From Resignation to Attraction: The Great Turnaround
What if the Great Resignation provides businesses with an opportunity to create a more intentional, purpose-driven, and engaged workplace?
Workers are questioning if their jobs and firms are the appropriate matches because of the pandemic, and if they aren't, they are changing. Employers can transform the Great Resignation into a renaissance for their companies if they manage it well and produce a more engaged, productive, unified, and loyal workforce.
Six Ways to Retain Employees During the Great Resignation1
1. Redefine Work and Expectations
Companies that cling to the way things were done with a clawed hand will face a harsh reality. Those are the businesses that will continue to lose talent. Over the last 20 months, workers have demonstrated that they can accomplish their jobs sufficiently from a distance. The traditional signs of dedication, such as hours spent in the office and the number of automobiles in the parking lot, no longer apply, and managers must act differently. This requires acknowledgment of the new paradigm. The old paradigm of work does not exist anymore.
2. Find Out What Matters
It's not enough to design policies and procedures post-pandemic. Most importantly, listening to employees and understanding what matters to them most. Creating work arrangements without knowing what matters to employees most is useless.
Employees, particularly millennials and Gen Z workers, want to believe that they have a voice and that management is listening to them. If not, they have no qualms about switching occupations. This entails being open with employees about what can and cannot be done.
3. Conduct Interviews for Stay-Ins
Many businesses conduct "exit interviews" to find out why employees quit. It's also crucial to devote time, attention, and curiosity to employees who have chosen to stay. "Stay interviews" are one-on-one sessions between managers and their employees to review what's working, what isn't, and what adjustments the employee, manager, or organization could make to improve the relationship.
These sessions necessitate a foundation of trust between the individual and their boss and the organization. I've found that they work best if they are ongoing rather than one-time dialogues. Throughout these discussions, you should focus not just on the job but also on the individuals' professional and life goals.
4. Invest in Training
Training might include upskilling an employee who wants to progress their present emphasis or reskilling an individual who would have better possibilities in a different career track could be the subject of the training. Most employees want to improve their abilities and appreciate the opportunity to do so. Set aside an annual training budget, and discuss with your staff the best ways to use those resources to achieve their own and the company's goals.
5. Invite your staff to be co-creators
Engage your employees more fully in the process of developing an organization that meets both their and your customers' demands to avoid the inevitable flood of resignations. Put employee task forces or informal leaders in charge of organizational decisions or initiatives, or just empower employees to do things like establishing the company's principles or name goods and programs.
6. Promote and Encourage Work-Life Balance
A solid work-life balance is essential to many employees. More than half of employees wish their firm provided more scheduling flexibility. Flexible schedules and telecommuting opportunities are two examples of this flexibility.
These factors can assist employees in balancing their personal and professional life, improving their health (both mental and physical), and reducing stress. All of this contributes to increased staff motivation and productivity.
It is, therefore, doable to turn the resignation around. Transform it from a source of asset bleeding through employees exiting the door to a source of engagement, attraction, and retention.
1Forbes, 9 Dec 2021, Nathan Christensen, Turning the Great Resignation into the Great Reengagement For your Company, Accessed 20 Dec 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/12/09/turning-the-great-resignation-into-a-great-reengagement-for-your-company/?sh=710f7af86a20
CNBC, 1 Dec 2021, Susan Caminiti, Want to Know How to Keep Employees from Quitting? Ask them What they want, Accessed 20 Dec 2021, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/30/-how-to-keep-employees-from-quitting-ask-what-matters-to-them.html
Accessed 20 Dec 2021, https://matchr.com/hr-resources/employee-experience/how-to-keep-your-best-employees-from-leaving/
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