The Great Resignation, the Great Reshuffle, the Great Attrition, the Big Shift, the Great Discontent-- all names for the same phenomenon. In spite of that, it certainly cannot be deemed a “great” (or even a mildly good) thing.
Yet, might it?
Employee experience is an all-encompassing term to describe the umbrella of trust, safety, respect, and fun of a company. It supports and enhances a company’s culture.
Organisations are moving heaven and earth these days in the war for talent. If you find your company trying to come out on top in this pandemic-derived beauty competition, it's sensible to pause and first ask yourself whether you know what truly matters to your employees.
Or, are the offered free learning lunches, ping-pong tables, corporate gift set or corporate gift cards and after work parties just your way to get recognised in the beauty pageant? Only by looking deep into your employee experience can you seriously assess whether you’re, indeed, creating a great place to work.
Do you want your workers to want to continue working for you? Then read on to learn more about how organisations can capitalise on employee attrition to attract new workers and keep those tempted to leave.
The Lasting Effects of the “Great Resignation”
The “Great Resignation” is a term coined by Anthony Klotz, a management professor from Texas A&M University in the United States. It’s essentially describing the willingness of employees to quit their jobs post-pandemic– with or without having another job at the ready.
Job vacancies in the U.K. reached a record high in July-- nearly 1 million positions empty. Prophetically, the prognosis becomes only more dire when you consider that 38% of employees plan to quit within the next six months to a year, according to studies conducted by Personio and McKinsey.
Over 11.6 million jobs have been furloughed since the start of the U.K.’s Coronavirus Job Retention scheme (CJRS). Lamentably, unemployment figures are only expected to increase later this year upon the close of the scheme.
The uncertainty, risk, and expense for organisational HR departments to shoulder is exorbitant.
Replacement expenses are not insignificant, ranging from half to double an employee’s salary. The time impact is also considerable, taking 6-9 months to onboard a new employee. Even so, the disruption to organisational stability and productivity can linger long afterward.
What do Your Employees Really Want?
Offering a “hybrid workplace” is widely reported as the panacea to getting office workers to stay. Is that REALLY what your employees want? Are you sure you know? Have you asked your employees? More importantly, have you asked your exiting employees?
McKinsey found a clear disconnect. Why companies believe employees are leaving does not correspond to why employees are actually leaving.
It would seem that employers tend to have a transactional outlook. They believe their employee experience boils down to three things: having advancement opportunities, being able to work remotely, and offering an attractive compensation package. That belief, however, turns out to be far from the truth of what employees actually want.
Employees are only human-- and humans are emotional, social creatures. What employees say is that they want more of an emotional connection to their work and the company.
The top three factors employees cited in the McKinsey survey as reasons for quitting were not feeling:
- valued by their managers
- valued by their organisations
- a sense of belonging at work
Worryingly, minority employees identifying as non-white or multiracial were also more likely to say they left because they didn’t feel they belonged. It’s a strong sign that organisations are not doing enough to create a sense of belonging for everyone.
The time has come for organisations to invest in a more satisfying employee experience. If more worker autonomy and true flexibility is the price to pay for retention, isn’t that a bargain?
Is Your Employee Experience Driving Your Employees to Quit?
In “The Great Resignation: How employers drove workers to quit,” the BBC reveals that companies' treatment of their workers during the pandemic became determinative of its attractiveness as a company to work for. This revelation applies to both work-leavers and work-seekers.
In simple terms, workers stayed at companies that offered support, and bolted from those that didn’t.
For many, the decision to leave was not jumping at the opportunity to explore some dream job. Instead, it was a result of their treatment by their employer during the pandemic. That was certainly the case for Melissa Villareal. She decided to leave a beloved teaching position in the U.S. due to concerns her employer wasn’t treating safety seriously enough.
If a company is enduring a mass exodus, it’s a signal to work-seekers that something’s not quite right. It becomes a flashing warning sign they should explore opportunities elsewhere.
Organisations with already poor pre-pandemic employee experiences showed a tendency to double-down on non-supportive decisions. Actions such as layoffs, pay reductions, and ignored safety concerns then went on to create negative consequences. These organisations only increased their vulnerability to the Great Attrition.
Losing employees not only means losing your best problem-solvers, stars, and innovators. It also seriously undermines morale and customer relationships. Identifying how to attract and retain talent is essential for organisations if they hope to stem any post-pandemic outflow.
A Blueprint to Building a Better Employee Experience
Building a better employee experience can deliver measurable impact, especially when designed with the employee at the centre. Here’s how do you do that:
✔️ Create a High-Trust Environment
Employees who feel taken for granted are not likely to stick around. Authentic gestures that go beyond tokenism to engage and reward employees are key to actively demonstrating respect and caring to employees so they stay. So honouring your team with thank you gifts can be one way to thank the people with whom you are working together towards the same goal.
Over half a million employees of the 100 Best Companies to Work for in the U.S., told Great Place to Work that what matters most are inclusive, high-trust cultures.
Organisations that climbed the 100 Best Companies ranking were those that went the extra mile in their efforts during the pandemic-- in caring for their employees, customers, and society. These included, for example, sizable donations to local charities, job-protected voluntary leave, backup child care, and job retraining to prevent layoffs.
One company that went beyond mere payout gestures was U.S. supermarket chain, Wegmans. It reimagined compensation, leave, and benefits to include: income-protection efforts for those affected by quarantine or illness, job-protection policies and efforts aimed at retraining and retaining, in addition to direct monetary compensation and child care.
The company satisfied true worker needs and concerns while simultaneously addressing business needs.
Organisations are always looking to persuade employees to care about them. Now that employees are constantly connected to work, they want to see and experience caring as a mutual undertaking.
✔️ Train Leaders to be Compassionate People Managers
Leaders need to motivate, inspire, and lead with compassion and trust.
During difficult times, leaders who are able to show caring for their team members, communicate clearly and authentically, and remove obstacles are the ones to engender trust, pride, and a sense of community. Imagine the exponential effect such leadership would have on the employee experience.
People have a fundamental need for autonomy. Dissatisfaction often arises when management becomes too involved in the employee’s work. A leader who can build trust and a caring team environment, not only empowers their team members but inevitably achieves better results.
Most people managers tend to have little or no actual people management training. To create an employee experience where the workplace empowers employees, managers need to learn to let go of the reins. Gallup finds that it takes next to nothing to poach most disengaged workers but more than a 20% pay raise to lure most employees away from a manager who engages them.
Training in connection with SMART goals can be used to reinforce this idea. Reward leaders for their people skills (not just their bottom line) based on people-oriented KPIs such as: team turnover rate, team engagement level, percentage of team to be promoted/ leaving the team to follow other internal advancement opportunities.
People-oriented training and goals communicate the broader message that people are important. They also incentivise managers to put employees--and their experience-- first.
✔️ Remind Employees how Their Work Matters to Society
For many, work is more than just how they pay the bills. Employees want to know their work is meaningful.
Of course companies exist to make money. No one wants to believe, however, that their work has no meaning other than to add to the coffers of the company. Ensure your organisation’s employer branding can communicate that truth in a different way.
Direct sellers, for example, often use storytelling to convince employees that their efforts are changing the lives of the sales consultants selling their products. Employees then become more invested as they feel more connected to “doing good” in the world. More controversial industries might focus on the number of people they employ in a region or how sales contribute to their charitable foundation.
✔️ Emphasise Inclusivity
Employees want to bring their whole selves to work and they want a culture that welcomes them to do just that. Efforts such as onboarding, mentoring, community work, and social activities can help employees connect to their coworkers and the organisation.
In fact, Great Place to Work found that black employees’ experience and trust scores skyrocketed when their company instituted meaningful and continuous efforts around racial injustice conversations.
U.S. insurance company Nationwide is proof positive that this approach works. Trust index scores skyrocketed after instituting policies aimed to show black employees that it was committed to creating a genuine, and hopefully productive, on-going conversation about racial inequities.
Nationwide made large financial commitments to fair housing and social justice organisations. It also widened the reach of its charitable matching program to specifically include social justice. Nationwide instituted a program to bring in civil rights speakers, and even held a “unity day” to encourage employee conversations about racial injustice.
Scores on the question of whether “my work has special meaning” was 90% among Nationwide’s black employees- an astonishing rise of 16 points– compared to just 49% on average in the U.S.
When employees feel heard and valued, they are more engaged and satisfied. Diversity has long been the answer for successful employee engagement.
It’s no fun to be “runner up” in a beauty contest. Those organisational cultures with faith in leaders and shared purpose are the ones that thrive through crises. With a lot of compassion, and employee-centred policies, your employee experience can deflect attrition.... while retaining your employees.
Ready to stand up against the Great Resignation?
Build a better employee experience. The workers will come (and stay).
