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Some of Today’s Workplace Trends Are Not Trends at All

Cat DiStasio

External Contributor - HR Expert (& Huge Geek)

July 8 2024

Low employee engagement, quiet quitting and other workplace trends are nothing new, says Cat DiStasio. Here are some reasons why (and ways to overcome them).

Employers in almost every industry are grappling with low engagement, high turnover, and skills or talent shortages to one extent or another. In some cases, these challenges put very real constraints on business capabilities, from delaying growth plans and wrestling with limited innovation to questioning an organization’s ability to remain profitable at year’s end. And, for professionals working on people ops teams, these issues can be all-consuming, stressful, and even discouraging. 

While these trends are getting more attention and space in the headlines now than ever before, the underlying issues are not new. And, inexplicably, some companies have endured these trends without seeing their business suffer to the point of crisis.

Does that mean the people leaders at those companies have access to secret success formulas? Unlikely. Is it luck? Probably not.

So what makes the difference between a company that struggles or even folds amid today’s workforce challenges, and those that thrive?

Of course, it’s not all on the people team to make a business viable or sustainable. Far from it. But what is or is not happening with the workforce can make or break a company in a matter of years, if not faster.    

Digging deeper to reveal underlying causes

Just as none of today’s workplace trends exist in a vacuum, none are anomalous, either. What we’re actually seeing is the culmination of a long period of increased strain on employees, fueled by decades of wage stagnation and brought to a head during a global pandemic. Continued economic uncertainty and rising strife around the world contribute to the pressure we all feel and, in many ways, current events are forcing a reckoning with mortality that translates directly into a re-evaluation of our relationship with work and our employer.

People everywhere are rethinking how they want to spend their time and energy, and that affects what they expect from employers.

Consider this. Low employee engagement has frequently been blamed for many of today’s workforce challenges, from the Great Resignation in 2021 to the Quiet Quitting trend in 2022 to the (confusingly named) Quiet Hiring movement in 2023. It’s true that an employee who quits, at any volume, can certainly be called disengaged. You can’t get much less engaged than no longer being employed at an organization, right?

But, the pandemic didn’t actually cause employee engagement to plummet. Now, we’re still only a few percentage points from pre-COVID numbers. Gallup reported that engagement dipped in 2021 for the first time in a decade, moving to 34%, down two points from 2020. A newer report from November 2023 put engagement at 33% – not great news, but still not the ‘falling off a cliff’ change you’d expect to see associated with the havoc employers are facing in the talent market.

Rather than pinning today’s workforce challenges on specific events from the last few years, it’s more effective to zoom out – way, way out – and remember that employees are people.

Focusing on creating work environments, benefits packages, and engagement strategies that meet people where they are and address their unique needs and priorities is the best way to protect your organization from trends in the near and long term.

Holistic people strategies can shape a better future

The path forward calls for holistic people strategies that acknowledge our shared humanity. In organizations where people leaders design policies and practices based on what people need to live happy, healthy lives, there is an inherent layer of protection from some of today’s biggest talent challenges. Taking care of your employees as the unique, talented, individual people they are is not just the right thing to do; it’s a vital business strategy for continued growth and innovation.

Many companies are finding success with the following strategies:

  • Prioritizing holistic wellbeing as a driver of people policies and programs
  • Offering transparency and consistency in top-down communication throughout the employee journey
  • Providing engagement tools that fit seamlessly into employees’ work days
  • Aggressively tackling issues around pay equity, workplace stress, and toxic elements of work culture.

None of these items can be checked off your priority list in a single day, week, or even month.

Instead, it’s best to think of them more as core value commitments. When these considerations color and shape your organization’s people strategies, employees will feel the difference.

And, done well, these strategies can help you build a sustainable workforce that is more engaged, more productive, and more innovative than your competitors could ever dream of having.

 

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