Why the great resignation calls for some great re-engagement

It’s been 19 months and count­ing of Covid-induced change for huge num­bers of work­ers across the globe. Many are burnt out, oth­ers fed up. As their pri­or­i­ties evolve, busi­ness­es must re-eval­u­ate how they engage employ­ees.

The stress­es of jug­gling work and life, deal­ing with uncer­tain employ­ment, accel­er­at­ing busi­ness and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tions, work­ing from home or not work­ing from home, have cre­at­ed a great dis­lo­ca­tion in the jobs mar­ket. And the num­bers are stark. In the US, peo­ple have been quit­ting jobs at the high­est rates this cen­tu­ry. 

The so-called “big quit” may be an Amer­i­can phe­nom­e­non, but job vacan­cies in the UK soared to an all-time high recent­ly. Employ­ee engage­ment is a hot top­ic around the globe.

“In recent times, organ­i­sa­tions have shunt­ed the idea of resilience onto employ­ees rather than them­selves; that way busi­ness­es don’t need to devote resources to being resilient,” says Dr Adri­an Mad­den, a senior lec­tur­er in the Depart­ment of Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hud­der­s­field. “There is also the issue of trust between employ­ers and employ­ees. This has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly erod­ed as a result of Covid, not helped by a renor­mal­is­ing dis­course of recov­ery, where work­ers should put aside these issues as the econ­o­my rebounds.” 

Gauging happiness

How­ev­er, when attri­tion is high or it looks as if work­ers are in demand, with calls from politi­cians for a “high wage, high pro­duc­tiv­i­ty” econ­o­my, then the issue of employ­ee expe­ri­ence mat­ters even more. The “great res­ig­na­tion”, as it’s also called in the US, should be met with a “great re-engage­ment” by busi­ness­es around the world, espe­cial­ly now that skilled labour is in peak demand glob­al­ly and attri­tion is an issue. 

“Organ­i­sa­tions must increas­ing­ly be gen­uine about putting the employ­ee at the cen­tre, and not just tak­ing a util­i­tar­i­an approach to staffing. It is no longer about opti­mis­ing peo­ple as a resource for the ben­e­fit of the com­pa­ny,” states Gal Rimon, CEO of employ­ee engage­ment plat­form Cen­tri­cal. “It’s in a company’s best inter­est to keep employ­ees engaged and feel­ing val­ued, espe­cial­ly now. There’s also a great deal of expense asso­ci­at­ed with recruit­ing and onboard­ing employ­ees.”

While cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty is a well-worn busi­ness phrase, for­ward-think­ing firms realise it’s time to focus on employ­ee-cen­tric­i­ty. But a lot needs to be done in this area. For instance, the Char­tered Insti­tute for Per­son­nel Devel­op­ment or CIPD’s annu­al Good Work Index finds that job qual­i­ty in the UK still falls short, with too many work­ers report­ing a lack of devel­op­ment and poor well­be­ing. 

Defin­ing what “good” looks like when it comes to employ­ee expe­ri­ence is there­fore impor­tant. This goes beyond remu­ner­a­tion, a bet­ter work-life bal­ance, snazzy office spaces or free break­fasts. It’s increas­ing­ly about achiev­ing hap­pi­ness at work. It’s per­son­al, hard to define and evolv­ing, with greater expec­ta­tions among Gen Z and Mil­len­ni­als. Pulse sur­veys and real-time employ­ee feed­back help. 

“The employ­ee expe­ri­ence needs to change because our whole world expe­ri­ence has changed. The pan­dem­ic has taught peo­ple that the core of their job can be done in a way that suits them. Employ­ee expe­ri­ence has also become about indi­vid­u­al­i­ty in the work­place,” explains Nathan Peart, man­ag­ing direc­tor at law recruit­ment firm Major, Lind­sey & Africa. 

“Today, firms need to ensure staff can thrive, not just sur­vive,” Peart says. “The employ­ee expe­ri­ence needs to be agile and excit­ing, oth­er­wise peo­ple can just go else­where. The savvi­est com­pa­nies are there­fore pri­ori­tis­ing growth and devel­op­ment tai­lored to the indi­vid­ual.” 

Plugging the gaps

British multi­na­tion­al tele­coms firm BT is aim­ing to upskill and moti­vate staff, par­tic­u­lar­ly about cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. This is one of the fastest-grow­ing areas of the com­pa­ny, but there’s a short­fall of 3 mil­lion work­ers glob­al­ly. The firm is keen to plug this skills gap through engag­ing its employ­ees.  

“We are train­ing our own peo­ple to fill the void, giv­en the job short­age in the glob­al mar­ket­place. Our busi­ness is mov­ing from tra­di­tion­al to new ser­vices, there­fore we need to make that tran­si­tion from old skill sets to new ones,” states Andy New­man, direc­tor of BT Secu­ri­ty. 

This is achieved by pro­vid­ing on-the-job microlearn­ing, he says, but in a cre­ative man­ner, dif­fer­ent to what’s been done in the past. “Mak­ing it inter­est­ing, mak­ing it engag­ing, as well as mak­ing it more enjoy­able and fun.”

For BT’s staff, it’s been about per­son­al devel­op­ment, he says. “From an indi­vid­ual per­spec­tive all of a sud­den employ­ees have an exper­tise on their resume that they nev­er had before to do with cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. For the busi­ness we’ve seen a mate­r­i­al impact on our sales met­rics.”

Align­ing busi­ness out­comes with employ­ee per­son­al goals – for exam­ple, life­long learn­ing or devel­op­ing know-how – is a new imper­a­tive, espe­cial­ly with the shift to a green­er econ­o­my in which new skills are need­ed. Peel Ports, the sec­ond-largest port oper­a­tor in the UK, has com­mit­ted to slash emis­sions, but it also needs to embed this knowl­edge among its work­ers. 

The com­pa­ny is going through an edu­ca­tion process, “putting in cours­es on sus­tain­abil­i­ty to raise aware­ness among our teams”, says Lewis McIn­tyre, man­ag­ing direc­tor of port ser­vices at Peel Ports Group. “We have 1,700 employ­ees and we need to build exper­tise with­in indus­try.”

There’s no doubt the land­scape for employ­ee expe­ri­ence is shift­ing, and com­pa­nies must adapt. The win­ners will co-cre­ate more shared val­ue with their work­ers, align per­son­al and busi­ness goals, and tack­le some of soci­ety’s biggest chal­lenges.