Over the last few months, survey after survey has revealed the growing number of employees considering leaving their jobs.
Dubbed the ‘Great Resignation’ by some economists, the phenomenon is believed to have been triggered by the pandemic, which caused many of us to reconsider what we want from our careers.
Paired with the current skills shortage the world is experiencing (especially in countries such as KSA where border restrictions have prevented a significant number of migrant workers to work within the country) employees are starting to feel more comfortable in taking the next step in their careers.
A Microsoft survey of more than 30,000 global workers, released earlier this year, showed that 41 percent of respondents were considering quitting their current role or changing professions this year. In the US alone, April 2021 saw more than four million people quit their jobs, according to a summary from the Department of US Labour – the biggest spike on record.
Researchers believe that because of the economic and financial uncertainty of last year, especially in the early days of lockdown and social distancing, many employees felt reluctant to quit their jobs. According to the Microsoft survey, the majority of respondents felt they had put their own career goals on hold in order to help support their organisation through the pandemic, or simply focus on staying employed.
However now, with organisations across multiple industries beginning to rebuild and the job market starting to creep back to its pre-pandemic levels, employees feel more confident that if they leave their current role, they’ll be able to secure other work.
Another interesting impact of the pandemic was the way it forced employees to re-evaluate the particulars of their life and work-life balance. So many areas of our lives became restricted over the last year; how we travelled, how we socialised with friends and family, even how we exercised.
Consequently, as our lives outside of work began to shrink, our jobs came under greater scrutiny.
People started to question their work lifestyle; were they really passionate about what they did? Did they want to spend as much time as they did working? Others relished the flexibility remote working offered – especially those with young families – and realised they wanted more of it or didn’t want to return to what their job was pre-pandemic. I even saw this with our staff and we lost some individuals who simply wanted to work in a manner that suited their new found priorities, which were different from those in 2019.
Regardless of the reasons, these statistics reflect a new era of work, where employees are putting more weight behind work-life balance, workplace flexibility and a passion for what they do, and aren’t afraid to go in search of it, and the new visa schemes in the UAE have made making these decisions even easier.
Justin McGuire, co-founder of international recruitment firm DMCG Global.
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