The News Journal featured a rather unusual article yesterday about the decline of worker morale and loyalty with the new corporate culture of cut, cut, cut.
The fallout from the strained employee-employer relationship can be seen in several key ways.
» Workers are networking aggressively, not for fun but because they fear they could lose their jobs.
» Workers are taking fewer professional risks in the workplace, and that lack of innovation may hurt both workers’ career prospects and companies’ bottom line.
» Workers are increasingly ready to jump ship to new jobs. Positions are scarce now, but when the economy heals, companies may risk an exodus of talent. In one 2011 study, more than one in three workers hoped to be employed by a different company in the next 12 months, and fewer than half felt a strong sense of loyalty to their employer.
Americans tend to see themselves through rose-colored glasses. We see ourselves as the land of opportunity where an immigrant can rise up through hard work to become a millionaire. Recent studies have shown this is no longer true for America, and economic opportunity is worse than for most other developed countries.
I have never lived through a time when most people stayed at one company for their entire career. People move jobs more often and our benefits have been cut significantly. How many people do you know who are going to get an actual pension when they retire (if they can even afford to retire)?
The question I have is how long this situation will continue. Will there be a new worker’s rights movement?