Would You Rehire a Great Resigner?

It turns out a lot of people are sorry they quit their jobs and are already looking for the next one.

Good morning!

Here are today’s highlights:

• Gene Marks offers some guidance on mental-health benefits.

• The remote workers in Zoomtowns are driving out the locals.

• A 29-year-old Ukrainian founder runs her startup from bomb shelters.

HUMAN RESOURCES

Some of those Great Resigners just might be open to coming back: “Turns out, money isn't everything. Just ask the 20 percent of job quitters who joined the Great Resignation. A new Harris Poll survey by USA Today that polled 2,000 American adults found that about one in five people regret quitting their jobs during the past two years. In 2021 alone, more than 47 million American workers jumped ship. Many reshuffled into a different job, but the survey found that some of these workers were lured by the prospect of a higher salary without taking other job factors into consideration.”

• “Of those who regret their decision, the majority (36 percent) felt they lost a work-life balance. Others said their new role is different than expected (30 percent), that they miss the culture at their old job (24 percent), and that they didn't properly weigh the pros and cons of quitting (24 percent).”

• “A third are already looking to jump ship again in favor of a job with a better work environment or pay, per the survey. And only 26 percent said they like their new job enough to stay.”

• “Experts told USA Today that Zoom interviews make it more difficult for workers to squeeze in questions and limit their sense of a company's culture.” READ MORE

Tech wages continue to soar: “Wage inflation in the technology sector is accelerating, pressuring companies to boost compensation for key roles by 20 percent or more as they compete for a limited pool of workers skilled in areas such as cloud computing and data science. There is no single source of data on all tech jobs, but it is clear from a range of market analysts and executives that demand for labor in the tech sector is on the rise. During the first quarter, U.S. employers posted 1.1 million tech jobs, an increase of 43 percent from a year earlier, according to information technology trade group CompTIA.”

• “Staffing firm Mondo, an Addison Group company, said at the high end of the compensation range, cloud architects saw average salary increases of 25 percent between 2020 and this year, while average salaries for software engineers rose 11 percent over the same period.” READ MORE

Gene Marks on how small companies are responding to the demand for mental health benefits: “Generally, these benefits fall into three main categories. The first is coverage. Businesses need to check with their health insurance companies to confirm what coverage is available for their employees who may have mental health issues and to make sure their employees are aware of these benefits. Many plans cover counseling services and medications. Larger insurance companies, recognizing the growing demand, are also stepping up their offerings. But having this coverage is only the beginning. As important is that your employees know about the benefits available to them.”

• “To do this, [Sam] Farmer helped compile a ‘mental health resource page’ for her company that includes all the company’s benefits and even contains her personal ‘approach to finding a therapist’ entry with commentaries on what worked and didn’t work for her.”

• “The second category of mental health benefits is services. Some companies are increasingly signing up with such platforms as BetterUp, Fringe, Talkspace and Lyra which offer subscribers mental health support from trained and certified professionals that can provide counseling confidentially and on their schedule.”

• “Others have hired freelance psychologists and coaches to be on call for any employees that feel they need extra help.”

• “Finally, many are revisiting their company’s culture. Today’s best employers recognize the need for flexible schedules, work-from-home options, and other independent working that provides employees with the ability to determine where and when they do their jobs.” READ MORE

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Remote workers with big-city paychecks are driving out long-time locals: “Bozeman is a ‘Zoomtown,’ one of a handful of previously overlooked crannies in the South and the Mountain West that have swelled with an influx of remote-working outsiders. Similar to the boomtowns that popped up in the American West during the mineral-extraction rushes of the 19th and 20th centuries — and precipitated the genocide and displacement of Indigenous populations — longtime locals are feeling the squeeze from the stream of present-day Lewises and Clarks. ‘Not only are locals being kept out of home-buying, but it's accelerating displacement from these communities,’ said Anthony Martin, the founder and CEO of Choice Mutual, an insurance brokerage in Reno, Nevada.”

• “Local Realtors reported that the median sale price of a single-family home in and around Bozeman was $896,000 as of February 2022 — an astonishing 55 percent higher than the U.S. median single-family home sale price that month and a 49 percent increase over the same month last year.”

• “By last summer, the dearth of affordable housing in the Sun Valley town of Ketchum prompted its mayor to float a plan that would allow teachers, nurses, and other essential workers to set up a tent city so they could continue to serve the community they could no longer afford to live in.” READ MORE

THE ECONOMY

Thanks to looming rate increases and strong growth, the dollar is hitting two-year highs: “This year’s climb brings the dollar back toward levels hit during the pandemic market panic of March 2020, when investors world-wide piled into the currency, causing a global shortage and intervention from the Fed. It boosts profits at companies that import goods from abroad, and the purchasing power of consumers buying from overseas.”

• “One major factor lifting the dollar: expectations that U.S. growth will outpace the recovery elsewhere, with the Fed signaling a rapid course of interest-rate increases to tame inflation.” READ MORE

POLICY

What happens if Florida really does repeal Disney’s special district governing authority? “Operating as a functioning government overseeing mostly theme-park lands, the Reedy Creek Improvement District has its own elected officials and its own municipal agencies including a planning department, water department, fire department, and even a transportation department, which includes oversight of the country’s largest monorail system. Changing those jurisdictions would have tremendous impact on other local governments; most critically, Disney, which employs about 80,000 people here, has about $2 billion in bond debt, so the Reedy Creek Improvement District is currently operating at a loss.”

• “It doesn’t matter much to Disney, which makes Scrooge McDuck amounts of cash elsewhere, but if the district was dissolved into the adjacent counties, per the plan, those counties would be responsible for assuming those costs, which the Miami Herald estimates would increase taxes for Orlando-area households by $2,200 annually.”

• “Interestingly, the way these bills are written, they don’t specifically target Disney’s district; instead, they seek to eliminate all special districts created — by pure coincidence — before 1968, which would wipe out a handful of other special districts.”

• “Florida will still be brimming with similar tax districts that aren’t being penalized for their political views, the most famous example being the Villages — that booming Disney World for Republican boomers where [Gov.] DeSantis stumped just this week.” READ MORE

THE RUSSIAN INVASION

A 29-year-old founder runs her bootstrapped startup from bomb shelters: “Alyona Mysko was about to take her startup global. She had spent weeks rebuilding the website for Fuelfinance, which had half its customers in Ukraine, where it's based, with the goal of drumming up business abroad. Satisfied, she closed her laptop at midnight on the day of the website launch and crawled into bed, counting on a restful night's sleep. At 6 a.m., she jerked awake. Her boyfriend stood over her. ‘The war has started,’ he said.”

• “In 2019, she founded Fuelfinance to make software that helps entrepreneurs manage their company finances so they can focus on what they do best.”

• “It provides back-office functions like accounting and cash-flow planning and has several hundred customers spread across Europe.”

• “On March 22, Fuelfinance logged a major milestone for any fledgling startup: It debuted on Product Hunt, a website for sharing and discovering products and startups.”

• “Employees needed to be online and ready to respond to commenters, onboard customers, and share the Product Hunt post on social media to get more eyeballs on it.

• “On a Zoom call, she told Insider she continued to work because she wanted to support her country's economy: ‘I think we maybe work harder than before the war.’” READ MORE

PROFILE

Afghan restaurateurs serve hope to refugees: “When [Hamidullah] Noori opened the Mantu in 2019, four years after arriving in Virginia as a refugee, he joined a group of restaurateurs who had already established a solid presence for Afghan cuisine in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. The region is home to one of the largest populations of resettled Afghans in the United States — more than 16,000 came to the area during the 20-year war that ended last year, an influx second only to California’s, according to U.S. News & World Report. These restaurants represent generations who have fled wars since the 1970s, and the cuisine of a region that has been interconnected with the rest of the world for centuries, owing to its location at the nexus of the ancient Silk Road trade route.”

• “On a single day last fall, Mr. Noori cooked nearly 3,000 meals for refugees at a local military base.”

• “He has since set a goal of feeding every Afghan family resettling in Richmond their first meal in the United States.” READ MORE

THE 21 HATS PODCAST

Just Answer the Question: This week, in a special bonus episode, Marcus Sheridan talks about the revolutionary strategy that he used to save his pool-building business during the Great Recession and that he’s been preaching ever since. That strategy is to volunteer answers to the questions your customers always ask—especially the ones you’ve been taught not to answer, at least not until you absolutely have to, such as those about pricing and potential problems with your product or service. In this conversation, Sheridan also explains how to implement a content marketing strategy, why he isn’t a big proponent of social media, and what most business owners get wrong about marketing.

• You can subscribe to the 21 Hats Podcast wherever you get podcasts.

If you see a story that business owners should know about, hit reply and send me the link. If you got something out of this email, you can click the heart symbol, you can click the comment icon below, and you can share it with a friend. Thanks for reading, everyone. — Loren