Post-Pandemic Workforce Challenges for Employers
As if keeping your business afloat through the heart of the pandemic wasn’t difficult enough, employers now find themselves faced with other challenges relating to their workforce. As we all have encountered, finding good talent is not an easy task in this current market.
To further add salt to our wounds, companies now are faced with the fact that they may start seeing an exodus of some of their current staff once the pandemic subsides.
A recent Pulse of the American Worker Survey by Prudential found that 1 in 3 American workers would not want to work for an employer that required them to be onsite full-time. The same survey found that 1 in 4 workers (26%) plan to look for a job at a different company once the pandemic has subsided.
Reasons Employees Are Looking Elsewhere
- People have had a little more space to ask themselves, “Is this really what I want to be doing?”.
- Some are considering switching careers entirely.
- Some are quitting because they won’t be allowed to work from home post-pandemic, while others are quitting because they miss the office camaraderie which is now missing with a remote workforce.
- Some are deciding they want to work fewer hours or have more flexibility to create more time for family or hobbies.
- Some who feel underappreciated or underpaid are capitalizing on the opportunity to find a better job or work culture.
When and To What Extent to Re-Open Their Offices
Many companies are proceeding cautiously in terms of requiring their employees to return to the office. Although over half of Colorado’s population is fully vaccinated, COVID-19 and its variants continue to challenge our ability to say we have made it through the pandemic.
Companies that had planned to re-open their office by Labor Day of 2020 continue to extend their re-opening dates. Will Labor Day 2021 be the new date? Or January 1, 2022?
Over the past 16 months, many employees have grown fond of remote working. While working from home is not for everyone – the convenience factor, lack of commute time, savings on gas (and even wardrobe) have some people sold. They also find that they are equally, or more, productive without the distractions that the office brings, and some are not willing to go back to the way things were.
For those companies who are continuing to allow remote work, they are faced with evaluating what positions in their companies can work remotely – whether it be all the time or a hybrid situation – and what positions are required to be fully in-the-office. Employers should be prepared for some resentment from their workforce if some employees are allowed the flexibility of a hybrid schedule, while others are not.
Most companies are still in a state of flux and uncertainty in terms of what our workplaces will look like in the months and years ahead. Adaptability, flexibility, and the ability to evaluate the full picture from all sides, instead of just from our personal preferences and opinions will be key to successfully navigating to the post-pandemic era.
What is your company doing to address these post-pandemic workforce challenges?
Sources:
- “Great resignation” wave coming for companies”. Jun 14, 2021. Axios – Economy & Business, by Erica Pandey.
- “1 in 4 plan to bolt job post-pandemic“. Apr 6, 2021. Axios – Economy & Business, by Kim Hart.
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