In the wake of the pandemic and in the inflation-hit years that followed, the employment landscape seems to have been flooded by a series of neatly coined trends as workplaces adjust to sizeable shifts driven by social, economic, political and technological change.

As we head into 2025, those shifts show few signs of settling down. So, if 2021 was the year of the Great Resignation and 2022 was all about quiet quitting, what are the buzzwords we can expect to hear this year, and what market trends do they reflect?

Employees taking action

Many observers have pointed to the potential for conditions in 2025 to embolden employees not just to quiet quit – where an individual actively decides to fulfil the bare minimum of their work responsibilities – but to take the far bolder step of ‘revenge quitting’. This trend describes the channelling of resentment at a current work situation into the more concrete step of seeking greener pastures elsewhere.

This trend is said to be driven by underlying frustration at a lack of opportunities for progression and development in an existing career, combined with fears of burnout and, potentially, dissatisfaction at company policies, such as return-to-work mandates.

At the more extreme end of the spectrum, this feeling can manifest itself as ‘rage applying’, where fed-up employees apply a blitz approach to finding alternative employment, firing off applications to a wide range of vacancies in a short period of time without giving much serious thought to their next potential role.

Economic insecurity

Clearly not all employees will reach this point. For many, the personal and professional ambitions driving thoughts of change are tempered by fears of abandoning existing job security and nervousness at changeable conditions in the job market amid broader economic instability.

Research from recruitment consultancy Michael Page provides evidence of this tension, with just over half of people (51%) saying they feel stagnant in their current roles, but almost three-quarters (72%) admitting being nervous about leaving because of the economy, and a slightly higher proportion (76%) saying the familiarity and security provided by long-term employment makes if difficult to leave. It is a dilemma that the company has termed the ‘Great Job Stagnation’.

Employer-rating platform Glassdoor also picks up on this sentiment of employees feeling stuck in their careers in its Worklife Trends predictions. It suggests this will persist into 2025 on the back of a relatively soft job market.

Separately, but along similar lines, recruitment company Indeed points to the economy heading into “choppy waters” in its 2025 UK Jobs & Hiring Trends Report. It highlights that the job market this year will be shaped by headwinds to hiring and a slowdown in job postings and wage growth, although noting that these factors are counterbalanced a better-than-expected economic performance in 2024 and upgrades to 2025 GDP projections among some forecasters.

The challenge of engagement

In this context, employers face the task of maintaining engagement and satisfaction levels among staff – a challenge that takes on additional significance amid reports of declining mental health, increasing absence due to long-term sickness, and the UK risking becoming a ‘burnt-out nation’.

Indeed, ‘burnout blocking’ has been suggested as another trend that will take centre stage in 2025. This describes more proactive approaches to preventing burnout among employees as opposed to managing the consequences of this problem.

Technology is predicted to play a supporting role here, including the use of software to track uptake of holiday allowance in recognition of its importance in protecting staff wellbeing.

Being aware of benefit trends

Clearly, employee benefits are also a powerful weapon in the armoury of employers that are keen to support wellbeing, encourage loyalty and tackle the negative employee trends referenced above. However, there is another buzz-phrase that companies should be aware of when building a package of benefits: anti-perks.

Anti-perks has been used to describe benefits that are offered with good intentions by employers and might sound attractive but, in fact, do not have the expected appeal among their teams. In some cases, employees can even view these offerings with suspicion and cynicism, suggesting they could even be harmful to employer-employee relations.

Risks such as this underline that there is rarely a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to employee benefits – just as it is unlikely that all employees will be tempted by ‘revenge quitting’. But it is only by keeping abreast of such trends and listening to staff that companies can ensure they are creating the right culture and adapting to the needs of their employees in changing times.

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