At this point no one doubts that the adoption of Teleworking during pandemic as the only possible method for companies were kept afloatmarked a turning point. Global movements such as Great resignation wave Silent resignation They empowered employees in front of their employers.
For its part, companies and managers They discovered that they did not have so much negotiation power as they thought of a work context with a great demand for talent. The subsequent hardening in the Policies back to offices He revealed that companies sought to recover their positions of power at all costs, even when those positions They involved a high cost. First of all that veiled movement, only a millionaire dared to reveal what I really thought.
Controversial statements. Tim Gurner is the founder and CEO of Gurner Group, a successful Australian real estate company dedicated luxury real estate. In an intervention in a financial forum on real estate, the businessman did not hesitate a few years ago to pour hard words about the Employee Empowerment.
“Employees feel that the company is very lucky to have them, and not vice versa. We have to end that attitude, and that has to get through damage to the economy,” said the entrepreneur to, immediately, add “we need to see how unemployment increases to 40% or 50% and see how the economy suffers to remind people that they work for companies, not the other way around.”
Questionable salary climb. One of the employer’s arguments for the alleged empowerment of employees are The high salarieswhich have not stopped uploading since 2020. According to data from the Study of remuneration trends and salary increases of 2024 Prepared by KPMG, in 2023 an average salary rise of 3.5% was estimated below the annual inflation rate.
The study reflects that in 2023, 90% of companies agreed 5% salary increases to compensate for the Loss of purchasing power of its employees. That is, a reasonable increase taking into account the global inflationary economic context. The same report indicates that the segment that has received more salary increases are intermediate positions and managerial positions with increases between 3.7 and 3.9%.
Good offspring. The Australian businessman did not settle for attacking the salaries, he also justified the mass layoffs as a tool to recover negotiation power over employees. “Governments around the world are trying to raise unemployment rates to recover a kind of normality and we will see it. I think all companies are seeing it and I think this is what the massive dismissals are driving. People may not be talking about it, but companies continue to say goodbye to employees and it is being seen how arrogance is reduced in the labor market and must continue because that will balance costs.”
Bad dynamics. The balance of dismissals in the technological field has been catastrophic in recent years. According to data From the Trueup Technological Employment Platform, 430,000 were registered in 2023, while in 2024 it was reduced to 239,000 layoffs. Estimates for 2025 is that the year closes with 201,000 layoffs. Most of them, in the United States, but also involved in other markets such as Europe or Tim Gurner’s native Australia.
High unemployment. Such a number of layoffs left in some Unemployment rates In 2023 of 3.8%, to stabilize at 4.3% for 2024. Although the millionaire of Gurner Group thinks about it, the mass dismissals have not had an impact on the unemployment rate because the talent scarcity has facilitated its relocation in other companies immediately.
Is the return to the office a sample of power? Large companies usually make their decisions based on founded studies and forecastsso surprises the vehemence with which some companies They have faced the return to the office, hiding in a fall in productivity that Studies have not been able to agree or in a strategic positioning for face the development of AI.
The decision seems to go against the interests of companies, who face higher costs for offices rental and the discontent staff. This discontent does cause a fall in productivity by falling into Silence situations and even dismissals. Given the lack of real data offered by companies, the controversial Australian CEO dared to give a theory of powers of powers: “This would be a systemic change with which employees will feel that it is they who must feel extremely fortunate to be in companies and not vice versa. So it is a dynamic that must change and we have to end that attitude.”
The return to the office for a real estate entrepreneur. Beyond the opinions of each one, Tim Gurner’s point of view can be very conditioned by the delicate Real estate sector situation Before the refusal of the employees to return to the offices.
According to official dataTeleworking in the US has left between 20% and 25% of empty offices. Beyond being a labor problem in itself, Not returning to offices is a serious real estate problem in which the main investment funds in the world They have invested more 1.2 billion dollars And its value does not stop falling, so The great bank is already moving card To minimize losses.
Rectifying is wise. Beyond the controversy that the statements of the real estate millionaire raised, days after the businessman recognized that they were totally out of place at such a delicate moment for many employees who were losing their jobs.
In a publication in Your LinkedIn profilethe millionaire apologized for the lack of empathy and sensitivity for those who had lost their jobs or were about to lose them, recognizing that it is a very serious situation for the employee that suffers it and for its close environment.
Image | LinkedIn (Tim Gurner), Pexels (Cameron Casey)
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