Dive Brief:

• Employees and job seekers alike feel "newly empowered" at work and in job hunting, according to a Dec. 16 report released by Randstad USA. Nearly 3 in 4 American respondents said they felt they could make changes to their work-life balance and 84% said they have reassessed how work fits into their lives.
• In response, more than half of workers surveyed said they were looking for a new job because they did not feel "fairly rewarded for their work;" 60% surveyed also said they took inspiration from their peers to make a job change, despite reporting high levels of satisfaction with their current jobs in the second half of 2021, Randstad USA said.
• Employee expectations of employers have also changed, Randstad USA said. Compensation and benefits remain a top consideration for workers. Workers also said they needed more training and professional development to stay relevant in today’s market.                    

Dive Insight:

The Great Resignation has prompted serious consideration from employers and employees alike about how the workplace should look in the post-pandemic era.

Randstad USA is not the only company to notice employee interest in their own empowerment; in Lattice survey results published in August, nearly half of those surveyed said they were looking for a new job that provided growth opportunities. Younger workers were especially likely to say as much. Similarly, Monster survey results published in July found 95% of workers surveyed were considering changing jobs — many of them open to switching industries to do so.

 As the Randstad USA results show, peer pressure of a sort could be encouraging workers to reconsider their options. But that could be especially true if workers are forced to pick up the slack of co-workers quitting en masse, a Society for Human Resource Management survey suggested. Employees left behind reported taking on more work and responsibilities in the wake of the Great Resignation, and many reported wondering if they were underpaid. Workers who were job searching cited better compensation, better work-life balance and better benefits as the top drivers for doing so.

Another SHRM survey noted that the pandemic pushed employers to offer more benefits supporting physical and emotional well-being — including caregiver leave and mental health services.