If your experience as a line manager over the last few years has been anything like mine when posting a job ad, then you will have felt yourself wondering 'is anyone out there?' This is not to say there are no applicants, rather it is that The Great Attrition is seeing a scarcity of appropriate talent.
In a 2022 survey by McKinsey, the 'likelihood that respondents will leave their current job in the next 3-6 months' showed:
- 66% in India.
- 40% in Singapore.
- 41% in Australia.
- 40% in the US.
- 38% in Canada.
- 33% in the UK.
While there is something poetic about 'Dear old Blighty' finishing last, a case can be made that the percentages above are not just a barometer of how discontented workers are, but also how uncertain the prevailing economic conditions are in the various countries. In that people may loath their jobs, but if mobility is poor and prospects bleak, the role you have is better than no role at all.
What is perhaps most alarming about the above statistics, is that the sentiment is not reflected in conversations I have with hiring managers. Indeed, going beyond my own anecdotal observations, recent surveys find that the average manager places the likelihood that members of their team may leave at a mere 20%. Before you ask, the answer is no, sentiment has not radically changed in the last year, though it is changing. Rather, it is that people tend to be optimists when thinking about their team.
At the risk of sounding like an arch pessimist, there is another even less discussed group of employees to consider in this equation, the 'quiet quitter'. We have all come across them, people who we know are more focussed on dropping their kids at day care, putting on the next load of laundry, or using the office network to stream their favourite shows, than they are on active engagement with their responsibilities. There are also those who may not surf Netflix during office hours, but do join meetings on mute, camera off, and when pushed for interaction simply reply, 'nothing to add'. If pressed by their manager about outcomes, they then cite being in too many meetings. Doing what - I often wonder.
This does not beg the question, which seems to permeate every management discussion I have or article I read these days, 'what do we need to do differently to attract and retain top talent?' Rather, it begs the question what do we need to do differently to engage and get the most out of the talent we have attracted and retained.
