Goodbye Letters: The Great Resignation
We’ve all heard about The Great Resignation; the phenomenon where employees are leaving their employers and moving on to pastures new.
WeTransfer produced a report and touched on this, highlighting that “pretty much every industry is going through The Great Resignation” and that the creative workforce isn’t coming out unscathed, either. In fact, “45% of global creatives are thinking of changing their jobs in the next 6 months”.
But, why is this? A lot of employers are left scratching their heads, wondering where they went wrong. However, many are failing to acknowledge that the demands of the workforce are changing, and clichés such as “I want to make a difference” aren’t considered clichés any more, they’re a reality for the next generation in our workforce.
We’ve gone through a significant shift over the past 24 months; entering a new decade, a global pandemic, and seeing more and more Gen Z’s entering leadership roles.
Their priority isn’t necessarily money or the latest promotion, instead, it’s grounded in change, purpose, and work-life balance.
The new generation of workers aren’t afraid to leave a job if these desires aren’t fulfilled, and why should they be? We bang the drum of how important it is to love your job, because if you’re spending five out of seven days a week unhappy, then are you really living?
We recently ran a poll on why people quit, and the results were:
Boredom / Lack of progression: 30%
Purpose and Motivation: 20%
Stress / Work life balance: 28%
Salary: 22%
So, how do you give people what they want?
The most important thing is to collect data. Data doesn’t lie! From an employer perspective, what are you doing to find out how to get the most out of your employees? Are you blindly guessing and hoping for the best? Or, are you spending time to comb through each team and revise their responses and then create action?
Here are a few ways in which you can start…
Review the salaries of your employees: Whether you research internally or use a recruiter to help you with a salary benchmarking report, make sure that 2022 is the year that remuneration is fair across your organisation. If you already do this - great. If you don’t, it can be a contributing factor as to why people are leaving.
Does your organisation have a purpose or values? Running a branding exercise with an external partner can enable you to create better connectivity in your organisation and ensure that everybody is aligned to the wider purpose and values. What do you stand for? How are you going to get there? What part does each team member play in contributing to the long-term value of the organisation?
What are your working practices like? Remote working is no longer seen as a perk, it’s now a necessity. Conduct competitor analysis and see what you can do better for the work/life balance of your employees.
What do your career paths look like? And, are they clear? Are employees sure about what they need to do to get a promotion or even get recognition? A great way to get a temperature check on this is by sending out a survey. Not only will this gauge the engagement of your team, but it’ll also give you data to work with.
Do you give back? Charity work, fundraising, sustainability, and other internal initiatives that even benefit your local community are all great ways to keep employees engaged and show them that you care. Make sure you do this with the right intentions, though - inauthenticity can create distrust internally.
The reality is, employees aren’t asking for the world, they just want to be paid correctly, work for a company that has a purpose, enjoy a healthy work/life balance, and have clear communication lines about progression. If you’re able to look at things holistically, you’ll see that it’s the smaller changes that make the most impact long-term.
Do all of these things, and when you’re next reading a goodbye letter - you can have peace of mind knowing that you did everything you could. People can leave even in the best environment in the world, but the data shows that companies are still not doing enough to retain the best talent.