According to this article, productivity is dropping at work. Why?
It talks about a sense of helplessness and frustration with being dropped even after doing hard work. I think there are lots of reasons that productivity is declining.
People have seen the chart that shows the rate of productivity and the rate of pay over the last few decades. It clearly shows that productivity has increased so much that it hasn’t kept up with wages. That means that people are working harder and smarter but not being paid for it. One estimate says that minimum wage workers pay should be $25 and it is not.- People are sick with Covid or other issues but mostly mental health issues. Most people haven’t had adequate mental health and they are just trying to cope with the insane stress of the world. When inflation pushes your purchasing power downward, you are going to feel stress and cut back on things that you used to do. There was an article that said 60% of people are living paycheck to paycheck and that increased from 55% from last year. This clearly shows that people are not being paid enough to mentally feel comfortable.
- People have joined reddit.com/r/antiwork and are understanding the ways that companies have abused them in the past. They are seeing that they aren’t alone, and the results of that abuse. People are getting the courage to do what is best for themselves and their families and not accept abusive conditions anymore.
- People perhaps haven’t had a steady work history because companies keep laying people off and so every time they get laid off, the less loyalty they have to a company. You can’t tell people hard work is rewarded when it is not. People learn that they can’t trust employment, so why do their best?
- People got a pay raise by changing jobs. As people were laid off they went to a new company and got a pay boost. Now the attitude is that if they get laid off, they will find a better job with a higher salary. This is almost universally true. This is what happens when cheap companies, meet companies that need workers.
- People had record productivity during WFH in Covid, and now they are being asked to come back to the office. Commuting and other things take time, and never before did we have data that showed productivity at home. It is not a coincidence that people’s productivity is dropping in the office. it was always low in the office. Managers were fooled into thinking people were working when they were not working. All of the articles in the media talking about the return to office were clear propaganda. WFH is only meant for those in power, not those who could benefit. Companies that continue to work from home have great productivity.
Stop trying to hold onto the past. The future is WFH and if your company doesn’t get it, it will lose workers to companies that do get it.