There’s a lot to unpack with the ‘Great Resignation’

 

The nation’s “Great Resignation” – peaking last November with 4.5 million Americans quitting their jobs, according to the Labor Department – was triggered by several factors, according to several studies, not the least of which was fear of unsafe working conditions.

 

As Workers Memorial Day is marked April 28 – remembering those who’ve been injuried, made ill, or killed on the job – concerns for workplace safety and the consequences of loss also are paramount.

 

Most workers who quit jobs last year cite low pay or no opportunities for advancement (both 63%), according to a February survey by Pew Research. About half say child-care issues were a reason they quit a job (48% among those with a child younger than 18 in the household). A similar share point to a lack of flexibility to choose when they put in their hours (45%) or not having good benefits such as health insurance and paid time off (43%).

 

Besides lousy pay, concern for safety shows in survey results demonstrating dissatisfaction with hours worked and disrespect by management.

 

And about 4 in 10 workers blamed the hours employers demanded they work.

 

“Many other workers sought a career change out of fear of returning to an unsafe workplace,” wrote Eric Michrowski for Forbes Business Council. “Much focus and attention have been placed on employee engagement and job conditions, which are critically important, yet little attention has been placed on safety and safety culture.”

 

“Despite all the progress that’s been made in safety over the years, in the U.S., nearly 14 workers died every day in workplace fatalities in 2020, and a fatal accident happened every 111 minutes,” continued Michrowski, a business consultant. “Results of a study done by MIT Sloan Management Review have proven that ‘a toxic corporate culture is by far the strongest predictor of industry-adjusted attrition and is 10 times more important than compensation in predicting turnover.’ Not only that, but the fifth top predictor of turnover in their study was a substandard response to COVID-19 and a lack of policies addressing the health and well-being of employees.”

 

Indeed, Pew Research’s Kim Parker and Juliana Menasce Horowitz conceded,  “When asked separately whether their reasons for quitting a job were related to the coronavirus outbreak, 31% say they were.”

At a January rally in front of the Edwardsville, Ill., warehouse that collapsed during a storm, Jeffrey Hebb said, “My daughter was not expendable.”

 

Etheria Hebb, 34, was killed when the walls collapsed on workers who remained inside.

“Amazon was supposed to keep them safe,” her dad continued. “They didn’t do that. How does a company worth over $1 trillion let this happen?”

 

One way such companies do that is preventing  workers from organizing.

 

Union jobs are safer, according to a study from the Ontario Construction Secretariat (OCS), a joint labor-management group representing more than 100,000 members of the building trades.

 

Their study demonstrates that lost-time claims at unionized job sites are 31% lower than non-union workplaces.

 

“When our well-trained electrical tradesmen and women work smart and follow the proper safety rules and procedures, they help ensure that every worker on that job site gets to go home safe at the end of each working day,” said IBEW First District International Vice President Tom Reid. “We’re pleased to see this report back up our real-world experience, but it should really come as little surprise to the members of our union.”

 

That MIT Sloan Management Review study Michrowski mentioned, which explained some reasons why millions of Americans left their workplaces last year, neglected another key reason, according to Meghan Riordan Jarvis, a therapist and author of the forthcoming “End of the Hour” memoir: “grief, loss or death.”

 

Workers “had lost jobs, financial stability, trips, relationships, health, spirituality and loved ones,” Jarvis said. “They reported low mood, changes in appetite, brain fog, poor memory, helplessness and hopelessness, and a pressing need to reevaluate how they spend their time, money and caring.

 

“Shouldn’t it be obvious that 6 million deaths worldwide from COVID-19 might affect how we feel about work and the workplace?” she added. “Are we so afraid to face grief and loss we can’t even name it?”