More and more women are waking up to the fact that life in corporate America often isn’t a good fit with the life they want to lead. This is why women are starting small businesses at such a fast rate. In this post (the first in a series), Dana looks more deeply at the growing gaps between employees (not just women) and the organizations that hire them. – InPower Editors
There’s a quiet revolution happening in the cubicles and hallways of America’s companies. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2012 about 2 million people a month walked off the job. These employees, many of whom have attained a level of professional achievement equated with happiness — a steady paycheck, benefits and a rung on the upwardly mobile ladder — are risking all that success in an uncertain job market to quit in numbers we haven’t seen since the last time the job market was booming. This isn’t terribly surprising considering 74% of corporate workers say they would leave if they could.
This Seventy four percent of the American workforce reports feeling undervalued and unempowered. What this means is that three quarters of our workforce is dissatisfied, and over half of them (the half that aren’t leaving but want to) feel out of alignment with their companies and held hostage to their job by fear and uncertainty.
Psychologists will tell you that anyone who feels compelled to do what they’re doing out of fear is ripe for change. These high rates of dissatisfaction, when combined with the prospects for declining costs of health care and the lowering costs technology needed to start a new business, could be a revolution in the making.
What would a modern worker’s revolution like? Unlike the protests and violence of the labor movements in past generations, today’s smart-phone wielding workers revolt by leaving big companies to start their own. And in fact, the number of people who intend to start their own business has grown by 50%. Workers – especially the best and brightest – are overcoming their fears and striking out on their own to build companies that reflect the values they want to live.
With seventy four percent of workers unhappy and fifty percent planning to take action, there’s a case to be made that the revolution is already rumbling down the halls of corporate America.
This post originally appeared on Switch & Shift.
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