The Reality of Egality

 Egality:

“represents an extreme leveling of society,” or “a state of being essentially equal or equivalent; equally balanced.

Throughout the history of the United States, employers and laborers have engaged in constant negotiation about work, working conditions, and pay. Employers want more labor for less pay, and workers want more pay for less work. Employers have been winning the negotiation for decades. Despite some gains, wages for workers have stagnated for the past 40 years, forcing workers to take on second or even third jobs to make ends meet. This wage inequality has driven much activism and debate about raising the minimum wage and increasing employer flexibility regarding workers’ work/life balance. While some progressive leaders like Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder of Chobani surprising his workers on payday with an ownership stake in the 3 billion yogurt company, many other large employers are still defensive regarding worker compensation.

The negotiation continues.

A recent study by the Brookings Institute states retailers have made record profits during the pandemic while frontline worker wages have barely moved. In August 2021, a record 4.3 million workers responded by quitting their jobs, led by 892,000 food and accommodations workers and 721,000 retail workers.

The message in these massive “quits” is clear. Workers don’t believe their time and labor are an equal exchange for the pay offered by employers. The deal is so unequal that workers are quitting in droves. At some point, employers and workers will come back to the table and renegotiate terms because their mutual survival depends on it.

At Connexion Pointe®, we believe that some things will change in the hiring process and the workplace to get things moving again and create a new Reality of Egality between employers and workers:

• • • Employers will have to meet the requirements of better pay and more flexibility around work. 
    • Employers will have to look at how much dominion they can infer from the employer/worker relationship. Workers are pushing back or just quitting companies leveraging employment status to mandate activities outside of the workplace like vaccinations, mask mandates, critical race theory, political affiliations, etc. Many workers are quitting even though they don’t have another position lined up.
    • Employers will have to do a much better job convincing job seekers to take a look at their organizations. Higher wages have helped, but shortages persist – especially in industries regarding and treating workers as disposable. 
    • The idea of interviewing 8-14 candidates from a pool of 250 applicants and completely ignoring the rest with no communication has been unacceptable for years. But this primary gripe is at the forefront of job seekers’ minds, and employers will have to do better with their candidates’ hiring experiences.
    • Some employers accustomed to laying off workers with no notice are getting a taste of their own medicine from job seekers and employees ghosting them for other opportunities. 
    • Employers “bite-size-information-over-time” standard of acquiring hiring information has changed little since the ’80s:
      • They have always wanted a resume first.
      • Then potentially scheduling a phone screen that doesn’t happen or wherein there is no substantive conversation on the candidates’ talent proposition. Other than receiving some form of communication after applying to an organization, many job seekers complain that inexperienced, unprepared, or untrained screening personnel make these calls a waste of time. The idea of reserving a large window of time or even a full day for these calls is also a common gripe of job seekers.
      • And then maybe an in-person interview. Technology introduced in the ’80s prevented them from thoroughly screening everyone. Until now, employers have thrown money at this problem, believing the answer was more technology (like Applicant Tracking Systems) and forcing more job seekers into their recruitment funnel. Applicant Tracking Systems are known to disqualify huge segments of those candidate pools based on factors unrelated to candidate potential.

The Solution?

In the hiring process, the problem is that the burden of due diligence needs to be shared. Job seekers will have to present more highly organized job-related information highlighting their talent and value propositions at first contact for consideration. Employers will have to review that information before engaging to meet the challenge of making reasonable job offers in a timely fashion. This trade-off offers both sides proof of their skin-in-the-game at the beginning of a potential relationship and directly addresses the gripes listed in #1 and #2. Everyone brings their A-game to negotiations when there’s real value on the table.

Connexion Pointe® is the only product on the market offering an end-to-end solution in this space.

The Great Resignation is not showing any signs of slowing down at this time. Whether you’re in the thick of it by changing careers or if you’re just getting started, presenting yourself as a candidate for fair and equitable employment will always be the norm. Connexion Pointe® offers a free ebook detailing a step-by-step plan for getting started and tools to help you excel in this new Reality of Egality. Just sign up below, and we’ll send it to you. We also offer an online masterclass for job seekers and students navigating this new era of self-promotion for a price less than a tank of gas! 

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