Following on from two posts here this morning about inflation/pay, and the tight labour market, here’s a third on the trinity of issues that are creating a fair wind for union-type demands at the moment.
Sarah O’Connor in the FT is writing[£] about ‘the big quit‘ (a link to a Forbes article there). Forbes are writing the sort of thing that unions normally would only dream of reading in a bosses bible.
Employers need to sharpen up their management practices and listen to workers’ calls for more flexible working, less presenteeism, and plan for a general humanisation of work!
Sarah’s article focuses on the big readjustment can improve productivity while also strengthening workers’ bargaining power. Quoting an FT reader, she says…
““Now everyone just wants to wear yoga pants and play with their dog.” Does that mean pay and productivity might go down, rather than up?
So far, the data doesn’t support that narrative. The people who are quitting at the highest rates in the US work in low-paid sectors such as retail, food and hospitality, and median pay growth for job switchers is 4.1 per cent compared with 3.1 per cent for job stayers.
It looks more like people are taking advantage of resurgent demand and a tight labour market to bid up their pay and conditions in sectors in which they have been poor for many years. It is still too soon to judge the impact on productivity.”
That final caveat aside, employers need to listen to their workers and accommodate the kind of demands that unions have been articulating for years if they want to retain their current staff. And, as Bectu has been saying for a long time, this will help, not hinder their productivity.
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