#jobs #employers #employees #coronavirus #COVID19 #FlattenTheCurve #NewNormal  #leverage
Gail has a job that was vital to her company’s operation.
The job is low level and low paying, relative to the stress and responsibility it imposed on her.
Gail wins a big lottery jackpot. She tells her company that, instead of instinctively quitting on the spot, she would stay until her replacement is hired and properly trained. In the end, Gail wanted to be paid her regular salary for that time, and, at the end, be paid for the unused vacation time she had earned.
The company said no. Gail walked. Gail had leverage. The company resented that leverage. (Read: employer cuts off nose to spite face.)
In short, this dispute was not about money. It was about power.
Today’s labor market is in turmoil. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended most normal operations.
There are many available jobs, yet relatively high unemployment. Employers say the dichotomy is caused by “excessive government benefits” that “pay people to stay home.”
If it were only that simple. Certainly, the benefits the government provided to cushion the effects on working people whose situations were completely destroyed by the pandemic have helped those workers make tough decisions.
Employers are trying to force normalcy, and want to create some sense of – for lack of a better word — desperation to bring back the employees they had to furlough. That would give them leverage.
Employees have many more decisions to make. First, since schools are trying to reopen normally, one COVID outbreak could shut down a class, or a school, instantly. (Having everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated – by whatever means — would be a big help). Does a parent go back to work and leave a child at home to “go to school remotely” on his or her own? (Many day-care alternatives dried up during the pandemic.) Does that parent want to risk getting ill by going back to a job, among the maskless unvaccinated, at which safety measures are not necessarily assured? (A worker is no good to anyone when hospitalized, or worse.)
It’s complicated. It’s forcing employers to be more innovative about their work places and work rules. It’s forcing employees to make harder choices: is it WORTH going back to work?
Adding to the complications is job availability. If a worker spent a career at Position X, but a different Position Y offers better pay, more flexibility and more safety, he or she is likely to choose Position Y, presuming he or she is qualified for it.
Where does that leave the employer of Position X? He or she can either complain about employees “being paid to stay home,” or find a way to get those employees, or new ones, back. It may require creativity, thinking outside the box and/or thinking less about himself, or herself, and more about the future of his or her business.
For employees, there are potentially oodles of options, some of which also may require creativity and thinking outside the box. If you are someone like Gail, without the big lottery jackpot in hand, there are ways to create a potentially lucrative income that involve spending a few, part-time, off-job hours a week pursuing something you may have never thought you would do. No specific education, experience or background is required. These are non-government programs that can potentially give you leverage with your employer.
To check out one of the best such programs, message me.
Meanwhile, we all have to figure out what the “new normal” will be. We have to learn lessons from this episode so that we are better prepared for the next one.
And, there WILL be a next one.
As had been said before, if you – employer — pay them properly, ensure their safety, provide flexibility and understanding in difficult situations and mitigate fear of sudden furlough, they will come. They will work.
If you don’t, they won’t. And you can’t force them.
Peter