Now that the virus is slowing down and workplaces are reopening, The economy is finding out that many employees do not want to return to their jobs. Why? Perhaps the answer can be found in a strange dream I had last night.
I was in a Jaycee meeting visiting with old friends when we got into a strange discussion. We began talking about an abstract concept: does policy drive behavior or does behavior drive policy?
In the dream, I brought up as an example of a privately-owned company that makes widgets. Let’s say 15,000 widgets a day. The company is prospering, staff are getting regular wages, bonuses, and promotions. Everyone is prospering.
Suppose the owner retires and sells the business to a new owner. The new owner decides on a policy of maximizing profits. He implements this policy by creating a new set of rules. He cuts lunch hour is to one-half hour. He extends the workday by an hour each day. Sick days are cut from 15 days a year to 10. And so on.
How would this policy shift influence workers’ behavior? Most likely workers who had been using a few sick days a year would increase the number of sick day usage. People would take extended lunch breaks when they could get away with it. There would be work slowdowns. In extreme cases people might sabotage production. This is an example of policy (maximizing profits) creating poor behaviors. This scenario is commonly used in business classes as an example of poor management.
Assume for the sake of argument the reverse scenario. The new manager decides to not change the current policy. Probably things would continue and people would be happy and productive. As long as things are moving smoothly there is no change in either policy or workplace behavior. Perhaps productively would increase. This is an example of how behavior (on the part if employees) drives or in this case maintains good policy.
Our discussion continued along these lines. Wouldn’t it be nice if this were a reality and not a dream? Perhaps instead of creating a poor workplace based on poor policies people would want to engage in productive work.
Anyway this was only a dream. I have weird dreams sometimes.
But I've had other thoughts about why people are not returning to work. Because the pandemic ran so long, many people found other sources of income that they like better than their old jobs. Some may have found unemployment compensation enough to get by on and thereby not wishing to get back into work for their income. And finally, I think many have found that they can rely on family to provide for them and they feel they don't have to go back to work. A despicable way to think, but many are like that these days, without initiative, but getting by.
Ron