A couple of days ago, Bloomberg posted an editorial about a rather troubling situation that tends to grow more and more within companies - management has no idea that their employees are unhappy and are ready to abort the ship.
Recently, Microsoft surveyed 30000 employees to find out how they feel about their current situation. We find the results to be very alarming. If you look at their statistics, more than half of the employees (54%) claim to be overworked, while on the other side, 61% of the leaders consider their business to be thriving. These statistics highlight that management is disconnected from their employees' well-being.
Now, the reason for this contradictory situation is a simple one. Because of the pandemic, people have more flexible schedules, not the classic 9 to 5. Our take is that leaders are taking advantage of this. They are pinging their team at odd hours. So, from their point of view, the business is thriving. But at what cost? Well, to the employees’ happiness, who feel exhausted and are looking for new employment - 41% of surveyed employees consider leaving their jobs.
However, working overtime is not the only thing that makes people unhappy with their job.
Staying isolated from their colleagues creates stress, especially within Gen Z, where FOMO (the fear of missing out) has started to be a real psychological issue. And when applying even more pressure to a person who already needs support, that might be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
As a leader in an organization, the power is in your hands to address this dire situation. A solution is to take the time to understand the root cause of your teams’ unhappiness and action on the insights. This is one big step to ensure that you have a healthy team that stays with your company.
