Prioritise employees wellbeing to avoid the great resignation

After a year filled with job (and life) uncertainty, it’s a change that no-one saw coming – people are quitting their jobs. Dubbed the ‘Great Resignation’, according to recent research by Microsoft, more than 40 per cent of the global workforce is ready to resign at some point this year. In the US, a record 4 million Americans left their jobs in April 2021 alone, writes Rhys Hughes, Regional Vice President Asia Pacific at SumTotal Systems.

So why is this happening when unemployment is high and job security is shaky?

There is no doubt the huge shift to remote work in the pandemic has had a profound impact on how people think about when and where they want to work. According to Skillsoft’s survey of more than 2,300 workers or people looking for work across Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore, 89 per cent wanted at least one COVID-19 practice adopted permanently in their day-to-day lives. On average, just 11 per cent of respondents were happy to return to how things were.

The trouble is, once everything started to reopen, businesses expected employees to jump back on the 9-5 bandwagon, picking up where they left off, pre-COVID. Employees are reacting to that expectation, deciding they’d rather ditch the commute and daily office grind.

So how can businesses avoid losing their top talent during this challenging time?

Prioritise culture and employee support

The Skillsoft research mentioned earlier found the top practices that workers want to see introduced are flexibility in their working hours (59 per cent) and working from home (58 per cent), with almost half wanting more time dedicated to their physical and mental wellbeing (47 per cent) and increased family time (47 per cent).

With more and more employees working remotely for the foreseeable future, it’s critical businesses support the wellbeing of their disparate teams. With normal routines disrupted, many business leaders have upped their communication and engagement with remote workers – implementing regular virtual huddles and ‘coffee mornings’ using video technology to banish feelings of isolation, fill the social void and nurture team bonds.

Some companies have issued helpful guidelines encouraging employees to take regular breaks from monitors and go for walks. Others have offered employees free counselling sessions and webinars on how to nurture their emotional and mental health. Meanwhile, some are offering employees access to an EAP programme and providing a wellbeing budget for staff to take fitness classes or buy equipment and sometimes even pushing the envelope further by providing virtual guided meditation classes.

Nurturing the mental outlook and wellbeing of your workforce needs to be a priority now and into the future.

Encourage flexible working for employees

We’ve already seen that employees desire flexible working arrangements and COVID-19 has proven they can work. By allowing employees to work from home or to work different hours, you help to foster a friendly working environment and drive a more positive attitude from staff, which will, in turn, increase employee productivity and retention.

To make any flexible working policy succeed, communication is key. Regular phone meetings can be used to maintain visibility of employee actions on a daily basis, while eLearning and electronic resources can provide a useful method to ensure staff have easy access to the latest training and resources, regardless of their location.

Challenge your employees

Valuable employees are going to be valuable no matter where they choose to work. It is important to ensure that employees are constantly learning, that they are increasing their value to the company, in addition to building their career skills. This is valuable for the employee and the company. Ambitious employees will want to remain innovative and grow their skillset. If they can develop new skills at your company, an offer to work elsewhere will be less appealing.

Make career progression front and centre

When employees do not feel a company is supporting their progression, their eyes will start to wander towards the job market. That is why companies are offering more career mobility opportunities, which support employees who want to move across different departments or even change their occupations.

Modern career planning, or career pathing, recognises that it is a journey, not a destination. That importantly, the employee is the primary driver, and the outcome now depends upon how quickly he/she acquires new skills. Ultimately, career pathing is aligning each individual and their aspirations with the relevant training to enable workers to attain their professional development goals.

To start career pathing in your organisation you need to start by building individual employee profiles including their experience, skills and competencies. Then identify the skills the employee needs to progress and recommend the relevant training. Then you can design and create an individual development plan.

A growth-based culture rewards learning and creates talent agility. High-performing organisations treat employee satisfaction as a business objective and, as a consequence, link their employees’ development and career progression to business results.

Employees pursuing their passions and demanding better working conditions as a result of the pandemic is a positive change for employees and employers alike. People want to work but they want to do it in a way that suits them, challenges them and creates opportunities. Act now and you can attract and retain the best talent, despite the Great Resignation.

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