More People Are Thinking of Quitting Than During the Great
Resignation, Study Says. A global survey shows that the average workforce is more in flux than it was in 2022. Employees are overworked and underpaid, tired out, and facing ever-changing expectations. But savvy use of AI may keep them at work.
The term "Great Resignation" was invented by management professor Anthony Klotz at University College London in 2021 to describe the upheaval in the workforce that saw people changing jobs en masse during the pandemic. It's been talked about ever since, but a new piece of research suggests that the trend has not ended, and has even accelerated, as more people say they're considering leaving their current positions now than in 2022.
A survey from PwC, one of the largest professional services firms in the world, questioned over 56,000 workers globally. It found that about 28 percent--somewhere between one in four and one in three--people surveyed admitted they were "very" or "extremely likely" to quit their current company during the next 12 months. The equivalent figure for last year was 26 percent, and in 2022 it was just 19 percent.
What's driving the urge to change things up? PwC's data leaves little doubt about it: 45 percent, or nearly half of the workers surveyed, said that over the past year they'd gotten higher workloads. And, more than just being asked to do more work, 62 percent of people in the survey said they'd seen more things change in the past year than in the preceding one.
In other words, the rate of change in the workplace is accelerating, which we can assume is leading to discomfort thanks to things like a less stable work environment, faster-changing task lists, and an ever-shifting roster of colleagues to work alongside. People love stability--and if your office environment and job are changing faster and faster, and you're also being asked to work harder, then some people are going to simply bow out and look for alternative employment.
One factor that may be driving this faster rate of change in the office is the rise of AI technology. Since people have varying preferences and tolerances for change, it's reasonable to expect the arrival of this polarizing technology will unsettle some workers and excite others. Interestingly, PwC's data confirms that people seem positive about AI, and this could be a useful tool for keeping staff interested in their jobs. Fully 72 percent of respondents who said they use AI from time to time think it will boost their work quality, while among staff who use AI daily some 82 percent expected it to boost their efficiency through the next year.
About half of the people in the survey said they expected generative AI tools to propel them to higher salaries. That's a pretty rational conclusion, given that AI tools can act as a force multiplier and either let a worker take on more tasks than they could perform previously, or to carry out a broader and deeper range of work in the same amount of time. Expectations aside, it's easy to imagine companies adapting to workers' increased efficiency without feeling the need to dole out higher pay.
In terms of conclusions your business can draw from PwC's data, it really boils down to three things.
First, you may have to expect more people to leave this next year than you previously thought. That will drive up the need for more hiring, including possibly appealing to younger Gen-Z staff, who have a different set of workplace expectations than older employees.
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Second, your workers are likely already expecting to use AI tech to smooth the unwanted or tedious edges off their workload--so if you haven't done so already, give them appropriate AI tools.
Finally, PwC's data showed that job satisfaction isn't enough to keep staff in their roles--many want to work for companies that actively seek to increase their skillsets. If you're already employing talented people, make sure you have an employee development plan underway, and make sure that they're not getting burned out by the ever-faster rate of change of the workplace.
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