Many employees have had enough and will no longer endure poor working conditions and wrongdoing in the workplace, according to national whistleblowing hotline provider Safecall
The UK along with countries overseas have witnessed the Great Resignation, with people in a post-pandemic environment choosing not to go back to their old jobs and ways of working.
Sanjay Raja, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, has been quoted as saying there are ”historically elevated levels of workers leaving the labour market entirely” with the level of resignations being the highest since 2009.
Tim Smith, operations director for Sunderlandbased Safecall, said: ”A report just prior to the pandemic, from the Film and TV Charity’s ‘Looking Glass research’, suggested 56% of employees believed they had suffered bullying in the previous year.
”When you look at Google search results and see there are 20,000 searches per year for how to cope with ‘bullying in the workplace’ in the UK.
”So, it’s more than possible that some of the Great Resignation results from employees simply not being prepared to go back into those same poor working conditions.”
It is no exaggeration to say Covid-19 has changed everything! The enforced isolation also provided a breathing-space for employees to rethink their life. Many have taken a premeditated, thoughtthrough decision to change how they want to live and work. This led to what has been termed the Great Resignation and which has become the Great Attrition.
Tim Smith added: ”The Covid-19 pandemic was the catalyst for employees to re-evaluate their working conditions when they were being asked to return.
”It enabled people to reassess what they wanted from life, and many of them decided they literally did not want to return to their jobs and would either start looking elsewhere for work or dropout of working life altogether.”
It should come as no surprise that smarter senior executives are spending a lot of time and effort providing additional staff benefits, and improving working conditions, to retain employees.
Many employers have beefed up their employee packages by adding both physical and mental health care, social benefits such as gym membership, retail discounts, and additional sick and compassionate care benefits, as well as improving pay and flexibility working hours.
But they are also trying to improve the actual places where the employee works, and that sometimes means preventing or dealing with some rather uncomfortable situations. For that, organisations often require whistleblowing services.
Tim added: ”We’ve seen a significant increase in directors, general counsels, and HR managers approaching us to set up an external whistleblowing hotline.
”That’s because an outsourced hotline is quicker and easier to set up and start managing than creating and staffing one in-house.
”We can often have a fully operational whistleblowing hotline up and running for organisations within 24-hours. That is world-wide, with multiple offices or work locations, in nearly every language and dialect.
”Every one of our call handlers is a former police officer, and each has more than 25 years’ experience speaking with people from all walks of life in all sorts of situations.”
When anonymous whistleblowing services are introduced, staff feel their managers are trying to do what’s right by them. Lots of staff research shows the value of being seen to be a good employer in a world where the employee can just walk away and start work elsewhere.
No-one is saying whistleblowing is the solution to employment issues facing businesses across the globally, Europe, the EU, or even just the UK, said Tim, but he believes it should be part of a package of measures that businesses can use to help retain their staff.
