5 Things You Can Do to Avoid the 'Great Resignation' at Your Company

In the United States, 4 million people quit their jobs in April 2021 — the biggest spike on record. And this mass exodus isn’t unique to the United States. In a survey of more than 31,000 global workers, Microsoft found that 41% are considering leaving their current employer this year.

These numbers are both shocking and unsurprising. The COVID-19 pandemic led countless employees to question what they really want — from their employer, their day-to-day experience at work, and their career as a whole. For some, the months spent working from home surrounded by family made them reevaluate their priorities. For others, the way their employer responded to the pandemic left them ready to move on to something new.

Even for companies that have been there for their people throughout this challenging period, the next few months will be critical. Rushing to reestablish the status quo may leave some employees feeling like no lessons were learned. And with the cost of replacing a single employee ranging from one-half to two times their annual salary, winning over those on the fence could save you time, money, and institutional knowledge and well-being.

Whether the “Great Resignation” has already hit your company or not, here are five steps you can take to minimize turnover and get your company ready for a post-pandemic employment landscape.

1. Extend remote work options equitably 

For many employees, the past 16 months provided proof that they don’t need to be in the office to be productive. And while some, missing the chance to socialize in person, are certainly eager to return to the physical workplace, others have no intention of going back — at least, not permanently. One survey found that 39% of people would consider quitting if their employer wasn’t flexible about remote work. Among millennials and Gen Z, that figure sits even higher at 49%.

To get ahead of this, some companies are assuring employees that they won’t have to come back to the office if they don’t want to. As early as May 2020, Twitter and Square announced that employees would have the option to work from home forever. Since then, many others have followed suit, going 100% remote or moving to a hybrid workforce model.

For companies that have yet to make an announcement one way or another, waiting too long could be risky. If employees who want to continue working from home suspect there’s a chance that they’ll be told to return, they may preemptively look for remote jobs elsewhere.

Even if you’re still finalizing your post-pandemic workforce plans, the time to give employees some assurances is now — before it’s too late. If your leaders are still on the fence about remote work, ask them if they’re willing to risk losing top performers, because that may well be the price of making the office mandatory. 

There’s also the question of who will be allowed to work remotely and who won’t. For employees whose jobs can be performed from anywhere, extending remote work options to some and not others could leave a sour taste in people’s mouths. Aim to make your policy as extensive and equitable as possible, and provide clear guidelines around eligibility so that no one feels unfairly left out. 

Of course, certain jobs simply can’t be performed from afar. To retain workers in these roles, some companies are currently searching for new amenities that they can offer to create a sense of balance. For example, Kiersten Robinson, the chief people and employee experiences officer at Ford, says her company is considering options like allowing plant employees to preorder meals to take home to their families so that they won’t have to go to the store after a shift. 

2. Support your distributed workforce with targeted manager training and seamless hybrid workspaces

Even for companies that do extend remote work options permanently, transitioning to a hybrid workforce is not like flipping a switch. While much of the technological infrastructure required may have already been put in place during the pandemic, wider cultural shifts are essential to support this new way of working. Otherwise, remote workers may start to feel isolated and forgotten when their peers return to the office, making them more likely to leave.

The first step in combating this may be training managers to lead hybrid teams effectively. Even if they mastered remote management during the pandemic, that doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to combine remote and in-person approaches in a way that makes everyone feel connected and supported. The last thing you want is for remote workers to feel like their manager favors people they see every day in the office, or for in-person employees to believe their remote manager doesn’t understand their needs. 

Companies may also need to reevaluate their physical workspaces and consider ways they can be adapted to create a more seamless hybrid environment. Google, for instance, has meeting rooms equipped with large screens to accommodate remote workers as well as colleagues in other offices. 

3. Emphasize employee well-being 

At the height of the pandemic, a lot of emphasis was placed on employee well-being, with experts fearing that the stress and anxiety created by the health crisis — compounded by isolation — would hasten burnout. But despite vaccines being rolled out and cities gradually reopening, the risk of employees becoming burned out and quitting may be even higher now than it was this time last year.

Consultancy firm Robert Half recently found that 44% of employees are more burned out today than they were a year ago. Half (49%) blame this on a heavier workload, while one in four say they forfeited taking paid time off (PTO) in 2020. 

To curb burnout-fueled resignations at your company, it’s not enough to give employees time off and expect them to take it when they need it. For one thing, travel options remain limited, so people may feel they don’t have an excuse to use time typically earmarked for vacations. Others may feel that their work culture encourages always-on behavior, making it difficult to unplug.

Employers like Mozilla, LinkedIn, and Bumble have tried to nudge staff into taking time for themselves by scheduling week-long, company-wide shutdowns. By making time off mandatory and showing that everyone (including the leadership team) needs and deserves it, companies can remove any stigma around it and show that they care about employee well-being. 

But as Okta found, initiatives like these are only effective if they’re matched by thoughtful efforts to manage the team’s workload and prevent people from becoming too overloaded to take much-needed breaks. When Okta’s CEO Todd McKinnon realized employees were working round the clock during the pandemic, he decided to give them Fridays off. But since their workload hadn’t changed, people just wound up working Saturdays instead. As Todd later reflected in the Harvard Business Review, “If you really want to take the pressure off the team, you have to adjust the workload.”

4. Empower lateral moves and career development

World-changing events are enough to make anyone reevaluate what they want from life. For some, this prompted the decision to finally pursue their dream job or get out of a career path that isn’t quite right for them. 

While you won’t be able to retain every employee who decides to radically alter their trajectory, you can take steps to help people make meaningful lateral moves. If employees don’t know how to find new roles at your company or fear their manager won’t be supportive, they’ll almost certainly look elsewhere.

At Schneider Electric, employees can apply for part-time projects via the company’s internal mobility platform to help them transition into new roles on different teams. Uber has a similar platform, and managers work closely with employees to help develop a plan to get them where they want to go.

If you don’t have a purpose-built platform, you can still support lateral moves by making sure employees know how to find out about open roles at your company. You can also provide access to on-demand learning resources that will help them develop the skill sets they’ll need to move their career in new directions. 

For these measures to be effective, managers can’t be possessive of talent. So, start by talking to them about why lateral moves matter and making it clear this is in the business’s best interest. “None of us get to ‘own’ an employee,” says Chuck Edward, corporate vice president of HR at Microsoft. “If someone’s hiring an employee from your team, that’s two managers collaborating for the win of the company.”

5. Make a big push for pay equity and transparency

During the Black Lives Matter protests last year, many companies made commitments to improve their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. A powerful place to start is with pay equity because if companies don’t appear to have made any significant progress in this area, some employees may grow disillusioned and quit. 

This is especially important right now because women and people of color were disproportionately affected by the economic impacts of the pandemic, which may only serve to exacerbate existing wage gaps, making it even harder for these groups to catch up with their peers. 

The first step toward pay equity is figuring out if there are any gaps at your company and then taking action to start bridging them. But even if all employees are being paid equitably, if they have no way of confirming this, some may grow to suspect they’re underpaid and start looking for opportunities elsewhere. 

That’s why pay transparency is also critical. If your company doesn’t feel comfortable disclosing exact numbers, consider sharing salary ranges. This not only gives employees a way to confirm they’re being paid fairly, but can also signal to them that you’re truly committed to equity. 

Final thoughts: Be proactive, but take time to listen

There are many reasons why employees may be considering leaving their jobs. While some may be outside of your control, getting proactive about the things you can control can help you get ahead of the Great Resignation and avoid losing your best people.

If some employees do ultimately decide to move on, be sure to ask them what your company could have done to better support them. Maybe you couldn’t have prevented them from leaving — but you might be able to stop the next person.

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