People the world over are leaving their jobs in droves.
2021 supercharged a period dubbed ‘The Great Resignation. This has seen workers leave their jobs at historic rates. The data on hand is showing that the Great Resignation is more than just anecdotal and while it started Stateside, its influence reached our shores long ago.
Companies are feeling the pinch, and many expect it to worsen still. In an article by the Evening Standard, UK quit rates recently reached their highest levels since 2009. Redundancies in the UK are at their lowest since the mid 90’s, while the level of open vacancies is the highest on record.
So, how did we get here?
The last two years cleared the decks for so many of us, now as things begin to come back to a modicum of what they once were, people have realised that as the world has changed, so too have they.
COVID was the catalyst for many individuals to make radical work/life choices and changes. More time spent at home with the family gave many greater clarity on where their priorities lie. This refocusing of priorities is one factor around The Great Resignation; even with all the will and management skill in the world, the minds of these individuals would not be so easily swayed.
Then we have the individuals who felt that they had no other choice other than to resign or quit their roles. The rationale here could be anything from a combination of low pay, mismanagement, a complete absence of management and direction from above, feeling under supported, under resourced and over worked during COVID.
Without sounding too evangelical, these are the individuals who could have been saved.
This group of ‘Great Resignators’, are casualties of a system of management and governance which, it would seem, has paid little attention to their wants, and needs, until it was too late.
Now I cannot begin to lay blame at the doorsteps of all managers. To tar everyone with that particular brush would be unwise and unfair.
But what I can do, is tell managers that there is a better way… and it lies in data.
My particular area of expertise is that of human experience, and together with my business partner Dr Jonathan Pitts, we developed a methodology of aggregating quantitative data based on qualitative experiences, to provide businesses with a means of assessing and anticipating the need and requirements of their workforce on a limitless sliding scale.
So, the last two years have been particularly poignant as we’ve seen many businesses take strategies which they have been ‘developing’ for years, around digital transformation, and throw them into the fast lane with only limited knowledge or understanding.
A recent survey we undertook with high level executives across Europe and the UK pointed to this. With over 70% of the business leaders we canvassed planning to shift to a hybrid workplace, we found many are clearly ill-prepared for the change.
Nearly a quarter (24%) of them admitted they’re not effective at understanding the digital requirements of employees. Less than one in five (19%) said they were ‘very effective’ in understanding the link between digital tools and employee wellbeing – in fact, 24% said they were either ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ effective in this area. And 29% of these executives said ‘understanding employee requirements’ is one of the top challenges they now face, along with ensuring that workers have access to the right tools and technologies (24%).
It’s understandable then that over two thirds (67%) of the business leaders we spoke to are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of digital inequality on employees.
According to our own benchmarking data, on average, the bottom 10 per cent of a company experiencing the worst digital inequality, will spend six hours a month trying to catch-up – the best part of a working day.
This can cause increased frustration and vastly reduced employee wellbeing, which can simply be caused by things like lagging load times, connectivity delays, and interrupted conversations. This might lead to falling behind or having to catch up during the employees’ personal time. Deadlines and targets may not be hit, impacting performance and potentially the future of individual careers.
But what does this have to do with The Great Resignation?
So far, the story of The Great Resignation has been told from the viewpoint of the employee. Our Reconfigured data, delves into the other side of this spectrum… and a spectrum it is, for this is not a black and white matter.
Reconfigured has shown us, that at an organisational level many C-Suite level executives felt unsure and unprepared about how to steer their digital transformation into a post-covid hybrid working world.
This feeds directly into the employee experience. People who feel frustrated, over-worked, under-valued and don’t have the tools to effectively do their jobs, owe business leaders no loyalty. Their hearts and heads are not in their roles and a combination of COVID, a groundswell of media attention around the Great Resignation only seeks to reinforce that they are not alone.
This creates a buckaroo effect, which requires a rapid response from business leaders to remedy.
Put simply, these individuals have everything to gain and nothing to lose by leaving an organisation they feel they owe no loyalty towards.
But why is that?
Maybe management didn’t check in regularly enough as they tried to fulfil their roles from the kitchen table. Maybe Leadership wasn’t active enough in making sure they had the right tools to work effectively and efficiently at home. Maybe the combination of workload and resource finally becoming unmanageable without the proper hybrid facilities to reach out to peers and colleagues, with individuals just left to their own devices, literally.
The reasons why could be one, or all, of these things, maybe even with a few extra thrown in for good measure.
Moving forward, the ability to accurately measure a hybrid worker’s digital environment is critical. Although a lot of businesses may have IT-level monitoring in place to analyse the performance of their digital tools for employees, far fewer understand the critical need to quantify the human experience of technology and the organisational-level impact that it can have.
At this stage of The Great Resignation, what is certain is that business leaders need to sit up and learn from this. Because, if they don’t then they may just find themselves in the same situation, 12 or 18 months down the line.
