Business owners are feeling the squeeze of the job market going nuts. People demand working from home – and because numerous companies from all over the world are hiring here in the Philippines, salaries are increasing AND people are demanding less work too – hiding under the guise of work-life balance and mental health welfare.
So we are looking at a workforce that wants more money, plus they want less work, plus they are not willing to go to the office to get to know their peers and their leadership better.
That makes for a very, very bad job pool some time in the future. For now, this is what’s happening. Someday perhaps a year or two from now they will be the bottom-feeders of the job market.
This is because there are new people who are just about to graduate from school – who has not been through the slog of the pandemic changes at work – and they do not share the entitlements bred in the minds of the current workforce individuals who were given the gracious benefit of working from home to prevent them from getting COVID.
What the Job Market Has REALLY Lost to the Pandemic
Yes we have lost people – relatives, friends, even family members. But I believe what the job market has lost in itself aside from those close relationships is its own heart. We have lost the ability to show concern to others in our work (in Tagalog: malasakit) Employees have stuck to the comforts of working from home – but comfort is not the catalyst and herald of growth.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Growth is lost when people get comfortable. Because right next to comfort is complacency.
Now that employees at large in the job market is forcing the hands of many business owners (and some business owners do give way because they have little options) they are in danger of falling into a pit of their own design. They demanded comfort – soon they will fall into complacency. Then they will ultimately make themselves dispensable.
Businesses who are looking at the long-term and who are dead-set to building the best possible culture are feeling the squeeze right now – but if we stick to our guns and know that it will work out in the end for us (better than other businesses who crumble to the squeeze and give way to the employees’ comfort-seeking demands).
And yes there is an end to all this – when finally the world wakes up that companies who keep their culture strong and in-tact with face-to-face relationships are ultimately way better than companies who are working completely from home.
Because companies are made up of individuals and work is a very real part of our lives that we need to take care of. Work does not just take care of us by paying the bills – we need to take care of it too by realizing that we play a critical part and role in our teams and organizations and we need to give it the best we have.
I just hope that the tides turn sooner than later.
