My economics colleagues at the Murphy Center have been exploring some of the timely labor market trends we have been seeing in the post-vaccine economy. They have adeptly explained the economic shifts we are experiencing and explained why these shifts might have occurred. I would like to extend this line of thinking from a policy perspective — not public policy, but business policy.
A March 2021 survey (Pulse of the American Worker Survey: Is This Working? A Year In, Workers Adapting to Tomorrow’s Workplace) looked at the new remote workforce to understand where businesses need to focus their policies moving forward. While businesses may be keen to resume fulltime, in-person operations, the workforce seems to have other ideas that will undoubtedly have to be considered if companies wish to retain talent.
The American Worker Survey found that 73% of all workers say employers should continue to offer and expand remote-work options even after the pandemic is over. This number was even higher among those who have been working remotely throughout the pandemic (83%). Forty-two percent of those same workers who have been working remotely during the pandemic also indicated that if their employer does not continue to offer an option to work from home, they will quit and look for a more flexible company.
These staggering numbers are likely related to the age demographics of American workers today. According to the Pew Research Center, millennials (ages 25-40) are currently the largest generation in the workforce. Among millennials in the American Worker Survey, 1 in 3 reported that they plan to look for a new job with a different employer once the pandemic is no longer an issue. Only a quarter of Gen-Xers and 10% of baby boomers reported the same.
These numbers align with a recent New York Times article on the new YOLO (you only live once) economy. In the article, technology columnist Kevin Roose explains that millennials have enjoyed rising asset prices and stabilizing savings that have emboldened them to re-evaluate their careers and view job flexibility as another kind of benefit. Just as they would consider health care benefits as an important factor in job choice, flexibility is increasingly becoming less negotiable for them. In fact, in Care.com’s recent report The Future of Benefits, 500 human resource leaders and decision-makers across the U.S. were asked about the kinds of benefits they plan to increase, decrease, or change. Nearly all (98%) of the respondents indicated that they planned to newly offer or expand the benefits workers deem most essential: child and senior care or flexibility in work arrangements.
Even in our own field of higher education, where a sense of place has typically been seen as essential, faculty and staff job candidates are already identifying flexible work as a key job issue according to leaders within the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR). These leaders further warn that failing to offer flexibility could lead to a “turnover tsunami” on college campuses. Higher Ed has lost at least 570,000 workers since the start of the pandemic through both layoffs and voluntary departure. Colleges and Universities will have to compete not just within the field now, but with other industries who are willing to offer flexibility as a benefit.
As businesses start returning to more normal operations in the coming months, it seems clear that talent recruitment and retention is going to be more important than ever. And if that recruitment/retention strategy includes millennial workers, forward-thinking businesses need to start having serious conversations about the role of remote work in their culture and operations.
Reg Murphy Center