Margot*, a content manager based in Berlin, was hoping her job at a workplace software startup would get easier this year, but after several months of resignations across the company, a hiring freeze was announced in early May. “It means we can’t backfill positions either, so a ton of work is being distributed across teams and some just won’t get done,” says Margot. “We’ve been told to ‘do more with less,’ which is basically reaching all the same goals without the people to help you get there. I’ve also been told to cut my team budget in half.”
To remedy the shortfall, she’s working longer hours and into the weekends. “I’m struggling to switch off and sleep, and it’s affected my eating,” she says. “Work has completely taken over my life, and because of the tech downturn there’s the sense that if I don’t perform, I might get cut, or the company just won’t exist in a few years.” Although leadership claims to have improved the way it prioritizes, Margot says everyone is under pressure to fill the gaps, so the atmosphere is stagnant and strained.
The available tech labor pool has contracted dramatically: Datapeople’s 2022 hiring report shows that tech job postings from over 10,000 companies in the US almost doubled in 2021, while the average number of applicants has shrunk by a quarter. The UK is reporting the highest tech skills shortage on record, while IT vacancies in Germany have hit levels not seen since 2011, leaping by 12 percent to 96,000 in 2021. Some 70 percent of Canadian businesses say they need more tech employees and are struggling to find and hire people with the necessary skills. This is a global concern—67 percent of digital leaders around the world say it is stopping their organizations from keeping up to speed with change.
For the staff left behind, this predicament means they are edging toward exhaustion as they try to pick up the slack. Data released by job board TotalJobs in late April revealed that over a third of UK workers say their workload is unmanageable due to staff shortages. In the US, half (49 percent) of American workers say they are burned out, and two-thirds say it is linked to staff shortages—a number that climbs higher among women and young people, according to a study by management consultancy firm Eagle Hill Consulting.
This is not a new phenomenon. As soon as the Great Resignation started in early 2021, recruitment gaps left workers with more responsibility, some even juggling several full-time roles. Over half of American workers who chose to stay at their jobs say they’ve taken on more responsibilities amid the Great Resignation, according to the Society for Human Resource Management in the US. Yet while 2021 saw resignation rates soar broadly in line with new hires, 2022 has ushered in a new era. Companies are putting a freeze on hires or are simply unable to find the staff they need. Nearly half (47 percent) of UK employers reported having vacancies that were hard to fill in November and over a quarter expected this number to creep up in the coming months.
The survivors are now burned out, fed up, and looking for an escape route. Idris*, who lives in Manchester, England, doesn’t remember a time when his team was fully staffed. Since joining the product team at an insurance tech startup in early 2020, he has witnessed three waves of resignations. “The first lot left toward the end of 2020, when it was clear the pandemic was going to drag on—lots of people had been with the company a while, so it made sense,” says Idris.
“I soldiered on, mostly because of the promise of new recruits. I was involved in the hiring process, and although it was good to feel a sense of control over that, it ate into my working time massively.” His line manager didn’t acknowledge how long he was spending preparing and holding interviews, creating tasks, and discussing hires. All the extra work went unnoticed because he worked remotely, and he repeatedly pulled all-nighters to cover the gaps and deliver on internal deadlines.
After a lack of suitable candidates, the process ground to a halt and the business moved its focus elsewhere, even though Idris was doing the work of three employees.
If companies don’t start hiring, they could hemorrhage loyal, experienced employees who are being pushed over the edge. Indeed, the US-based Society for Human Resource Management found that 27 percent of workers feel less loyal to their employer amid the tumult of staff shortages. Idris has been contacted by several recruiters on LinkedIn and has his first interview at another startup next week. “I feel disrespected by my company’s failure to hire and the impact it’s had on my life,” he says.
And life is about to get a whole lot harder for the employees left behind, as tech companies across the globe trim their workforce amid plunging stock prices, inflation concerns, rising interest rates, and geopolitical issues. US firms such as Root Insurance, Rhino, Peloton, and Lacework made 20 percent of their workforce redundant in the first half of 2022. Across Europe, companies like Nuri, Klarna, Getir, Cazoo, and Hopin have also announced layoffs, all of which are double-figure percentages of their workforce. In May alone, 16,395 tech employees were let go, according to the crowdsourced tracker Layoffs.fyi.
“A lot of attention goes to the victims of downsizing, but the survivors are victims themselves,” says Denise Rousseau, professor of organizational behavior and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. “The big issue for them, besides redistribution of work, is that they’ve learned their employer is unstable and may not be reliable, so the vast majority begin looking elsewhere—their attachment has been loosened.”
Rousseau believes companies that made layoffs could cascade into a period of upheaval as more people leave after being poached by competitors who behave like “flies to a honeypot” when news of redundancies breaks. A chain reaction could also occur as people jump ship to follow other colleagues. A Benefax study published in February revealed that 66 percent of workers under 40 would quit if a colleague left.
In the case of staff shortages, whether due to resignations or redundancies, companies should focus on restoring the trust of existing employees, making their time more worthwhile and, most importantly, subtracting duties that are expendable. “The incredible value of subtraction and the redesign of outstanding work is always overlooked,” says Rousseau.
“If companies say it’s not possible to subtract, they’re probably wrong, and it’s ill-informed to assume they know better than employees what’s critical. They need to ask staff: How can work be constructively redesigned and done well? Why not solicit and support recrafting in the spirit of doing well with what we have?” Many will be better off outsourcing tasks. In the software development sector, which is experiencing particularly drastic staff shortages, tech services company Commit predicted that outsourcing will grow 70 percent by 2023.
The remaining workers could push to get more benefits, a compensation increase, or more flexibility in their work schedule. However, Rousseau warns against demanding higher pay to compensate for covering personnel gaps. “Pay is a one-time boost that diminishes in value over time—there’s a whole menu of options for employees to consider, from developmental challenges to future adjustments and offloading once the company stabilizes,” she explains. “Broaden the space of negotiation and frame it to your employer as problem-solving, not a bargain with a threat component.”
*Some names have been changed.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
