How does the workplace trend for ‘Quick Quitting’ impact businesses?
Following the high-turnover, staff retention difficulties that plagued businesses in 2022, a new employee trend has started to emerge in 2023: ‘quick quitting’. But what does it mean, and how much of a concern is it for HR?
‘Quick quitting’ refers to employees leaving a job after working there for less than a year. It’s a trend that, for fairly obvious reasons, can be harmful, especially to smaller businesses. And unfortunately, it seems to be on the rise, with data from LinkedIn showing that the short-term tenure rate increased by 10% in the past year alone.
Commenting on this phenomenon, Connor Campbell, business finance expert at NerdWallet said:
“We saw an increase in trends throughout 2022 that prioritised employees’ happiness over business success, something that seems likely to continue into 2023 with ‘quick quitting’.
“Rather than waiting it out in a job they don’t enjoy, employees are now more likely to leave their new job if they’re unsatisfied, in search of something they prefer.
“This is more likely to continue happening as the UK remains firmly in a recession throughout 2023, causing more people to seek out better-paying jobs to support themselves amidst higher living costs.
“Unfortunately, the knock-on effect of this trend on small businesses is quite severe. Businesses rely on having consistent and dependable staff to keep things running as they should, and small businesses are automatically at more of a disadvantage when it comes to losing staff, as they already have fewer staff to begin with.
“Not only does this potentially result in workflow being impacted, but the additional workload being distributed amongst remaining staff may cause them to become resentful or overworked, and can ultimately even cause further losses.
“This not to mention the costs associated with hiring a replacement and training them up, with smaller businesses likely having fewer resources to dedicate to this time-consuming process. ”
Sources:
LinkedIn
Forbes
Business Insider