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How The Great Resignation Forced Companies To Fight For Their Staff

• January 21, 2022

Recently there has been such a shortage in staff across the UK, some professionals have been requesting pay rises when they move roles.

Some of these professionals want up to a 20% increase in their wages.

These demands have been put into action with some newly qualified lawyers already earning £150,000 as a starting salary!

This kind of wage is a direct result of the extremely competitive talent that coincides with those in tech, law and professional services.

As a result of the ‘great reshuffle’ as it is being coined, UK workers are more likely to take advantage of the situation they are being presented with to switch roles, getting a better salary and a new job too.

There has been research done into this which found that 84% of workers are considering changing their careers, with 71% of those asked stating that they would think about quitting if the company failed to offer them flexible working.

According to Alan Bannatyne, the chief financial officer at Robert Walters, some companies are even doubling their salaries in order to compete with other companies due to the heightened competition that staff shortages come with.

As a result of all of this new information and increased demand for staff, UK workers could be in for a very beneficial year.

Due to this sudden influx in wages, some companies simply just cannot match these higher offers. Not all companies are in as advantageous positions as others and would struggle to pay as highly as their competitors.

This newly competitive wage is not only seen in the higher paying sectors of the working world, supermarkets are beginning to follow suit too.

Last week Sainsbury’s upped their workers’ pay to at least £10 an hour, having seen how other chains like Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi have made similar moves and so needed to compete with their wages in order to keep their staff happy and loyal.

Experts have stated that it is the best time in 50 years to look for a new job. It is a rarity but the scales are now leaning in the jobseeker’s favour, they have a lot more influence over the working world and now hold all the cards, hence the increasing wages across the countries and across all job sectors. January typically is a month of high hiring percentages in the UK anyway, so this statistic paired with this being the best time in 50 years to look for a new job, now is the perfect time for the UK working world to get their dream job and wage.

This was all brought on by the ‘Great Resignation’ as companies scrambled to look more and more appealing to replenish their dwindling staff and now the staff are getting what they want and deserve from this wage growth.

This trend of handing in your notices is also mirrored in the USA wherein millions of them have resigned in recent months. Is this going to be a new worldwide norm?

Over lockdown people have reflected on their working lives. They are seeing what is right and what is wrong with their working lifestyle and so are looking to change that by whatever means possible.

It is now or never for some people and so the trend in resignations began, which then forced the trend in raised wages. If this has happened in the UK and there are similar trends emerging for resignations across the world, will the end result be better wages for staff all over the planet?

One thing that seems to be keeping resignations from reaching even greater heights is down to the community of the workplace and the reality of work best friends. According to research women with a best friend at work were more than twice as likely to be engaged with their work. Also, more generally a sense of community in the office helps companies keep their staff.

It is also being advised that companies drop the necessity for their candidates to have experience in the area that the job advertisement is requesting. Doing so only isolates a huge pool of workers who could do the job well with a bit of training.

Companies should instead focus on a candidate’s personality or work ethic then offer up the opportunity to train the candidates. This way the company would not deter amazing workers from signing up and can ensure that they are being trained to do the tasks in a way that works best for the company itself, rather than with whatever habits an experienced worker may already have.