Assurant employee benefits

Quiet quitting is a buzzword for slacking or taking your foot off the gas pedal at work. Doing the bare minimum. Doing nothing more than meeting expectations. The concept is nothing new.

In a recent Gallup poll, “quiet quitters” make up at least 50% of the U.S. workforce . In 2023, employers are responding by quiet firing. ResumeBuilder.com surveyed 1,000 managers with at least one direct report. One in three managers have responded to “quiet quitting” by “quiet firing.”

Their key findings include:

• 98% of managers of “quiet quitters” say it’s important their reports do more than the bare minimum.

• 91% of managers have taken some action against “quiet quitters,” including taking steps to terminate them and denying promotions/raises.

• 64% of managers say “quiet quitters” are unlikely to have a successful career.

Rage-applying is the phenomenon of simultaneously applying to several different jobs when feeling burnt out or distressed at your current job. Again, the concept of applying to several positions is nothing new. Is sending off a flurry of frustration-fueled applications without putting too much thought into whether the role is your dream job or not a good idea?

Resenteeism is the shiny new word for when you hate your job enough to do more than “quiet quit” but are too anxious about the economy to leave. Again, remaining in your job when you are fundamentally unhappy? Sound familiar? This concept is nothing new.

Is this all on the employee? No, in many cases, this is a result of poor management.

Managers need to engage with their employees to address burnout and disengagement. In this hybrid environment, they need to have at least one meaningful conversation once a week. They need to develop a culture in which people are engaged and feel they belong. They should do what’s in their power to improve their employee’s daily experience, including embracing flexible working, monitoring workloads to reduce cases of burnout, offering chances to progress where possible, and creating an environment where discussions about mental health are considered.

A Deloitte Global 2022 Gen Z and Millenial survey connected with respondents around the globe to gauge their views about work and the world around them. When asked what employers could do to attract and retain top talent, the survey results were as follows:

• Good work/life balance. Millennials, 38%; Gen Z, 35%

• Learning and development opportunities: Millennials, 29%; Gen Z, 29%

• A higher salary or other financial benefits: Millenials, 27%; Gen Z, 24%

• Positive workplace culture: Millenials, 23%; Gen Z, 23%

• Opportunities to progress/grow in their career: Millenials, 24%; Gen Z, 23%

• Derive a sense of meaning from my work: Millenials, 26%; Gen Z, 21%

• Flexible working model: Millenials, 21%; Gen Z, 20%

Employees, this isn’t a world where just participation matters. You know this. Did you begin your career with a vision of how your journey would be motivating, satisfying and benefit your life? Few of us start out dreaming of the day we can give the bare minimum. If you aren’t reflecting and paying attention, you will lose the magic and your position and future positions will turn into redundant patterns. Quiet quitting, resenteeism, and rage applying don’t get to the root cause of your unhappiness. Are you in the right career? Are you in the right company or firm? Do you have what it takes to leave the workforce and start a business?

Consider these quotes often attributed to successful people while you work on answering those questions for yourself:

Denzel Washington: “Don’t aspire to make a living. Aspire to make a difference. Hard work, works.”

Oprah Winfrey: “Your life’s work is to find your life’s work and then to exercise the discipline, tenacity, and hard work it takes to pursue it.”

A September 2022 Microsoft report which surveyed 20,000 people in 11 countries showed that younger generations are the most likely to aspire to be their own boss, with 76% of Gen Z and Millennials saying that this is a goal, compared with 63% of those who are Gen X and older. This is exciting news for these generations and the potential long-term impact and creativity they can have on our country.

Elon Musk says in being your own boss, “you’ve got to do all sorts of jobs and tasks that you might not wish to do, that are not intrinsically interesting to you. You’ve got to be prepared to do whatever it takes, work whatever hours. No task is too menial. I think that’s the right attitude for the CEO of a startup.” He also said, “Running a start-up is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. After a while, you stop staring, but the glass chewing never ends.” Are you ready to do this?

Employees need to identify the key criteria they are looking for in order to make a move into their next position or that business idea they have. Kudos to you for expecting more out of your job, your workplace, the culture you want to be around, the societal impact of your company and assessing what is important in life and your work. You need to reflect on this very carefully. Rage applying, quiet quitting, resenteeism — all these catchy little buzzwords are not a positive approach to the outcome you want to obtain.

In the end, if you don’t manage your career, someone else will manage it for you.

Superstar rapper Drake said it very well , “I am always going to work like I have something to prove. When writing the story of your life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen.”

In the summer of 2022, two maintenance workers found themselves waist-deep in liquid chocolate after falling into a tank at a candy factory in Pennsylvania. Stuck for over an hour, the two workers couldn’t climb out and had to be cut from the tank by emergency responders.

Thankfully, the workers weren’t injured. But the incident — which cost the company more than $14,000 in fines — could have been much worse. Workplace incidents, particularly in high-risk sectors like public safety, power utilities, mining and construction, have historically resulted in tragic outcomes.

This doesn’t have to be the case. With new digital tools driven by Industry 4.0 initiatives, risks can be mitigated and incidents are less likely to occur by giving organizations the awareness needed to increase workplace safety.

But it’s not just safety that can be assured by digital-era technologies. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, robotics and the industrial metaverse are all expected to have a huge impact on the future of work , enhancing everything from staffing and training to employee satisfaction. All told, more than a billion jobs are set to be radically transformed by technology by 2030.

Smarter workplaces = safer workers

Workplace injuries and illness have a significant impact on the economy , costing an estimated €476 billion per year in the European Union , with over 2.6 million cases reported in the US in 2021. More importantly, workplace accidents can be devastating to workers as well as their families, co-workers and employers. Everyone should go home safely at the end of the day.

Digitalization can help ensure that happens, dramatically improving safety through innovative technologies and solutions such as on-site anomaly detection and digital twins that allow organizations to safely reveal and examine areas of risk. Utility companies, for example, are testing drones to replace the use of helicopters when inspecting power lines in remote locations – a dangerous and expensive undertaking. Railway operators can leverage digital automatic coupling to automatically couple and uncouple rolling stock which speeds up operations, boosts capacity and improves safety. When done manually, it is a dangerous job for workers requiring them to climb wagons and handle couplers that can weigh up to 20kg/40+lbs – no matter the weather conditions and time of day or night. At mining sites around the world, Komatsu is using fully autonomous haulage systems, where several pieces of equipment are “driven” and monitored by a single controller who can be thousands of kilometers away in an office — keeping them away from the pit and dangerous blasting and crushing operations.

The digital transformation of the workplace can go beyond improving worker safety to deliver new levels of productivity. For example, Germany’s national railway, Deutsche Bahn , is building a standalone 5G network to control fully automated trains in real-time using an intelligent traffic management system. This approach not only improves safety for passengers, but also increases capacity and ensures always on-time operations.

Attracting and keeping the best talent

Around the world, job vacancies are high and skilled workers are in great demand. The U.S. saw nearly 11 million job vacancies in June 2022, while Japan had 2.5 million vacancies in December 2022. In Canada, 64% of companies felt that the worker shortage has had an impact on their business growth, with similar attitudes seen among enterprises all over the world.

To address these shortages, organizations must enhance their approach to recruitment, retention and operational efficiency. That starts by embracing new technologies that can enhance automation and augment their workforces to deliver a better (and safer) employee experience.

Digitalization and automation can help eliminate monotonous, repetitive and hazardous tasks. This creates time for workers to focus on more skilled and meaningful work — which in turn helps them feel more valued by their employers and less likely to leave for another company. As companies look to replace retiring workers, workplaces augmented with digital tools are also more likely to attract Gen Z “digital natives” who are looking for roles that will allow them to use the latest in cutting-edge technology.

New digital tools such as robotics, automation, immersive virtual training and collaboration are also reducing the physical labor requirements for many jobs. As a result, companies can tap into a greater pool of talent — including remote workers as well as workers with disabilities who may not have been able to access work in certain industries previously — this creates more inclusive work environments than ever before.

Digitalization is transforming the training process

A review of the candy factory accident found inadequate training to be the root cause. It’s a common problem, with many organizations challenged by the time and resources involved to properly onboard, train and prepare their employees with true-to-life scenarios. Digitalization and the industrial metaverse are critical to this, with tools such as virtual, augmented and extended realities allowing workers to gain “hands-on” training experience and receive real-time feedback in an immersive digital environment that eliminates risk to personnel, equipment or products.

This can be especially important in mission-critical industries such as public safety and utilities. Virtual reality training can help first responders practice emergency situations so they are better prepared when disaster strikes. Data analytics can also be used to review past public safety incidents, revealing patterns and trends that might help implement safer, more efficient response strategies. In the utility market, cybersecurity and at-height training scenarios can be safely and thoroughly simulated for a better prepared workforce.

Success through employee satisfaction

Employees who feel fulfilled, valued and respected are happier in their work life, more productive on the job and deliver superior customer experiences. So it’s not a surprise that more and more workers are rethinking the relationship with their jobs, looking for roles that offer real meaning and purpose. The digital-native Gen Z workforce is especially attuned to social responsibility. Employers need to keep this in mind and create workplaces that offer flexibility and collaboration.

Digital tools make things easier for workers in their day-to-day and help companies dematerialize certain operations. By deploying productivity tools and digitalized processes that are traditionally paper- or equipment-based, organizations can, for example, improve workflow management, enable real-time change order communication, and simplify approval loops.

Beyond just boosting productivity, real-time digital collaboration and communication tools are the key to empowering workers to be more autonomous and creative. They also help create inclusive workplaces while making operations more sustainable and environmentally responsible.

The foundation for the future

The future of work will see enterprises and organizations make significant gains in worker safety, better attract and retain talented workers, and increase employee satisfaction. With the aid of pervasive intelligence, rich data, enhanced awareness and increased automation, organizations that lay the foundations today will not just reap the benefits of improved productivity and efficiency, they are also setting the direction towards a safer, more prosperous tomorrow.

Migrant Kashmiri Pandits employed under the prime minister’s special package suspended on Saturday their 310-day-long agitation seeking relocation to safer places outside the Valley in view of targeted killings by militants.