NZ’s longest Covid constraints are fast-tracking workers’ motivation to quit their jobs, HR consultants warn.
The ‘great resignation’ or ‘big quit’ has been sweeping the United States, with a record 4 million workers quitting their jobs every month since April.
The trend has been driven by a number of issues, including pandemic fatigue, burnout and overall job dissatisfaction.
Latest Stats NZ labour data shows in the June quarter the main reason people left their jobs was due to their contracts ending, about 16,400.
But the second most common reason was because of job dissatisfaction, with 12,200, about half men and women unhappy with working conditions.
Human Focus Consulting director Frances Bearne says while New Zealand may not have dealt with the long months in lockdown so far, but Auckland’s August outbreak is giving workers in the city a taste of it.
She says being in lockdown may have brought back feelings of uncertainty, anxiety and the long working hours. The best approach for employers to deal with this is to have tailored and open conversations with workers.
“From a mental health perspective workers I coach are saying they’re really, really suffering. We’re back in a time where parents are having to homeschool while juggling their full time jobs and work super long hours. Workers are feeling a lot of fatigue, getting more stressed, less productive and it becomes a cycle,” Bearne says.
“People have come off the back of 18 months of uncertainty, especially for Auckland, which is in its longest lockdown. So people may be looking to make the moves they had delayed earlier when Covid was a new thing,” she says.
But Frog Recruitment managing director Shannon Barlow says New Zealand is likely to follow the overseas ‘great resignation’ wave and employers are taking notice.
Employers are using aggressive talent grab strategies from shoulder tapping to 50 percent pay rises to prepare for the ‘great resignation’ hitting our shores, she says.
“People have come off the back of 18 months of uncertainty, especially for Auckland, which is in its longest lockdown. So people may be looking to make the moves they had delayed earlier when Covid was a new thing.”
– Frances Bearne, Human Focus Consulting
Big employers are also offering big incentives that might leave smaller employers struggling to attract new talent. Larger corporations that can afford to are offering pay increases, work perks like central city car parks and extra annual leave days as well as the ability to continue working from home.
Barlow says the labour shortage in a number of industries has resulted in businesses ditching job listings to proactively reach out to talent on LinkedIn.
Online job search platform Seek NZ found job advertisements were up 44 percent year on year, and up 12 percent compared to the same time in 2019.
But Seek NZ country manager Rob Clark says applications per listing continue to be low, up 11 percent month on month and down 26 percent compared to 2019.
He says the 5 million visits to the website last month, but the low number of applications made, shows people are monitoring job activity but hesitant to move roles just yet.
Since the first lockdown, AUT human resources management professor Jarrod Haar has conducted three surveys, each with 1000 respondents, to get a sense of employee mood across various industries.
“Recruiters are hiring recruiters to recruit people.”
– Jarrod Haar, AUT HR professor
He says the starkest difference between the first survey published in May last year and the most recent one published this month, from data gathered in April, was the increased willingness to leave their jobs.
Workers most likely to leave increased from 34.7 percent in May 2020 to 46.4 percent in April 2021. Meanwhile the number of workers who had no plans of leaving their jobs halved from 19 percent last year to 9.2 percent.
While job satisfaction was still the same, Haar says the perception around job opportunities has changed because of employers proactively looking to hire talent.
“We’re definitely seeing signs of the great resignation flowing here. There are lots of jobs going and people are just reevaluating their opportunities. It’s a relatively exciting time to get out and try a few different things,” Haar says.
“Recruiters are hiring recruiters to recruit people.”
The survey reveals more than half of the respondents who are working in manufacturing, health as well as retail and hospitality were consider leaving their jobs.
Many of those jobs are also on the skills shortage list and without migrant labour amid closed borders, employers in these industries were hurting, he says.
Auckland’s current lockdown is expected to accelerate this trend Haar says, but he will be starting the fourth instalment of the Wellbeing@Work survey for the end of the year soon to know for sure.
He warns with more options available it’s also important for workers to take their due diligence when considering a job offer.
“Speak to employees at the company. Social media is great to understand about how the place works. You don’t want to be leaving one bad job for another bad job with slightly better pay.”
As more of the population gets vaccinated, younger professionals will likely resume plans to move overseas.
“We are now moving a lot closer to that. Companies are eyeing up 2022 for corporate international travel again.”
