The world is changing fast. The post-pandemic wave of resignations has been called The Great Resignation. A year and a half after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many employees are still questioning if they really want to continue doing the same thing day after day.
Across the globe, more and more workers are leaving their jobs, and The Great Resignation is exasperating the hiring crunch for many industries. In September, 4.4 million Americans handed in their resignations. That’s up from 4.3 million in August and far above the pre-pandemic level of 3.6 million. The jump was the highest the world has witnessed in over 20 years.
As it turns out, there was no shortage of employees. Rather, millions of employees began to rethink their personal and professional choices. Leaving a job that no longer fulfills their needs seemed to be the way to go for employees across the globe.
What Caused The Great Resignation?
Before COVID-19, most people would wake up in the morning, get ready for work, leave their home, commute to their workplace, and they would remain there until it was time to go home. The next day, wash, rinse, and repeat.
Considering the current situation many industries are facing and the aftermath of the pandemic, today’s workers are looking for the following:
- Flexibility in the workplace
- A healthy work-life balance
- Ability to work from home or in a hybrid workplace
- Higher Pay
- More Freedom
How Has The Great Resignation Affected Businesses?
Businesses are more than concerned about their workforce situation. On any given day, a business’s most valued employees can leave when they feel they are not being catered to. More businesses are finding themselves in the hot seat, especially businesses that are finding it difficult to adapt to the new workforce situation.
Remote, hybrid, and flexible work are here to stay, and many industries have already taken steps to adapt to the situation and are offering flexible work arrangements to cater to the demand. Other businesses are now offering hybrid setups.
Here are some impacts The Great Resignation has had on businesses:
- High attrition rates
- Additional expenses due to the significant overhead costs associated with onboarding and training
- Loss of revenue
- Loss of productivity
- Forces businesses to make adjustments
Ashu Singhal, President of Orion Networks, stated, ”We have seen engineers putting in resignation without another job lined up which we had never seen before”.
”Our clients have also been quite impacted as well and we are seeing turnover across all the verticals. We have worked with them to expand hiring remote employees, setting up the right infrastructure to balance security vs. flexibility for a remote employee. We have deployed a more robust set of Azure Virtual Desktop solutions for our clients that has enabled them to quickly onboard new employees and have them hit the ground running on Day 1”, added Singhal.
Is Every Industry Being Affected By The Great Resignation?
Bryan Badger, CEO of Integral Networks shared that neither his business nor their clients are seeing mass resignations. However, he did reveal that his business and its clients are worried about hiring new people as they grow or people move up in their organizations.
The reality is that the workplace has changed greatly over these last 2 years, so what are we doing and what are we seeing our clients do? For us, we downsized our office and have allowed our staff to choose whether they work in the office or from home. Most choose to come to the office every day, a couple have chosen to predominantly work from home and come into the office several times a week or month. Those in positions that allow them to have relocated to other states and work remotely 100% of the time.
One thing that is sure is that, as a business owner, my mindset about working from home has changed whereas, prior to 18 months ago, I never would have considered it. Over the last 18 months, our people have proven they can work as efficiently, if not even better, from home, and now that they have the flexibility to work from home if there is an issue they need to take care of, like waiting for a service call or child care issues, they have even greater flexibility now than they did 18 months ago and in nearly all instances here at Integral, employees are happier.
Brandon Christensen works as a Chief Executive Officer & Founder of V&C Solutions, and he, like Badger, also shared that his small segment of the world has not seen any mass exodus. Christensen stated that it is hard to believe so many people are just leaving a paying job after two years of pandemic-related issues stressing most people’s finances. ‘
‘It is entirely possible they are migrating to companies that have better adapted to work from home or offer better compensation for the work they are doing, or better understanding of boundaries/mental health. Again though, that is just my musing, because I have no evidence either way”, said Christensen.
Ilan Sredni, CEO & President of Palindrome Consulting, Inc also revealed that his business has not been impacted by The Great Resignation.
I do notice that a few of our employees have a very different attitude than they did years past. I don’t think they care about getting fired because they would be collecting unemployment. Additionally, I do see some clients struggling to keep staff since the revolving door seems to be moving much faster.
”We are constantly hearing from my clients how difficult it has been to keep entry-level staff, which seems to be the most s
How Can Employers Avoid The Great Resignation and Retain Talent?
Keeping your current talent is a major concern for businesses in all industries, especially because of the current tight labor market. It can be more cost-effective and efficient to keep your existing talent than to try and recruit new talent, onboard them, and hope that they stay. There are many ways employers can effectively employ to avoid resignation and retain talent.
One of the most essential ways is to adapt and make changes, but one of the ways to attract and retain talent that may be overlooked is allowing employees to have their voices heard. Surveying on-site employees about what’s working (and what’s not) can be an effective way to discover how your employees really feel about their current workforce situation.
While Bryan Badger revealed that his business has not been affected by The Great Resignation, he did reveal that he had some concerns about retaining and attracting A players as their Leadership Team continues to grow and develop.
”I am a little worried about retaining and attracting A players as we grow and continue developing our Leadership Team. A simple survey along with conversations from time to time in our 3x weekly all-staff huddles; we discuss what is important to people or what they need. Such as, working from home or office and what people prefer and what they need and how that translates to the business requirements, so we have a balance”, said Badger.
‘In addition to that, are their benefits. We recently increased our health care coverage from 80% of the employees to 100%. For many, this was a huge boost to their take-home and this will help us to stay competitive. We are increasing time off along with the flexibility of working from home and adding in retirement planning and matching services. In our industry, on-call is always a source of frustration. We are looking at ways to minimize this impact on staff going forward”, added Badger.
”From a technology standpoint, we provide our clients with a secure workspace where all applications and data live as well as a secure single point of access to any SaaS(Software as a Service)/Web-based applications that can be accessed regardless of device, location or concern about the endpoints’ security stance”, said Badger.
Final Thoughts
We do not have to view the Great Resignation through negative lenses. Employers can view The Great Resignation as an opportunity to rethink and connect with their employees. When businesses only focus on the money they are bringing in and not their talents, they will ultimately face high turnover rates. If your business develops a bad reputation, it will become even harder to attract talent.
Interesting Related Article: “Hiring Strategy for the Hybrid Workforce”