People have been quitting their jobs in record numbers, partially due to re-thinking of priorities over the past couple of years. However, it’s also partly due to bad management or employees having no plans of returning to working in an office five days a week.

“All industry sectors are grappling with a wave of resignations as people re-evaluate how they work and who they work for. Gallup found that 48% of America’s working population is actively job searching or watching for opportunities. However, the “great resignation” is the outcome of a long-term underlying “great discontent” – the highest quit rate is among disengaged workers.” – points out Lars Hyland, Chief Learning Officer at Totara Learning, a provider of enterprise learning, engagement and performance management technology.

“Flexible working has become much more prevalent and desirable. All told, some studies show that up to 83% of workers want to go hybrid after the pandemic. However, the actual experience of remote or hybrid working, and its perceived trade-offs, differs between job roles, industry sectors, and where you are in the management hierarchy. Many are not getting it right as creating an effective, motivating work environment that offers equal opportunity for those working at home or in the office requires changes to the workplace infrastructure – in terms of culture, processes and supporting technologies”, adds Hyland, who has over 27 years of experience in the design and implementation of large-scale learning programs and performance improvement solutions. Throughout his career, he has worked with a wide range of international organisations, including Tesco, Nestle, Deutsche Bank, American Express, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Vodafone, amongst other companies.

For Danny Gutknecht, co-founder and CEO of Pathways, workplace culture expert, and author of the book “Meaning at Work and Its Hidden Language“, with the pandemic keeping employees away from offices politics, they had more time to re-think the old trade-offs of time and work:

“During the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, layoffs topped 40 million. Fast forward to July 2021 and four million Americans quit their jobs. In the matter of a year, Americans went from being laid off to walking away from jobs. People are either exhausted from a meaningless exchange of trading time for dollars, or they feel like they are a walking contradiction balancing ambition with not living a life that’s congruent with themselves. The pandemic forced people to face themselves. Suddenly the drama, office politics, and pretend busyness were gone. All that was left was work. Initially, productivity saw a big boost then we saw widespread burn out. America’s work models were already ripe for massive disruption and the pandemic accelerated its pitfalls. The Great Resignation is ultimately the result of a crisis of meaning. Looking ahead, there is a vast opportunity for organisations to create environments where employees can share meaning with the organisation.”

Gutknecht, who has spent decades decoding and mapping the journey between an organisation and the employee, believes that “Unless the employee understands their talents and passions, and the kind of work that’s meaningful to them today, having a conversation about where they want to go in the future will be like roulette.” Through his research he has discovered that a breakdown in communication and expectations is typically at the centre of most conflict related to (current or prospecting) employees and employers.

Although, historically, companies were used to keeping tabs on their workers to make sure they were getting the job done, new times asks for a new approach – or businesses risking seeing valued members of staff walking way to get the job done elsewhere, often with a competitor.

“What about taking stock of workers’ opinions about the workplace, policies, and general feelings about their jobs, instead?” – suggests Sean Behr, CEO at Fountain, a San Francisco-based company whose technology was used to hire more than 2 million hourly workers in 2021.

“Some companies administer “pulse surveys” to take a temperature of their workers and analyse their overall satisfaction at work. In a similar vein, “stay interviews” are another option to gauge how workers feel about their jobs and clue employers into how they can keep their workers motivated and happy. With a record number of workers quitting their jobs, stay interviews can serve as preventative measures to improve retention rates and keep workers on staff.

According to Behr, unlike periodic performance reviews where managers are responsible for evaluating the worker on specific tasks, stay interviews usually involve asking your workers questions regarding their experience with your company. Question topics can range from schedule preferences, to co-worker collaboration and management’s handling of certain issues.

“Stay interviews allow you to spot any potential issues among workers or within the structure of the workplace and remedy them before they become unmanageable. It is a tool employers can use to better understand why top-performing employees choose to stay at or leave a company.” – adds Sean Behr.

In the end, clear communication between employers and employees may clear the air about a member of staff deciding to stay or moving to another company – before it can amount to further losses:

“Employee engagement is very closely linked to workplace productivity—and satisfaction, which avoids the whole “I quit” trend. Consequently, a lack of engagement is very costly. The lost productivity is equal to 18% of their annual salary. Replacing these workers when they leave requires one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary. It makes business sense to ensure that your organisation offers the best possible employee experience to retain and maintain high-performing people. This does not necessarily mean focusing on rewards, perks, and quirky workplace environments. In fact, recent research points to focusing on the basics of good management practice, and respectful communication has the most impact on engagement, resilience, commitment, and performance.” – completes Fountain’s Sean Behr.