The Great Resignation is a term you’re probably seeing more often nowadays, used to describe the massive number of people across the country who are quitting their jobs. The data is being tracked by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and a recent study shows very high levels of employees leaving their jobs. It is difficult to identify the overarching causes for this trend because everyone has different circumstances and perspectives. To generalize really only captures some of the more prevalent reasons people are leaving their jobs. The pandemic was clearly a precipitating factor that created a lot of change in the workplace, causing many people to change the way they look at their job and their employer. In this blog post, we will explore the great resignation and how businesses can adapt to help minimize or prevent a mass exodus from their workforce. First, let’s discuss how businesses, especially small businesses, have changed since the pandemic:
Remote work and less connection to the business’ mission or people contributed to the great resignation
In the past, people tended to be more connected with their company and its mission. People were in the office together, building relationships and team cohesion. When issues arose, we were together to discuss and work through things together. In a remote work environment, it is much more difficult to build relationships, and you don’t have an opportunity to talk casually with coworkers. This has led to employees feeling less connected with each other as well as what they are doing at work.
In fact, a survey conducted by the Society For Human Resource Management found that 52% of employees said they don’t believe their work has a significant impact on the company’s success. This lack of connection with each other and to what matters most at their organization can be very discouraging for employees who may start looking for different career paths if there isn’t something in it for them anymore.
Secondly, many companies have started hiring people based on skill sets rather than personality or cultural fit which is another reason why people feel less connected to one another within an organization these days. The focus when hiring should always be around finding someone you want to spend 40+ hours per week. There needs to be some glue between employees to avoid the great resignation. Integrating new hires into a team has always been hard but remote work makes it even harder for companies without strong onboarding processes. Over the course of the pandemic, many employees have found difficulty with working with new team members who they’ve never met because they haven’t been able to build a personal relationship with them. Thus, the great resignation gets more complicated.
Remote work removes geographical constraints (for employers and employees)
Significant shifts came with the pandemic hit, the labor force began to look for good opportunities in different locations. The reason why this happened is that employers didn’t have any geographical constraints when it came to hiring since they could reach out and hire anyone nationally. In turn, employees were able to find job openings with greater flexibility, higher pay, better benefits, or possibly just more friendly company policies much easier than before. The hiring process has changed, creating an opportunity for some businesses and a new challenge for others.
This works well for both employers and employees. Employers are able to find talent across the country and potentially level up the team. However, this is a double edge sword because just as your company can recruit across the country now, other companies can as well. Instead of competing in a local employment market, you’re competing with other employers all over the country. There will obviously be some fallout as a result because there are a large number of employees who are dissatisfied looking for new roles and now the number of employers they can look for jobs has exploded.
Now, this isn’t a bad thing if your company can keep its doors open and continue to find top talent in a national job market; however, we’ve seen that some companies struggle with keeping their momentum going and end up failing without people around them. The reality of it is: there will be more employers than available workers across the country which means you need to continuously attract new talent and retain valuable employees or risk becoming a victim of the great resignation.
Burnout. Longer hours, personal demands, and kids at home
Last year when the pandemic hit, people started working longer hours at their jobs. This happened because companies had to get things done in order to keep business running smoothly and they didn’t have time for employees who couldn’t perform or work around the clock. Because many employers found themselves struggling, they cut some staffing and pushed the remaining employees to cover the load. Employees were working remotely and all of a sudden had more time because there was no commute, and often no time required to get ready for work. However, instead of getting this time back for themselves, employees often found themselves using the extra time for work adding hours of work to their day. Job satisfaction has certainly declined and rarely did the best talent even get higher wages for their efforts.
While I’m not an advocate for commuting, it does allow for two benefits. First, a good example is commuting allows a clear separation between work and home. Second, on your commute home, you have time to decompress mentally and transition. With the remote work, there is no separation and no time to transition to “home mode”. While some people have created special workspaces to create separation and rituals to mentally turn off “work mode” many people haven’t been able to successfully adapt creating new layers of mental health struggles that weren’t there before.
Although outside the scope directly of the workplace, families were handed another burden because, for an extended period of time, kids were doing remote schooling. Whereas prior to pandemic times, kids were in school, now they are in the house and need attention during the day. Families with younger kids struggled even more because younger kids need considerably more attention and engagement. Personal lives and individual needs collided with professional lives. Without work-life balance and added stressors, is it a big shock that employees are looking for other opportunities? Added work, less connection, more personal demands, and an explosion of remote employers across the country are a recipe for employees to look elsewhere. In times of continuity, there is a level of inertia whereby many people will avoid change in their lives. Most people will stick with what they know and are comfortable with even if it’s not a good situation because of the fear of the unknown. When change is forced upon us and that sense of comfort/continuity is already gone, finding a new job doesn’t seem as big of a leap.
So what can be done to mitigate these factors and avoid the great resignation? There is a silver lining. For the most part, this can all be accomplished with good leadership; someone who sees the bigger picture and drives good company culture. Leadership is a very poorly defined word and is incredibly subjective as to what constitutes a good leader. Our definition is someone who actually cares not only about the work getting done (ie caring about your customers), but caring about the people in the organization. This isn’t just paying lip service, but actually having concern about their well-being and where your actions are in alignment with that. Business owners and senior executives say all the right things but most don’t behave that way and it is understandable because we all have our own struggles and headaches we’re dealing with. We get so focused on our own issues that our level of concern for everyone else gets overshadowed. The key is shifting your focus away from your own issues and finding ways to help others in the company will go a long way to improve the culture and improve employee retention. A few ideas to get you started are:
- Build relationships by having ongoing discussions with your team, that are unstructured with the intent to improve relationships and understand what’s going on with them. Just having someone care about you will go a long way to employee retention. Knowledge workers fulfilling a critical role need to know they are valued, otherwise you won’t find out until the exit interviews. This also helps to see the business from the perspective of your frontline workers allowing you to take a hard look at the business in ways you may not have before
- Enable professional growth and competency. People enjoy activities they are good at and improving; it creates intrinsic motivation. Mentorship is so valuable but few people take the time to really do it well. While your company might have a structured professional growth program, the informal relationships that mentors have add so much more value. Find ways to enable that across teams to facilitate employees’ professional growth and competency. Early in my career a partner asked me to write a technical article, and upon completion he re-wrote the entire thing not for technical errors but for stylistic preferences. This was common with him for most people on the team. After a few experiences like this I stopped putting forth my best effort because I knew it would just tossed aside as junk. I did the bare minimum with him because my work wasn’t valued. Instead of finding ways to constructively critique my work or help me improve, he not only stifled my growth but my motivation.
- Be flexible and give employees autonomy. No one enjoys being told what/when/where/how to do their job. Obviously if you are taking on something new, some basic guidance is valued. However for the most part, employers look to micromanage employees to the point they don’t feel any autonomy. People will take more ownership, feel a stronger sense of accountability, and be more motivated if you provide them flexibility and autonomy. This isn’t just about higher salaries, flexible work hours, or remote work options. It means giving employees flexibility within a reasonable range to execute projects the way they want to rather than your way. Some people may struggle, but many people will thrive once they feel that sense of ownership and accountability. People are way more capable than we give them credit for.
Overall, the Great Resignation is happening whether you want it to or not and businesses need to adapt to the new normal. The reasons are multifaceted, but there are many things that can be done to mitigate these factors before they happen.
Businesses can do more than just prevent attrition with good business leaders driving strong company culture. Company leaders must foster intrinsic motivation by building strong relationships, enabling professional growth and competency, and providing autonomy. That’s the overall strategy but the day-to-day tactics will vary from business to business. The best rule of thumb to know you’re on the right course is if your actions as a leader are driven by genuine concern for your team. This will really keep the great resignation in your organization at bay.
