LOCKDOWN LESSONS- THE GREAT RESIGNATION AND ITS IMPACT ON MANAGEMENT

Ahead of the second anniversary of the first COVID-19 Lockdowns, WorkL For Business has published a report into the current state of employee engagement globally, Lockdown Lessons, and it’s those working in Management who are struggling most.

The data is taken from WorkL’s free Happy at Work Test which has now been taken by over 250,000 individuals and 23,000 organisations globally. The results reveal that the impact of the recent ‘Great Resignation’, when employers were sent back to the office resulting in employees leaving for more flexible job roles, has impacted the happiness of Management teams.

Despite overall employee happiness increasing during the pandemic, peaking in early to mid 2021, there has been a narrowing of happiness for Management over the past two years scoring poorly for Flight Risk, Wellbeing Risk, Net Promoter Score and overall happiness. Confidence in Management also fell overall from August 2021 to January 2022 reflecting Management’s decreasing happiness.

The Founder of WorkL For Business is the former Trade Minister and former Managing Director of Waitrose, Lord Mark Price, who comments;
“Confidence in management fell overall from August 2021 to January of this year and this is important to measure as this directly impacts the whole team and ultimately, productivity and profitability. Research shows that happy and engaged employees drive 20% improvement in profits, productivity and reduce employees’ sick absence and staff turnover. Employers must focus on retaining and stimulating those in Management, by continual learning and development.”

The report also reveals the happiest and unhappiest industries to work in and once again, it’s the Technology sector that has been the happiest industry for the most part during the pandemic, scoring 74%. The Entertainment and Media industry has seen the biggest fall in happiness since the start of the pandemic, by 6%.

In recent months, the Flight Risk and Wellbeing Risk gap between disabled and non-disabled employees has increased. Disabled and LGBTQ+ workers have been consistently less happy throughout the past two years.

Female flight risk has fallen considerably throughout the pandemic along with those in Non-Management whose risk has significantly decreased (-18%), however Management flight risk has increased by a single point reflecting their decreasing happiness score during the pandemic.

The age group least likely to leave their jobs is 45-54 year olds whose Flight Risk has decreased the most, aligning with the increase in their overall happiness score.

Pay plays a big part in Reward and Recognition for employees and the recent results published by the Trade Union Congress reveal that women work on average for free for two months of the year compared to men. WorkL’s latest data on the question ‘I am fairly paid’ corroborates the results. Women score lower on this question compared to men over the last two years. There are just four months in this time when women and men scored themselves the same.

Women currently score 67% on this question compared to men scoring 68%. This is 5% higher when comparing women at the beginning of the pandemic where this score dramatically dropped to 59% in May 2020 when in contrast, men’s scores rose to 65%. This can be contributed to the fact that women were the main caregivers during the pandemic, whilst also having to continue working.

Age had a lot to do with how well employees coped with working and being in Lockdown. Two demographics that have undoubtedly been hit hardest by the pandemic is 35-44 and 65+. Parents balancing home-schooling and working from home were immensely impacted by lockdown and isolation. Those people nearing the end of their careers were one of the hardest hit by redundancies when the pandemic first hit and have most likely found it hard to retrain or find new work.

And finally, the debate between working from home and the office continues and WorkL can today reveal that employees working from home are happier than those who continue to work in the workspace.