The Great Resignation?

BACK in the days before we were all forced to work remotely, the idea of working from home was, at best, a relished fantasy for office workers weary of the grind.

But what we perhaps did not realise was how starved of human interaction we would come to be, as the Covid-19 pandemic dragged on, variant after variant.

For Ong Kai Ling, working away from the office for an extended period - in the early months of the pandemic and the "circuit-breaker" - prompted an uncomfortable realisation: she loved her colleagues, but she didn't love her work.

"It's things I don't notice when we're in the office because the camaraderie of the colleagues keeps me going. But then when everything is just online, I realised that when I take away those social interactions and all that, I don't really like the job that much - so why am I still in it?" says Ong, who was working for a public relations (PR) firm at that time.

Singapore's "circuit-breaker" period, an 8-week partial lockdown that started in April 2020, also proved extremely busy as companies sought PR services, often with "urgent" deadlines, says Ong.

Yet something about handling PR for lifestyle brands right in the middle of a public health crisis did not sit well with Ong.

"I do acknowledge that we do need all these things as well because life cannot just be about survival. It's just that when you're doing that, and you have your clients chasing you at 1 am or 12 midnight, I'm thinking, 'Really, does it matter? There are people dying in a hospital here'," Ong says.

This prompted a bout of soul-searching for Ong on what she wanted in life. She decided that her next gig should be one that has a purpose and meaning, has a positive impact on society, and is preferably recession-proof.

Ong left her job shortly after and found a new role as director of marketing and business development at The School of Positive Psychology, a private training facility that focuses on mental well-being and building resilience.

It is a practice that has resonated with Ong, particularly at a time when many people have been "languishing" amid the bleakness of the pandemic.

"We all know a lot of people who're not doing okay, but often that 'not okay' is not so bad that they are clinically diagnosed as depressed," she says. "So part of what I do is actually educating the public on what exactly positive psychology is and the many applications of it."

And despite the small pay cut, Ong has no regrets: "I'm still using the skillsets I was using then in my current job as well, but I think it helps that because I'm now working for something which I feel has a greater purpose, it really makes a difference."

Shifting priorities

Ong is not alone in making a reassessment of her life goals. In an October study by software company Oracle and human resources research firm Workplace Intelligence, 93 per cent of over 1,000 Singapore professionals surveyed used the past year to reflect on their lives, and 92 per cent said the meaning of success has changed for them since the pandemic.

Their top priorities? Work-life balance, mental health and workplace flexibility.

A separate study by survey tool designer Qualtrics released last month found that 58 per cent of about 1,000 Singapore employees plan to look for a new job next year, with reasons such as growth opportunities and improving work-life balance ranking ahead of salary.

That the pandemic should force a rethink of one's priorities comes as no surprise to Paul Heng, founder of NeXT Career Consulting Group.

"This pandemic is life-altering and reminds me of the aftermath of 9/11," he said, referring to the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. "Almost overnight, people came to the awakening that there is more to life than work.

"Priorities were shifted, career-decisions changed, and basically it prompted people to make decisions based on (the idea that) 'I may not even be here tomorrow'."

This trend has hints of the Great Resignation currently taking place in the United States and several European countries, although some watchers believe what Singapore is seeing is less pronounced.

Quit rates in the US reached a record 3 per cent in September this year, with 4.4 million workers resigning, according to the US Labor Department.

Common reasons cited for switching jobs include better compensation and work-life balance as well as career advancement opportunities, according to research by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in Virginia.

A third of workers desire to make a career change, in what SHRM chief knowledge officer Alex Alonso has termed "the Covid clarity", as people come to realise what they are looking for.

For now, Singapore's resignation rate compiled by the Ministry of Manpower held fairly steady in the first 2 quarters of 2021 at 1.6 per cent, after hitting a trough of 1.2 per cent in Q2 last year.

Singapore University of Social Sciences economist Walter Theseira says this data indicates there is no evidence of the Great Resignation at the aggregate level.

While some Singaporeans may have been inspired by the Great Resignation to find a greater degree of self-fulfilment, practical concerns - such as having to provide for one's family - mean the majority are not in a position to do so, he adds.

But anecdotally, career coaches at the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) say they are seeing an increasing number of clients who are currently employed, which was not the case before the pandemic hit.

The agency sees 2 main groups of workers. The first, workers who have lost their jobs due to retrenchment and/or restructuring, used to form the bulk of its clients.

The second group consists of working professionals who choose to resign, having lost their sense of fulfilment. In the past, such individuals comprised fewer than 40 per cent of e2i's clients, the agency estimates. Since it started tracking these numbers in the last 2 months, they now make up nearly half their clients.

"Working from home has strained workers as they juggle family and work responsibilities," says Gilbert Tan, chief executive of e2i, which is part of the National Trades Union Congress. "Facing difficulties in achieving work-life balance, some decide to make a career change with the hope of improving their lives. They search for career fulfilment and work flexibility."

Mansi Sabharwal, reward products leader at Mercer Singapore, notes that the gradual rise in resignations in Singapore over the past year has also been accompanied by an uptick in hiring.

Still, employers need to look beyond the attrition rate and consider the pace at which they are losing people as well as the challenge in filling those gaps at the same pace.

"As of now, there are more leavers than joiners for most of the companies surveyed. There is still a significant gap to fill and the gap will continue to grow until border restrictions are lifted and the economy reopens," Sabharwal says.

The new normal

Jaya Dass, managing director at Randstad Malaysia and Singapore, believes one reason the US saw a spike in resignations this year was that employers took a black-and-white approach, expecting workers to return to work in exactly the way things used to be pre-pandemic.

"Had Covid-19 ended maybe in August or September of last year, it'd be a very different story. In a couple of months, you would just go back to what it used to be, because you were in a hold-and-wait mode, a kind of hiatus.

"But what happened is, as it continued through the year and we've now adjusted to this life, this actually feels normal in a weird way," Dass says.

The silver lining, she says, is that people have accepted that the past will not return. "And everybody you speak to will tell you: 'I actually want some of my life back from what it used to be, but I don't want to lose the benefits that I learnt or understood. Whether I found it accidentally or deliberately doesn't matter. It's arrived and we shouldn't let this go, because this has allowed me to focus on my life in a whole other way."

In Singapore, Dass notes, while the government has allowed workers to return to the office, this has not happened for an extended period of time as Covid-19 restrictions have fluctuated with surges and declines in case numbers.

"It's been too short-lived each time we go back in, so I don't think the workforce has felt the full impact of - what should I say? - bad employers," says Dass.

But if some kind of sustained reopening takes place next year, Dass expects resignation rates could start to inch up towards mid-year, as workers contemplate how and where they want to work.

The future of work

The question then is how companies should evolve to minimise disruption and avoid a talent drain. In a worst-case scenario, the departure of disenchanted employees could pile more work on those who do remain, affecting their productivity and morale or even setting off a string of resignations.

"If an organisation is empathetic in its approach, it'll find its way. But it stems from whether fundamentally, you believe that you need to offer (something) different and better," says Dass.

Offering flexible work is one immediately obvious solution, and employers should be willing to give people the freedom of choosing when to work at home and at the office, says Dass. If anything, the last two years are proof that employees can be "treated like an adult" and still deliver the work.

Indeed, a poll by Robert Walters released this week found that 54 per cent of Singapore employees prefer to work in the office for at least 2 to 3 days in a week, while a third say they are likely to decline a job that requires full attendance in the office.

As to why a hybrid work arrangement is preferred, nearly two-thirds say they enjoy the sense of belonging and inclusion in the office environment, while nearly 4 in 10 say they want to be given a choice to come into the office.

But especially at a time when the workplace can feel "impersonal", the basic principles of engagement are all the more important in creating a welcoming environment that can sustain employees' motivation for the long term, says Janice Foo, head of people at KPMG in Singapore.

This means creating a sense of belonging among employees and helping them identify with the culture and values of the company. Managers should also reach out constantly to help team mates interact with one another, whether virtually or physically, she adds.

In the future of work, the difference is how these principles are executed, Foo says.

"Professional development moves online, but this simply means employees can access great learning and networking across the globe, rather than only in one country. Job attachments are still possible with rotations facilitated where possible, despite travel restrictions," she says.

At the same time, employees should continue to be made to feel recognised and affirmed for their contributions.

For employees like Ong who are willing to take a pay cut to do something that fulfils a higher purpose, offering more money is a short-lived solution at best, watchers say.

Sabharwal says: "While monetary measures are quick and easy solutions, the combined effect of increased replacement hiring and salary adjustments to retain talent will increase people costs for employers. Without any material gains in productivity, this can lead to wage inflation and pressure on margins for many organisations in the long run."

Instead, even as employees do their own soul-searching to find a purpose during the pandemic, companies would do well to re-examine their purpose too.

John Wood, in his 2017 book Purpose, Incorporated, argues that having a strong sense of purpose is critical in making a business successful, and in ways that directly affect the bottom line.

This is not least because it will help to motivate its employee base, inspire them to recruit new talent and lower attrition among the company's "superstars", he says.

"Win the war for talent by attracting the best and the brightest, especially those who have a strong desire to make their community and the world a better place."