees.   

I dont care if thats your view you can't really say that outloud and keep even the people who want hybrid happy with that culture

[chemistk]

So they forced everyone back to office this summer.  That didn't go over well but the way my company works there are huge compensations tied to year end esp for employees who have been there at least 8 years and it increases more as you move further up your tenure.  So people typically leave our company early in the year b/c they leave less on the table.  We've already started to see an issue with hiring over our work location policy and due to shortages in all industries we're getting poached by competitors with better work policy.  We also are getting a terrible acceptance rate on offers compared to our typical rates.  What I personally think C suite management is missing here is they still aren't listening to their employees and pay is less a reason for departing than flexibility to work where you want.  We're a really old slow moving beast of a company.  Personally I think Boomers and GenX have a hard time thinking about people not just wanting more monetary compensation even when they are screaming it at them as loud as they can.

I think I've seen the generational divide, too.  We used to be predominantly Gen X, and a toxic culture and unrealistic expectations led to a lot of burnout and mass turnover until things hit rock bottom in 2017.  The new team hired since is mostly Millenials, and they definitely have a different attitude.  They really seem to be particularly giving less of a fuck lately here for some reason.  I was actually thinking today that I was a little annoyed that they had been coming in at almost 9 and leaving at 3 lately.  Then I had the realization that maybe that was my Gen X mindset judging them.  That mindset hadn't served our previous Gen X team very well.  Why should they stay physically at work just to satisfy the clock? 

I was also having a conversation with my lead earlier about me FIREing and how there was just a bigger trend of people quitting or just not caring any more.  He said he thought everybody was done.  Like the whole country was just done with all the BS, and people just wanted to go off and do what they wanted to do. 

Ironically him (a millenial) being judgy about remote work and not taking COVID seriously was one of the straws on the back of my FIRE camel this year. 

its interesting doing a quick google search gen x and boomers are more pro work remote than millenials and gen Z are and it pretty much stayed that way throughout the pandemic.  But when it came to returning to office the opposite was true and gen x and boomers were more likely to want to return to office while millenials and gen Z questioned the need.  It's odd these two things contradict.  Maybe its the messaging that millenials and GenZ don't like - I know our corp messaging was basically our culture is an office building and we need to be together.  Which translates in my millenial mind as this is how we've always done it so lets keep it up.  But regardless of the survey its still greater than 75% that want hybrid options at minimum while some show 25-30% of employees would prefer to be full time remote.  Looking at surveys done in June 2020 vs Jan 2021 its kinda crazy how well people adapted and changed positions - in June it was more 25/50/25 Home/Hybrid/Office.  By Jan it had skewed further to home and hybrid with 29/63/8. 

It's pretty obvious what the trend is - most people at my company went back and we compared ourselves to our competition who did the same and had more attrition - top management attributed this to our better "culture" and also claimed we were getting lots of new employees from other competition that had instituted a full choice model across the 3 options.  I still attribute this to our end of year compensation and massive golden handcuffs.  If people are staying just due to money you don't have a happy workforce and thats not the culture you want to breed IMO.  Short term I think we see heavier than normal attrition in the 3 2022 winter months.  Then medium term I think culture suffers greatly and you start to see the affects of not keeping up with the times due to people just coming in doing their job and leaving vs the vested interest we used to cultivate.  I don't think we'll truly know or see the affects for about 5-10 years and by then it will be too late.  But my stock has to be sold a year after I leave so this doesnt affect my finances.

I think you are spot on.  Many (of all generations, I would say) are saying - why should we just go back to the office because we always went to an office?

I know for me it was quite an adjustment.  However, I now see little benefit to working from an office.  There are some small collaborative benefits but I think companies/people will figure that out in time, given enough practice.

Yeah i think the issue is a CEO and BOD who all want to be in office b/c its all they know and they failed at working remotely.  They look at and listen to that 8-15% of people who share their views and some of whom say i'll leave if we aren't all back in office.  And they look at it from their perspective and say these people will actually leave and they share my view which is right so I don't want to  lose them. 

I don't care if I lose the people who don't share my view. <--- I've heard this line in 50 different ways from 4-5 different C-suite employees.   

I dont care if thats your view you can't really say that outloud and keep even the people who want hybrid happy with that culture

I do want to point out that there are people for whom being physically in an office environment makes them more productive, happier, and/or fulfilled when working. I don't feel that way (and have been able to just leave when I'm done with my work for the day and WFH), but there are others even in my broader work group who do.

My company has committed to strongly encouraging WFH on M/F and asking that any in-person meetings/activities take place on T/W/Th (at least for corporate employees). They're also encouraging those who really wish to WFH to leave for the day if their last meeting is at, say, 11 and then WFH for the remainder of the day.

All but I think two C-suite members have strongly preferred to WFH.

And even in the midst of all that, there are at least a dozen or so folks in my broader department who just want to be in the office, and they're really looking forward to the T-Th days when most people will be in.

[brandon1827]

I don't care if I lose the people who don't share my view. <--- I've heard this line in 50 different ways from 4-5 different C-suite employees.   

I dont care if thats your view you can't really say that outloud and keep even the people who want hybrid happy with that culture

I think this accurately sums up what happened at my company. We have 8 office locations staffed with customer service people and field workers. Our HQ is all office staff that very rarely interacts with our customers face-to-face. We successfully transitioned to a WFH environment during the height of the pandemic, but then our managers and board decided it was all-hands back to the office as things settled down. They didn't even seriously entertain a permanent WFH scenario for our people that demonstrated that we could easily do so. Instead, they're now looking to renovate/upgrade our main building...adding more office & meeting space.  A majority of the employees would absolutely love to WFH, even if only on a rotational basis...but they wouldn't hear of it because "that's not how we do business". Makes me shake my head almost daily the lack of foresight and willingness to spend millions of dollars to double-down on a brick-and-mortar office structure instead of utilizing that money in better ways and allowing employees to do their jobs from home.

[boarder42]

I don't care if I lose the people who don't share my view. <--- I've heard this line in 50 different ways from 4-5 different C-suite employees.   

I dont care if thats your view you can't really say that outloud and keep even the people who want hybrid happy with that culture

I think this accurately sums up what happened at my company. We have 8 office locations staffed with customer service people and field workers. Our HQ is all office staff that very rarely interacts with our customers face-to-face. We successfully transitioned to a WFH environment during the height of the pandemic, but then our managers and board decided it was all-hands back to the office as things settled down. They didn't even seriously entertain a permanent WFH scenario for our people that demonstrated that we could easily do so. Instead, they're now looking to renovate/upgrade our main building...adding more office & meeting space.  A majority of the employees would absolutely love to WFH, even if only on a rotational basis...but they wouldn't hear of it because "that's not how we do business". Makes me shake my head almost daily the lack of foresight and willingness to spend millions of dollars to double-down on a brick-and-mortar office structure instead of utilizing that money in better ways and allowing employees to do their jobs from home.

sounds pretty similar to us in addition to adding space we wasted money on events all summer to make being back in the office "better"

[Paper Chaser]

My employer (fortune 200 industrial), and at least one other major employer(big pharma) in the area have expressed concerns about "civic responsibility", etc with regard to permanent WFH. Their fancy campuses have been mostly empty for the last 18 months and that has hurt the surrounding communities. There are a lot of unique small businesses that depend on a stream of highly paid workers in the office to stay afloat. So, these companies are adopting pilot programs to allow those interested to return to the office. A hybrid approach for those that wish to continue WFH is likely at some point in the future.

[FINate]

It's more than just people FIREing. The US is very likely already in a demographic decline due to lower fertility rate and decreasing immigration. Most people just don't realize it yet. While population is still increasing, it is slowing rapidly. This doesn't mean empty streets and ghost cities. Instead, think aging population with declining numbers of young people entering the workforce. Something like Japan. The US has engineered a brutal society (both parties are to blame) where locations with good jobs, nice neighborhoods, and quality schools are out of reach to all except the wealthiest ... having kids or immigrating here doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Dave1442397]

My megacorp has been handing out crappy raises (1 - 1.5%) for years, and also instituted stacked/forced ranking a few years ago. This allows them to rate 15% of people 'below expectations' and give them no raise at all. That rating also means no promotion is possible for the next three years.

This might not be so bad if you worked with people who deserved to be pushed out, but I don't. There are a couple of weaker people in the group, but there's no one bad enough that we'd like to see them go.

Managers are forced to spread the crappy ratings around, which really pisses people off.

It'll be interesting to see if they do it again this year...they've been staying pretty quiet on the subject. I know people have been leaving, and others have just retired.

[bmjohnson35]

My megacorp has been handing out crappy raises (1 - 1.5%) for years, and also instituted stacked/forced ranking a few years ago. This allows them to rate 15% of people 'below expectations' and give them no raise at all. That rating also means no promotion is possible for the next three years.

This might not be so bad if you worked with people who deserved to be pushed out, but I don't. There are a couple of weaker people in the group, but there's no one bad enough that we'd like to see them go.

Managers are forced to spread the crappy ratings around, which really pisses people off.

It'll be interesting to see if they do it again this year...they've been staying pretty quiet on the subject. I know people have been leaving, and others have just retired.

My former employer instituted the stacked/forced ranking a year or so before I left.  I made a formal written protest of the practice to HR and tried to fight a forced below expectations rating of a  supervisor that reported to me.  I was told at least one of my professional staff had to fall below meeting requirements.  He wasn't a top performer, but he did his job and was reliable.  I lost the fight and he retired around 6 months later.  I retired shortly after.  One of several "motivators" that helped push me out the door.  I don't think it became a permanent policy, but don't really know for sure. 

[Channel-Z]

This is how I imagine conversations at the corporate level in my industry (journalism).

1. "We're having a lot of trouble filling those overnight and weekend jobs."

2. "Yeah, the new grads are just going right into marketing and public relations, working 9-5 at home for similar money. The mid-career workers are doing the same."

1. "So, what are we going to do about it?"

(crickets)

[Well Respected Man]

Part of the stimulus was to give forgivable loans to businesses that would otherwise have failed when demand crashed. I'm speculating that part of the shortage of low wage workers is actually an excess of employers who survived because of those loans. Maybe part of the eventual settling down of the labor market will be for those excess businesses to close down.

[meadow lark]

Ooh, good point.

[TheAnonOne]

My company gave out no raises in 2020 and 3% in 2021. Worked everyone to the bone throughout the pandemic.

We had 5 "top" engineers, 2 are left, I am handing in my notice tomorrow... couldn't be more excited.

[JLee]

My company gave out no raises in 2020 and 3% in 2021. Worked everyone to the bone throughout the pandemic.

We had 5 "top" engineers, 2 are left, I am handing in my notice tomorrow... couldn't be more excited.

Congratulations!