Voluntary redundancy in Spain
La Voz
The wave of the "great resignation" in the United States does not hit Spain
SHAWN THEW
Less than 90,000 Spanish workers submitted their voluntary leave in 2021, a figure below pre-pandemic levels, although experts warn of a generational clash in companies seeking a better working environment
Jan 30, 2022. Updated at 05:00 hrs.WhatsappMailFacebookTwitterComment ·In November, more than 4.5 million American workers submitted resignation letters to their bosses and left their jobs of their own accord. The figure, published last week by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, exceeds the casualties of the previous month by almost 370,000 and fuels a wave of resignations that began after the hardest months of the pandemic and that has been dubbed the "great resignation" (or the "great resignation").
Behind the data there is a very profound movement, which not only has to do with widespread discontent with increasingly precarious working conditions, or with an attempt to take advantage of the slowdown caused by the pandemic to reinvent themselves at a professional level. A study by the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT Sloan, concludes that the main cause of this labor exodus is the toxic environment in many companies, far ahead of salary conditions.
Hence, the wave of resignations equally affects companies in sectors with low added value and less qualified profiles, such as clothing retail or fast food chains (which saw the resignation between April and September of last year 19 and 11% of their workforces, respectively), than to others with highly trained profiles, such as management consulting (16%) and ICT (14%).
For Carlos Royo, a professor in the Department of People Management and Organization at Esade, there is yet another factor: a real generational clash between the baby boom generation, still predominant in company management, and that of the millennials , who are the protagonists of this transformation of the labor market. The former "have been educated in values such as effort, sacrifice or physical presence" and it is difficult for them to make that transition that the youngest demand to improve the work environment in organizations, a transition that often is not undertaken until it is completed. understands the positive impact it can have on the income statement.
Different work culture
Although this generational tension is not exclusive to the United States, for the moment the wave of the great resignation has not reached Spain. This is at least what the Social Security data indicates, which shows that in 2021 only 87,327 Spanish wage-earners (10% of those who lost their jobs last year) submitted their voluntary leave. Although there are 25,000 more resignations than in the previous year (very marked by the months of home confinement) the figure is below pre-pandemic levels (almost 9% less than in 2019) and barely accounts for half of the 158,000 resignations presented. in 2007, at the height of the housing bubble.
Of course, then, as Maica Bouza, head of Employment at CC.OO.-Galicia, recalls, Spain enjoyed the lowest unemployment rates in recent history, which made the transition to another job much easier and there were thousands people who changed jobs, many of them towards the construction sector, while now "we are at a critical moment and with more precariousness than ever." For the trade unionist, the differences between the Spanish and American markets, but also the different work cultures and even the difficulties for labor mobility, explain why this wave of resignations has not occurred in Spain.
Effort to attract talent
What is detected, explains Bartolomé Pidal, president of Nortempo, one of the leading companies in labor intermediation, is "that people seek to balance work with their personal life, it is a global movement that is being seen even in China". And, faced with this scenario, he warns, "companies have to make an effort to attract and capture", especially in sectors with such a demand for personnel that "there are profiles that are like soccer players, they can allow themselves to select where they want to work".
Carlos Royo is clear that we are facing a "paradigm shift" that buries the dialectic of union struggle and all the scaffolding on which labor relations in companies are now built, such as collective agreements. "Talent will have power," explains the professor, who believes that in many sectors it will be the law of supply and demand that will end up forcing companies to improve working conditions.
In this sense, the Esade expert emphasizes the need to renew the “psychological contract”, which is the name given to this bond that, in the form of commitments and expectations, the company and the worker acquire in their employment relationship and that, unlike the working day or salary, is not specified in the contract or the agreement. Thus, it stands out that although salary is key to motivating an employee, it only has an effect during the first years of belonging to the company and that, once consolidated, and if there are no relevant increases, it ceases to be a motivating factor, Therefore, it is necessary to bet on improving the quality of life of employees, with conciliation policies such as teleworking.
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