Adopting post-pandemic welfare-to-work balance

During the last few years and as a result of the pandemic, many people have re-evaluated their priorities in life, which has implied paying more attention to the balance between work and personal life, prioritizing previously underestimated issues such as physical and mental wellbeing, family life and leisure time.

According to data from Microsoft’s “Work Trends Index 2022”, in Latin America seven out of ten people, that is, 70% of those surveyed, consider that after the pandemic it is highly probable that they will prefer their health and wellbeing over work, thus being the region where more workers changed their priorities. Proof of this is the wave of resignations that recently occurred in Mexico, driven precisely by the confinement where greater flexibility and autonomy in daily life was acquired, which is why many people are not willing to return to traditional employment models.

The average number of people who deserted their jobs during 2021 in Mexico was 602,081 each month, equivalent to 25% of the unemployed population nationwide. However, there is another factor that adds to this and it is the mirror effect derived from the “great resignation” in the neighboring country. In the United States, the massive resignation of people began to be talked about a year ago. The peak of this situation occurred last March when 4.53 million people resigned from their jobs. Thus, the figures show that for 52% of Americans, their life priorities had changed.

However, this phenomenon has also been replicated in other parts of the world. In second place, after Latin America and before the United States, is the Asia-Pacific region, where 57% of people have registered a change of priorities in their lives.

This is followed by countries such as Australia, where 48 percent of citizens now attach greater importance to their health, while the United Kingdom and France join the statistics with 44 percent.

New employment models

After several waves of contagion and long periods of isolation, work is now seen as just a part of life, with other areas occupying an even more privileged place.

In this way, hybrid models have gained special relevance, i.e., those where employees work some days remotely and others in face-to-face mode, which allows the partial preservation of their autonomy and time. There has even been much talk of four-day workweeks, a new aspiration in which the traditional five- or six-day workweek is expected to become just four days. This model is already being implemented in leading countries such as Belgium, the United Kingdom, Scotland, Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Japan and Spain, where many companies have joined these initiatives.