We’ve been posting on LinkedIn lately about how to stay in touch with your employees in a meaningful way, particularly in respect of their wellbeing.
Mental health and people’s resilience are factors that have been thrust into the limelight by the pandemic of the past 18 months or so. You could argue that this issue has been rising in priority for some time, but the pandemic has certainly accelerated the need for businesses to do more to proactively support wellbeing beyond having an Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
A new phenomenon known as The Great Resignation is the reaction of employees to the way in which their employer showed up during covid-19. We are sure you will hear more about it over the coming months and years.
It’s a matter of hygiene
It’s not news that people appreciate feeling valued in their work. Even money comes lower down the list of hygiene factors than feeling appreciated or listened to. Unfortunately for many employees it seems this was forgotten, perhaps in the panic to stay afloat when lockdown hit. The statistics now speak for themselves:
41% of workers surveyed are considering quitting or changing professions this year (Microsoft 2021 survey)
38% of UK and Irish workers plan to quit in the next 6 months to a year (Personio 2021 survey)
In the US, in April alone, over 4 million workers quit their jobs. That’s the biggest spike on record
There’s certainly some truth that our unexpected ‘new normal’ will have caused people to question their life choices. There will be a proportion who decided to quit due to a change in their priorities, location, caring responsibilities etc. But this doesn’t account for the huge trends being seen.
Hard times and heroes
And the evidence that we see in all the latest data, is compelling when you drill down into the reasons. The majority of resignations are down to individual’s treatment by employers during the pandemic. They feel their concerns – which include things like extra pressure or difficulty doing tasks remotely – are not being addressed (or in some cases, even heard); they perceive that when it comes down to it, making money trumps their wellbeing; they cite a lack of extra (or specific) support that they felt was essential given the nature of the crisis.
It was US politician Bob Riley who once said “Hard times don’t create heroes. It is during the hard times when the ‘hero’ within us is revealed.”
Some top tips
For the brands who simply weren’t there for their people, the repercussions are likely to be long-term. Reputational damage such as this often runs deep when people can rate their employment experience on tools like Glassdoor. It’s for precisely this reason that we’ve always worked closely with our clients to engage with – and listen to – their people. Our top tips are:
Clearly articulate your strategy, along with how you will work together to improve culture because this underpins company success;
Design and implement a listening approach that regularly tests what’s important to your people. It’s no longer enough to ‘take the temperature’ of the business in an annual survey. You need listening tools that enable clear and time-bound action;
Conduct deeper dives to identify and enable action on the underlying issues that are affecting your people and their engagement with the organisation.
Getting these things right really will make the difference to productivity and therefore profitability for your business. Don’t forget, churn and recruitment cost money: it takes, on average, six to nine months to bring a new employee up to speed. Surely that’s far more time and effort than checking in with – and actively caring about – the ones you already have?