The July unemployment numbers were higher than anticipated; Intel announced layoffs of as many as 15,000 people, with other major corporations also weighing making staff cuts.
So what’s an employer to do? Business Insider reports some are cracking the whip.
That could mean clamping down on remote work and even the introduction of working on the weekends.
And to think, just a couple of years ago we were looking at the viability of the four-day workweek.
Brigid Schulte, author of the forthcoming book Over Work, tells the publication, “In times of uncertainty, particularly leadership wants to go back to sort of what feels like a safer time. The only irony there is that that way wasn’t necessarily better.”
That is, if employers start using their leverage over their workers in what’s becoming a shaky economy, “You end up really damaging the trust and morale at your organization,” Schulte continues. “And, really, you’re only as good as your people.”
In Greece and South Korea, some companies — including Samsung in the latter — are instituting a 48-hour workweek, with employees clocking in on Saturday or Sunday.
Peter Cappelli, a professor at the Wharton School, said even if a company is doing well, employers could use negative headlines about the economy as a chance to clamp down, removing flexible work options and other benefits workers have become accustomed to since the pandemic.
“Employees never really had much of an upper hand in the job market,” he warns.