I have been following human capital issue(s) for some time, first as a corporate world employee for 20+ years and now as an advisor to business owners.
Today, while reading another article on demystifying “labor shortage” I came across the following piece, which lays out 13 reasons for the current problem.
However, as any good advisor would do, I thought of proposing some solutions for two of those 13 reasons and look forward to a healthy debate from my readers.
1. People want more money – As per the article, “Wages have been on the rise as employers scramble to lure in workers, but after decades of declining wages, economist Heidi Shierholz of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute argues that gains are still just catching up with pandemic losses.”
Business owners with pricing flexibility should be able to provide those higher wages. However, those who can’t afford to run a profitable business due to this wage pressure will have to consider alternative sources of productivity through automation and outsourcing back-office tasks.
2. Workers are questioning if they even like their jobs – On this point, the article quotes, “According to an Indeed survey of about 1,000 people who “voluntarily resigned from at least two jobs since March 2020,” most of them (92%) said, “the pandemic made them feel life is too short to stay in a job they weren’t passionate about.”
Small business owners often have a very strong mission and vision in mind, and often the employees are not aware of that mission and vision as the business owners cannot take time out to discuss and reinforce it. The mission and vision conversation should be part of every employee engagement, from the initial interviews to every meaningful interaction where a business owner explains “Why” is s/he in business. Many resignations due to the missing passion are the tip of the iceberg as it is a much bigger productivity problem, affecting all employees even if they have not resigned yet.
I look forward to discussing the other 11 reasons in a subsequent article but keeping this short and look forward to your comments.
