Economic uncertainty is in vogue this year.
Last month, only 45.2% of employees expressed confidence in their company’s six-month “business outlook,” according to Glassdoor data, down from 55.6% in March 2022. Job insecurities and recession fears have sparked anxiety and lowered confidence, Glassdoor’s lead economist Daniel Zhao told HR Brew, and said employers are key in helping their workers get through this economic uncertainty.
“What works for one company might not work for another, so it’s important to understand how your employees are feeling and what works best with them,” Zhao said. “There are some folks who might appreciate having a distraction at work to focus on, but there are also some who might want their employer to acknowledge what’s going on in the world and provide some reassurance.”
What’s going on? As recent tariff news caused the stock market to take a deep nosedive in early April, economists forecast an impending recession, which has elevated fears and anxieties among workers.
“Employees are feeling anxious and upset right now, in part, because they have this recent example of a job market that was working for them in ways that it hasn’t in the past,” Zhao said. “Just a few years later, it feels like the pendulum has shifted all the way back towards employers.”
Zhao pointed out that employees also know leaders are capable of being transparent and communicative amid anxiety-provoking times, like they were during the Covid pandemic, so there’s an expectation for leaders to approach a potential recession in the same way.
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“Employees have a higher set of expectations for how they want their leaders to show up and communicate,” he said. “Especially since Covid, which was this enormous shock and really changed how we communicate in the workplace.”
What can HR do? Kyle M.K., a talent strategy advisor at Indeed, agrees with Zhao that employee expectations have increased, so there’s more pressure on HR to be more “creative” and “employee-focused,” he said.
People teams can create spaces for employees to express concerns and ask questions about the health of the business, M.K. told HR Brew, whether it’s during one-on-one meetings with their managers, skip-level meetings with senior leaders, or town halls with executives. This culture of “psychological safety” and empathy may not have been present before Covid, he said, but it’s expected now.
Zhao said HR leaders can also help employees feel like they’re not alone and make clear that the entire workforce is working through this economic uncertainty together.
“There were a lot of leaders who came out of the pandemic, actually, with renewed confidence from their employees, because they were transparent and willing to be vulnerable when they didn’t necessarily know the answers,” he said.