The Ever-Changing World of the Employee at the Workplace

Since Covid-19 entered our lives in 2020, it drastically changed the world in more than many ways and continues to do so. It deeply impacted the workplace.

As a Manager, I currently work with numerous employees both seniors and juniors, which has led to me seeing more about how the world has changed for the employees.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, employees have 

• More access to other ways of earning money through various platforms on the net, thus your average employee doesn’t want to work an 8 am – 5 pm shift anymore. Let alone in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) where you need to work from 9 am – 11 pm.

• The place of work has changed where we have learned that employees tend to want to work from home most of the week as it is more convenient for him/her – no travel to work, no desk work, and work at their own pace. 

• More access to “Job Jumping” where it’s an “Employees' Market” as there are numerous job opportunities out there where the employee can literally move to many jobs within one year and earn more and more as employers are desperately looking for candidates. 

There are many more ways Covid-19 has changed the market. However, the working environment in the QSR  industry has been disrupted across the world.  

These have led to changes in business  as enumerated below:

• Continuously advertising, interviewing, and recruiting people as the staff turnover has forced businesses, especially in the QSR industry to keep on filling vacancies  

• Continuous disruption in operations has led to store closures and stores working limited hours due to a lack of staff causing a huge constraint on the bottom line. 

• Disruption in Customer service as stores work with limited staffing due to high absenteeism and vacancies that affect the customer experience in both speed of service  and product service as we know it takes time for an employee to be trained and gain  experience to make the best product at the quickest of times. 

• Continuously changing HR policies by introducing new incentive packages, higher  wages, less working time for the employee, and changing the working environment  

Thus these changes might be good for the work environment as the employers have changed and are doing things differently and getting benefitted from higher salaries and perks.

This, however, comes at a cost to the business. Depending on the type of business, one thing is for sure, the QSR industry is feeling the pinch the most as they are already running a low margin, and thus with the ever-increasing expenses, profits are less, and so the questions are – When will investors stop investing in a business? As in the business world, no one opens up a business to only make ends meet but to make huge profits as we are aware of the financial risks involved.  

However, only time will tell how things develop in the business world. As the world changes, only the businesses willing to change will succeed as a different world leads you to think differently!  

I conclude with the phrase “These are interesting times we are living in” as these are truly interesting times where things are continuously changing.