"The Great Resignation" - Is it real? What does it mean for you?

In this article I will be discussing 'The Great Resignation' and answering the following questions: Is it real? What does it mean for you as respective employers and employees? How do I avoid being impacted by it?

Let's begin.

Is it real? Yes, like you wouldn't believe.

Initially I was sceptical, I must admit, but that scepticism was very quickly met with a ground-pounding reality check when I stepped back into my daily routine at the start of January.

In my line of work we gain a very unique perspective into employment markets because of the sheer number of people we talk to on a daily basis. Within 1 week of my returning to the office my LinkedIn profile views increased by over 1400% of the usual 90 day statistic, and the next thing I knew I was having 25 meetings per day with individuals who wanted to leave their current business.

To put some numbers behind all this, in November 2021 a record 4.5 million Americans left their jobs, and I can tell you, from what I've seen, January will break that record substantially.

I've never witnessed anything like it. The Great Resignation is very, very real.

What does it mean for you as employers and employees?

I'll start with employers.

I'm afraid there's no way of sugar coating this one, the odd's are you will experience large headcount losses.

Now, of course there are exceptions to this, BlackRock gave all staff below VP level an 8% pay hike last year in order to increase retention which has worked brilliantly. MUFG did something very similar with their $20k bonus scheme as well.

However, there are still a lot of employers that still refuse to accept the reality of this, which is why the vast majority of companies in the USA, especially those who's pockets aren't very deep, will suffer massively if they don't adapt.

The vicious combination of inflation rates and budgetary constraints have led to a substantial demand in salary increases, and this fire is fuelled even further by mask mandates and return-to-office initiatives.

The reality is, if 5 million Americans are leaving their employment each month and there are currently ~12 million vacancies across the US at any one time, employers will have to start paying and providing more to their staff. It's just the simple economics of supply and demand.

On to employees.

Now then, here is where it get's interesting.

You, as an employee, are in an incredibly unique position right now and a lot of you know it. Let's go back to the figures. 12 million vacancies divided by 5 million people looking for work = 2.4 vacancies per individual.

Now the questions you will ask yourselves when changing jobs are always the same: "What do I value in an employer?", "What are they giving me that I don't currently have?" - Progression plans, money, better equipment, more flexibility. The list goes on - Difference is, with the market in it's current state, you have as much choice as you could ever feasibly want, YOU HOLD ALL THE POWER HERE.

How do I avoid being impacted by it?

Now this may seem like a question for just the employers out there but the irony is, employees are impacted pretty heavily as well.

Think about it, you're in a team of 10 doing enough work for 10 people. 4 leave. 6 people are now doing the work of 10 whilst the business scrambles for replacements. The remaining 6 are sick of doing the work of 10, they begin to look for work.

It's a vicious cycle that leaves employees frustrated and overworked and businesses understaffed and low on productivity. Everyone loses.

So, this is going to seem like some shameless self-promotion but I'm genuinely serious. Use recruiters (preferably me, of course). I've seen so many businesses wasting time and money by employing 30, 50, 100 new internal talent acquisition staff to handle this influx of vacancies and avoid the cost of agencies. In what world does that make any sense? When this is all over, and it will die down over the next 12 months, what happens to all of those people?

If utilizing agencies doesn't appeal then you're only option, as an employer, is to communicate with your staff. Work out the issues people have, work out what you can do to help with these problems, and act on them! If people are leaving your business all over the place then there is a reason.

Work out what is is and do something about it, even if it means shelling out a little extra cash.

Anyway, thank you for reading this article. I hope it has shed some light on current events for some of you. Please reach out to me if you have any questions or would like any advice.

Do feel free to give me any feedback you may have, good or bad. I am eager to make this kind of thing fairly regular.