What is the Great Resignation and how can you avoid it happening to your business?

Wherever you’ve looked over the past two years, the headlines around the “Great Resignation” are everywhere.?“Forget Going Back to the Office—People Are Just Quitting Instead” says The Wall Street Journal. “The Great Resignation: How Employers Drove Workers To Quit” reads another from the BBC. And Forbes has come up with the phrase “Turnover Tsunami”.

What is the Great Resignation?

Coined by Organisational psychologist Professor Anthony Klotz in May 2021, the term refers to a predicted swell of people leaving their jobs in the wake of the pandemic either because they had put off resignation during a lockdown or because the pandemic had highlighted their desire for a better work-life balance.

Two factors leading to the Great Resignation

Analysis of Office for National Statistics data for 2021 offers some insight into this phenomenon in the UK context. It suggests two factors at play:

1. That employees would have delayed or avoided job moves during the height of the pandemic as this would leave them ineligible for furlough.
2. Second, job vacancies dipped significantly in the early part of the pandemic as businesses did not want to risk recruiting at a time of uncertainty when the day-to-day situation was unpredictable and wildly fluctuating.

As the economy has emerged from the pandemic and confidence increased, so too have job vacancies and moves – indeed, vacancies in the UK rose to a record high between March to May 2022 (source). This is great news for jobseekers, but less so for employers that are keen to hang on to star talent.

There have been many studies undertaken that underpin these findings, including our own recent employee satisfaction survey that showed that a poor work-life balance and ineffective management being the primary drivers for looking for a new role. Furthermore, only 36% of those surveyed described themselves as “inactive” when asked about their job seeker status. People are on the move!

What is important to employees who are resigning?

As much as Jacob Rees-Mogg might wish otherwise, it is clear that remote and hybrid working is here to stay. Conversations that I have daily with candidates, repeats time and time again that most workers would prefer more flexibility over work hours. After all, who wouldn’t prefer being able to flex their work time to pick up their children from school, meet up with friends or simply be at home rather than battling through the daily rush hour at the same time as everybody else.

It’s not only employees who stand to benefit from increased hybrid working – organisations can slash hefty office costs by switching to a hybrid model while enjoying increased productivity from workers. Moreover, research from the?University of Birmingham Business School?has shown that hybrid working is an important part of overall job satisfaction and plays a big role in employee retention.

What can you do to avoid the Great Resignation affecting your business?

There are many elements that you could look at, but here are 5 suggestions that may go some way to combating turnover in your team:

1. Understanding is key! Once you have a clearer understanding of what motivates your employees, and what needs have to be met to?make their work meaningful, then you can take steps to adapt your management style. In addition, personalise the work experience accordingly.
2. Put in place appropriate policies, processes and resources to support flexible working, including remote and hybrid working. Establish a workplace culture in which both employees and employers understand that, to be successful, flexibility must work both ways; Including managing expectations around how time is split between the workplace and home, hours of work and delivery of outputs.
3. Encourage and assist employees in maintaining physical and mental health when working flexibly.
4. Establish social and work-focused connections within teams via regular formal and informal meetings, both in person and remotely.
5. Poor leadership is a factor for many job moves (almost 33% of people in our recent survey, the top answer, cited this as their reason for moving). So, invest in the development of your management team. Offer training and development of their management skills, rather than just technical.

Other resources to prevent the Great Resignation happening to your business

We have other blogs / guides on other topics that can help you to retain staff and ensure your employees feel valued, rewarded and motivated in the workplace. All of which will help you to prevent the great resignation from impacting your business:

• Employee Incentives to recognise, reward and retain
• Employee benefits for mental health and well-being
• How to keep motivation high in the workplace
• Company benefits that work for employees

Written by Amy Watson , Legal Recruitment specialist covering North East and Yorkshire at the Eventus Recruitment Group.

#greatresignation #business #employeesatisfaction #employmenttrends