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New York
(CNN/Money) - Ready to quit? You have plenty of
company.
 Many employees are overworked,
stressed out, fed up -- and eager to quit their jobs
once the economy picks up. In fact, worker angst is
so pronounced it has surprised even the most
tuned-in human resource professionals. They say
employee anger is now almost palpable.
More than eight in 10 workers plan to look for a new
job when the economy heats up, according to a survey
by the Society for Human Resource Professionals.
While there's a difference between looking for a new
gig and actually jumping ship, that kind of number
is "very, very high," says SHRP spokesman
Frank Scanlon.
How did things get so bad?
To be sure, the economy hasn't helped. Cash-strapped employers have
been cutting back on benefits like health care, paid
vacations and retirement benefits.
Belt tightening is one thing; greed is another. In an era of Enron,
mutual fund scandals and ludicrous CEO pay packages,
employees know the difference, says Jeff Taylor,
founder and CEO of Monster.com.
"Companies behaving badly" have been all too common during
the downturn, according to
Taylor
.
 "You have the greed of
executive management and great inequities from your
lowest-paid worker to your highest-paid
worker," he says. "Companies are not
giving out raises. Benefits have been cut. That's an
environment where the employers calls the
shots."
The threat of pink slips has prompted plenty of people to work scared
and give everything to their jobs. So-called
overtime isn't that uncommon anymore. Nearly 40
percent of workers spend at least 50 hours on the
job per week.
"Employees have hunkered down through the downturn," said the
SHRP's Scanlon. Now that things may be looking up,
"they're going to start looking
aggressively."
Heading
for the door
Take the case of David Garrison, 40, a facilities manager who worked
for an oil company for 20 years before quitting to
work at a local credit union.
Pulling 60-hour weeks was normal for the Los
Angeles
father of two. That's because
he was expected to do much of the work of five other
peers who had been fired. The message: Don't
complain or you'll lose your job, too. So Garrison
kept his mouth shut.
By the time he did quit a little over a year ago, Garrison had to
swallow anti-anxiety prescriptions to get through
the day. When he did care for himself -- and took a
second sick day within a sixth-month period -- he
was called in for a "counseling" session
by his employer, who warned him not to take too much
time away.
"It was infuriating," he recalls.
Infuriating but not uncommon, judging by the e-mail postings on Web
sites – such as Ihatemyjob.com -- that have
flourished in recent years as a way for workers to
vent.
Other movements – such as the Center for a New American Dream's
effort to simplify lives and the Work To Live Web
site, which exhorts workers to lobby lawmakers for
change – are gaining momentum.
"I get flooded with e-mails from people, and you get a sense of
the desperation," says Work to Live's Joe
Robinson. "People have been traumatized by the
last 15 years of downsizing and the last few years
of recession. Everyone's afraid they'll be
next."
The
high cost of desperation
"In the last 15 years I've had a total of four weeks of
vacation," writes one woman on the Work to Live
site. "We receive no paid vacation, no paid
holidays and no paid sick leave. . . .I used to have
three people in my office doing what I do. Now there
is just me. . . . I can't keep going like
this."
There may be a glimmer of hope, for some. The most recent job report
from the Labor Department shows that employers are
finally adding to their payrolls. Human resource
managers are bracing for a stampede.
Gerald Ledford, senior vice president at Sibson Consulting, notes that
if 16 percent of workers do leave their jobs – as
his firm predicts – that will match the high
turnover rates of the late 1990's, when employees
hopscotched from job to job.
"It's a very expensive problem," says Ledford.
For example, a national clothing chain must sell 3,000 pairs of $35
khakis to cover the price of replacing a salesperson
who quits, including recruiting, training and lost
productivity.
The tab to replace a typical white-collar middle manager runs about
$100,000.
"We're a few good breaths away from being back at a lower
unemployment rate," says Monster's Jeff Taylor.
"Companies can limit their exposure by saying
'thank you' and recognizing the good work people
have done for them.
"But I think generally this is where companies have a pretty big
miss in this area."
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