[Ads-l] WOTY Candidate: Great Resignation

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Great suggestion, John.
Phrase/word of the year: "great resignation"
Quote of the year : "The great resignation is coming"

I haven't been able to antedate the May 10, 2021 Bloomberg article.

Anthony Klotz and a co-author did publish a precursor article before
the pandemic in the "Harvard Business Review" in 2019 stating that
"More employees are voluntarily leaving their jobs than at almost any
other time this millennium".

Periodical: Harvard Business Review
Topic: Employee Retention
Article: Do You Really Know Why Employees Leave Your Company?
Authors: Anthony C. Klotz and Mark C. Bolino
Date: July 31, 2019

https://hbr.org/2019/07/do-you-really-know-why-employees-leave-your-company

[Begin excerpt]
More employees are voluntarily leaving their jobs than at almost any
other time this millennium. When an employee quits, it can feel like a
gut punch, leaving managers scrambling both emotionally and
operationally. The loss can be particularly acute when employees
“ghost” their organization, simply not showing up to work, sometimes
only days after starting the job.
[End excerpt]

This 2016 article indicates that understanding resignations is one of
Klotz's research topics.

Year: 2016
Periodical: Journal of Applied Psychology
Authors: A. C. Klotz and M. C. Bolino
Article: Saying goodbye: The nature, causes, and consequences of
employee resignation styles
Volume 101, Number 10
Pages 1386–1404.

https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000135
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-31179-001

On Wed, Dec 8, 2021 at 5:57 PM Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:
>
> I'm seeing a lot about the "Great Resignation," a reference to the large numbers of employees voluntarily leaving their employers.  All sources agree in attributing the term of Anthony Klotz, a professor of management at Mays Business School of Texas A&M University; I have not been able to antedate that, although perhaps someone else can.  Specifically, it seems to derive from an article in Bloomberg Businessweek by Arianne Cohen, May 10, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-10/quit-your-job-how-to-resign-after-covid-pandemic, which began as follows:
>
>               "Ready to say adios to your job?  You're not alone.  "The great resignation is coming," says Anthony Klotz, an associate professor of management at Texas A&M University who's studied the exits of hundreds of workers.  "When there's uncertainty, people tend to stay put, so there are pent-up resignations that didn't happen over the past year."  The numbers are multiplied, he says, by the many pandemic-related epiphanies - about family time, remote work, commuting, passion projects, life and death, and what it all means - that can make people turn their back on the 9-to-5 office grind.  We asked Klotz what to expect as the great resignation picks up speed."
>
> Incidentally, as I understand it, the Great Resignation has not been driven by the factors Klotz anticipated; he seemed to think that white collar workers would threaten, and follow through with, resignations if their employers made them return to the office. Instead, I gather that it is driven primarily by hourly workers who are able to move to new jobs with higher compensation and/or better working conditions, and to a lesser extent by workers taking early retirement (which would not normally be called "resignations").
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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