Career and lifestyle shifts drive up resignation rates
More from Cebu’s workforce are leaving their existing jobs to venture into ‘greener pastures’ as priorities and lifestyles shifted following the pandemic.
A study conducted by Cebu-based online job-bulletin-board Mynimo.com revealed that 42 percent of professionals resigned from their jobs or planning to quit their work in 90 days or less.
Mynimo.com surveyed 4500 Cebu-based workers, of which 1,890 from across 58 sectors, said they were leaving their jobs soon.
“The jobs with the highest resignation rates are jobs that have proven to be very demanding to carry out, especially during the lockdowns," Chief executive officer and president of Mynimo.com, Wesley Chiongbian, said.
Call Center agents working for the Business Process Management (BPM) sector, ranked first in the jobs that have the highest resignation rate followed by Accounting and Finance professionals and Admin, Office, and Clerical staff in third place.
Sales, Marketing, and Retail ranked fourth while Production and Manufacturing ranked fifth.
Lack of good company benefits, limited career growth, “underpaid”, under-valued and employers’ inability to provide work-life balance are among the top reasons why employees are leaving their current jobs.
The changed lifestyle and working dynamics introduced by the pandemic, prompted the working class to seek more agile jobs which allow to them to
indulge in true work-life balance.
These employees who are leaving their current jobs revealed that the roles in their companies don’t offer don't offer work-fromhome arrangements, and the additional challenge of commuting to work daily is contributing to the employees' desire to seek other employment opportunities, Chiongbian explained.
Because of this, Chiongbian urged employers to consider in changing the way they engage to their workers.
Aside from providing competitive salaries and benefits, companies should be more sensitive to the needs of each employee to be able to retain them. It’s becoming more evident that the “one size fits all” approach of the past is no longer the best practice for retention,” he added.
Employers will need to address each employee's individual concerns, to keep them committed to the company and engaged in their work, he cited.
“This is the best way to retain and attract talent moving forward,” Chiongbian said.
WORK FROM HOME
When the Covid-19 pandemic forced companies to shift to a work from home (WFH) set-up, it became a gamechanger among industries of not only sustaining operations but also retaining their employees.
“The option to work from home or, more appropriately, work remotely will be here to stay. This is as long as the people who do so prove to be just as, if not more, productive than if they worked at the office,” he said.
Chiongbian added that companies need to keep in mind that they will have to implement new business practices and policies to make their remote working arrangements sustainable.
He said the WFH setup proved to have more pros than cons as shown in the statistics of Mynimo’s salary report which the company is targeting to release for subscription by May 20, 2022.
“When working from home, time is no longer wasted traveling everyday from our homes to our offices and vice versa. This significantly reduces daily stress, which can have great long term benefits. This has also made business meetings more efficient as companies, and even government offices, have gotten used to video conferencing. Instead of having to travel out of town just for a one-hour meeting, we can just get on Zoom,” he said.
However, Chiongbian believes that both the employer and the employee have to realize that not all “homes” are conducive to work in.
“If there are multiple people working from the same home, plus a child doing remote learning at the same time, this can affect productivity significantly. The stability and capacity of the home’s internet connection will also be a primary factor. And most importantly, mental health will need to be carefully addressed for this type of work arrangement,” he said.