En el año 2021,50 millones de estadounidenses renunciaron a su trabajo de manera voluntaria. Noviembre fue el mes en el que se registró el mayor número de renuncias: 4,5 millones. Con este movimiento de «huida hacia adelante» nacía el término la «Gran Renuncia», «The Great Resignation», acuñado por el académico Anthony Klotz, profesor de la Universidad de Texas A&M. Klotz apuntó cuatro razones que podían explicar este fenómeno: la primera se refería a los empleados que ya habían decidido dejar su puesto de trabajo, pero retrasaron su decisión debido a la incertidumbre generada por la pandemia de la COVID-19. Con la mejora económica y el avance de la vacunación muchos deciden dar ese paso en 2021, argumentaba Klotz, pero apuntaba otros motivos: que la pandemia había abierto un periodo de reflexión y reevaluación de su vida; el auge del teletrabajo, ya que muchas personas se habían acostumbrado a trabajar desde casa y no quisieron volver a la oficina. También el agotamiento sufrido por muchos durante la pandemia, como personas que trabajan desde casa mientras cuidaban de sus hijos.
Desde que la «Gran Renuncia» se convirtió en noticia, las comparaciones con España no han parado de sucederse. ¿Se estará convirtiendo la «Gran Renuncia» en una nueva tendencia en el mercado laboral español? Mientras algunos expertos sí aprecian un cambio de tendencia, otros mantienen la prudencia. «Los americanos tienen históricamente unos niveles mayores de rotación entre sectores, es una cuestión cultural, no cuentan con las barreras de entrada que tiene nuestro sistema laboral, en parte porque el modelo laboral español es mucho más garantista –desde el punto de vista de la cobertura social, de la cobertura sanitaria, por desempleo, incluso jubilación– que el de Estados Unidos», responde Javier Blasco, director de Adecco Group Institute. Otro factor que motiva la rotación laboral en Estados Unidos es un paro en mínimos. En 2022 se situó en el 3,5% y en España en el 12,6%.
Sin embargo, ni los datos de la Encuesta de Población Activa del INE ni los de Eurostat hacen un seguimiento de los trabajadores españoles que dejan su empleo de manera voluntaria como sí hace la Oficina Estadística Laboral de EE UU. Pero si en España existe una estadística que recoge el concepto de dimisión son las de afiliación media a la Seguridad Social. En diciembre de 2022 se registraron 1,6 millones de bajas de afiliados al Régimen General de la Seguridad Social (excluyendo el sistema especial agrario y de empleadas del hogar). Pero la estadística que desgrana las bajas voluntarias suma algo más de 70.000 a lo largo del año 2022, todo un récord histórico y un aumento de las dimisiones del 170%. Comparadas con las cifras de Estados Unidos podríamos decir que son ridículas, pero detrás de ellas otros expertos como Pilar Llácer, profesora de EAE Business School, sí perciben un cambio de tendencia en el comportamiento de los trabajadores españoles. «El parón de la actividad presencial que supuso la pandemia cambió para siempre los hábitos de consumo y la forma de trabajar de las personas, pero, sobre todo, removió nuestra razón de ser, el para qué trabajamos y nos levantamos todos los días. Y este fenómeno ha afectado a todas las generaciones en las empresas, no solo millenials y centenials».
[[QUOTE:PULL|||El parón de la actividad presencial que supuso la pandemia cambió para siempre los hábitos de consumo y la forma de trabajar de las personas, pero, sobre todo, removió nuestra razón de ser,]]
Carlos Pardo, CEO of SD Work, does not consider it “exaggerated” to talk about the “Great Resignation” to the Spanish one either. «We are seeing situations that did not occur 15 years ago; If before the power of decision was on the part of the company, now it is on the side of the workers. In this framework, companies have a crucial role to face the talent crisis and must take into account the new panorama of human capital management to avoid falling into old models that have nothing to do with the current employment situation» , emphasizes this expert in Human Resources.
Initially, the Spanish government did not turn its back on the debate, but it has always denied that the labor market suffers from this problem. In May 2022, the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, announced that she would convene the social agents to address this matter, given the concern expressed by companies that cannot fill technological vacancies due to the brain drain. According to the latest figure published by Adecco, there are 200,000 positions that are pending to be filled.
The reasons for the resignation
But if Spain has one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe (12.5%), what could be the reasons that lead Spaniards to give up their job? According to data from Hays Spain’s “Labor Market Guide 2022”, more than half of professionals feel unmotivated (54%) and 77% of employees say that, if they could, they would change companies, faced with a 23% who say otherwise. The data from the same guide indicate that, of the total number of professionals seeking a job change, 46% indicate that it is due to the search for professional growth and 43% attribute it to dissatisfaction with the company (bad environment, little recognition, lack of understanding, etc.).
According to a Linkedln survey, it is young people who change jobs the most. Almost seven out of ten (68%) workers between the ages of 18 and 24 are willing to leave their current position for another that is more convenient for them, a percentage 14 points higher than the average for all Spanish professionals (54%). In addition, Generation Z professionals state that they feel full confidence in their abilities and aptitudes to find a better job (32%). Even so, many of them continue to redouble their efforts in their current position to maintain their position (31%) and assure that they are assuming more responsibilities (28%). “Quitting a job is a mentality and generational issue. The generation of the 50s have not changed much company, there is always a part of fear or of Stockholm Syndrome to say “well if I’m not so bad”. However, in the younger generations there are much higher turnover rates, if young people do not like what is in the company, they leave with or without work”, adds Llácer. In Spain it is clear that the level of turnover is lower among those over 50 years of age. «Ageism exists and long-term employment is primed above all with people over 50 years of age and with low qualifications. From that age it is very difficult to find a job, and that generates the virtuous circle that differentiates us from the American market. Unless supply and demand change a lot, or ageism is overcome, or if there is another labor regime… at a certain age it is more difficult to leave work voluntarily”, says Javier Blasco.
Fernando Miralles, professor of Psychology at the CEU San Pablo University, supports the thesis that during the pandemic there has been a change in trend among Spanish workers that has caused resignations to skyrocket, just as, he adds, that the number of suicides has increased in 2021 with 4,003. As Miralles explains, there are three main reasons for leaving work. Salary (in Spain the average salary is 26,000 euros, 26% less than the average salary in the eurozone), a bad boss and jobs with little flexibility. “Despite the fact that it is cold outside, it is difficult for people to endure in a job as it was done before, especially the youngest,” says Miralles. “There is also the factor of demotivation and knowing that for the company to bill you have to put in hours.”
[[QUOTE:PULL|||Es difícil que la gente aguante en un trabajo como se hacía antes]]
Andrés Fontenla, managing partner of Recarte & Fontenla Executive Search, does not appreciate the “Great Resignation” among the Spanish management staff. «In senior managers there is always supply and demand. We do not see any tendency to leave work, probably because the wages are better.
A new report, this one from McKinsey & Company globally, shows that 40% of professionals plan to leave their job in the next six months. The survey, which has taken the opinion of more than 13,000 workers from around the world as a reference, has identified widespread labor discontent at a global level, forcing professionals not only to abandon work but also to move between sectors. According to the analysis, 48% of professionals who left their job in the last two years moved to a different industry, and 65% have not returned to work in the same sector. «The magnitude of the labor discontent that has developed in the last two years has been so great that people are faced with the need to make a radical change in their professional life, which has caused significant brain drain in various sectors of the economy. », declares Gloria Macías-Lizaso, partner at McKinsey&Company. The industry most affected by the exodus of professionals has been consumer and retail, with 76%, and finance and insurance (65%).
[[H2:”Renuncia Silenciosa”]
The “Great Quit” has ushered in a new phenomenon among younger workers. It is about the «Quiet Quitting» or the «Silent Resignation», which involves rebellious behavior towards what they consider to be an unfair situation at work, and which many consider a reaction to what is known as “burnout worker syndrome”, that is, a worker marked by stress and exhaustion. In the United States, where these currents are usually born, according to a Gallup survey, 50% of workers have adopted the “Quiet Quitting” movement, while only 9% of employees in the United Kingdom feel committed to their work.
[[QUOTE:PULL|||«Lejos de lamentarnos, las empresas, recursos humanos y los directivos tienen un gran reto, volver a enamorar y conquistar al talento, saber cómo hacer atractivas las empresas,]]
US employee engagement took a step back during the second quarter of 2022, with the share of engaged workers holding at 32%, while the share of active disengagement increased to 18%, according to the Gallup survey. . The ratio of engaged to not actively engaged employees is now 1.8 to 1, the lowest in nearly a decade. “This attitude arises as a reaction to the previous culture of stress or as a search for a better balance between personal and professional life,” says the corporate commercial director of Nexian, Víctor Espinosa.
The trend toward this form of silent abandonment is likely to get worse, experts agree. «Far from regretting it, companies, human resources and managers have a great challenge: to make talent fall in love again and win them over, to know how to make companies attractive, to think of new and personalized initiatives to link and develop people. And, above all, erasing that dangerous tattoo of “this has always been done like this and it works”, because in the VUCA world with black swans, it is no longer valid”, explains Pilar Llácer.
Gallup finds a decline in employee engagement and satisfaction among Generation Z and millennials, those now under 35. Since the pandemic, younger workers feel underserved and have fewer development opportunities in their work environment. According to the survey results, the percentage of engaged employees under the age of 35 decreased by six percentage points from 2019 to 2022. And during the same time, the percentage of actively disengaged employees increased by six points. Younger workers are down ten or more points in the percentage who strongly agree that someone cares about them, someone encourages their development, and they have opportunities to learn and grow. Less than four in ten hybrid or remote employees clearly know what is expected of them at work.
Faced with this situation, organizations increasingly fear the flight of talent. This is indicated by the data from the HAYS Labor Market Guide 2023, where it is observed that 45% of companies say they fear suffering a higher staff turnover than usual, which represents an increase of 5% compared to the year former. The data also indicates that the companies that are most afraid of voluntary staff turnover come from the energy sector (57%) and engineering (54%). This is due to the fact that these are two increasingly necessary and booming sectors in the current scenario, a circumstance given by the need for energy independence caused by the war in Ukraine. Faced with this brain drain, José Luis Cabezas, Vice President of Human Resources for Iberia at Schneider Electric, recalls that “companies must learn to meet the demands of workers, who now value flexibility more than ever. The youngest want not only professional development, but to feel special. As Carlos Pardo adds, the labor market is in a new game time that of the “Great Renegotiation” in this fight for talent.
64% of professionals are looking for active employment
The pandemic has meant a before and after in many aspects of world society. In the workplace, for example, it has contributed to more and more professionals beginning to consider to what extent salary continues to be the main element when looking for work. In this sense, the phenomenon of the “Great Resignation” originated at the end of 2021 in the United States, witnessed the “resignation” of millions of workers from their jobs for no apparent reason and without having another job on the horizon.
In Europe, this phenomenon has also affected countries such as the United Kingdom or Italy, where more than a million employees gave up their jobs that same year. In Spain, although it has not become consolidated, an increase in monthly voluntary redundancies can be observed compared to previous years. In this line, the study “Future of Recruitment”, carried out by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in collaboration with InfoJobs Spain as an exclusive partner of The Network, reflects how candidates professionally deal with this new paradigm, and how companies should place special focus on loyalty and talent attraction.
In this way, according to the report, six out of ten professionals (64%) in Spain state that they are looking for a new active job, which represents an increase of 22 percentage points compared to the data at a global level (42%). Of these, 37% say they do not have a job, while 27% are actively seeking to get a professional position with more responsibilities and having difficulties in their current job, respectively. Regarding the reasons that lead Spanish candidates to want to change jobs, the monetary and emotional salary continues to be the main attraction in a job offer, with 65% of the responses.
Conciliation is positioned in the first step of the ranking, with 80% of the mentions collected – being 11 percentage points higher in Spain than internationally, where these mentions represent 69% of the total. In second place, working for a good company stands out, with 47% (vs. 41% globally), and working with certain products and technologies, with 19% (vs. 27% globally). In third and fourth position are the acquisition of new knowledge, the so-called reskilling, and the construction of one’s own business, with 13% and 10%, respectively.
]]>