As per stats, over 4-5 million Americans have resigned from their jobs this year in July, and this is a never previously achieved number. This upsurge of the mass resignation saw its peak in April, and it continued its high for the next several months. And a significant amount of Americans have already quit their jobs leaving open jobs for a record number of 10.9 million by September. Finding quality employees has always been a concern, but now the concern is more than ever.
The pandemic has taken a toll on people’s mental health as per the surveys, and this is not just limited to the United States. Countries like Germany, Japan, and other such prosperous countries see the same trend. The pandemic is one of the many possible reasons. However, let us do a little root cause analysis to understand this situation better.
The Root Causes For Great Resignation:
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The Age Factor
The Great Resignation seems to be a phenomenon with the age group 30 to 45, but it is also seen reverberating among Generation Z at a very low rate. The rate is also significantly less in the age group 60 to 70. There can be a few reasons for this trend. With the remote working scenario, it is seen that companies are not risking hiring inexperienced employees or employees with less experience. With remote working, guiding new employees from step one can be an excruciating task. And as there are not many job opportunities for these age groups, they have decided to stick with their current roles.
Another possibility is that the mid-level employees have been in a stagnant role, and the delay in the transition in their roles has created a pent-up frustration. This stagnancy was then confirmed to be here to stay with the pandemic, and hence the result showed in mass walk-outs.
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High Numbers in the Tech and Health Care Industries
The “996” trend in the technology sector is also not much help here. With 9 to 9 jobs, six days a week, and increasing workload, the employees were more frustrated with the fine line between work-life and personal-life vanishing gradually. This has shown an impact on their relations as well. Similarly, in the healthcare industry, the workload is very high. The pent-up frustrations acted up when it came to the breaking point and resulted in an increase of 3.6% resignation rate for health care employees.
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Lying Flat Movement
The older generations have criticized this great resignation phenomenon by saying that this results from being too privileged. This generation is not working for the paycheck but things like inner fulfillment. When joining the company, an employee and the obvious benefits like a paycheck and health insurance also looks at a growth map. Still, as time passes, they are loaded with immense work pressure, and their will to work and better themselves disappears. They end up doing only the work they are assigned or even less.
Employers must find a way to retain their employees, and they have to take a data-driven way to figure out the deep-rooted causes for this mass resignation. They will have to first be aware of their turnover ratio. This can be done by dividing the number of separations per year by the total number of employees. When an employee resigns the quality of work is hampered as the momentum of the work is slowed down.
As an employee, when you have a number to give you a reality check, you will need to move to the next step: empathizing, first researching, and realizing your employees’ needs. You will next have to define the problem now that you have the results of your research. Create a team that can bring ideas to the table and create solutions for your problems. Once you have the views on the table, filter out the ones that can prove compelling and finally put these solutions to work. With more profound insights into the reasons for the turnover, you will be able to hire and attract top talent once your solutions are put into action.
