WORKSPAN DAILY |
Three Key Causes to the Rise in Employee Departures
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Much has been said and written about “The Great Resignation.” And for good
reason. Various research
shows that anywhere between 40% and 50% of knowledge workers in the United
States have left a job in the last year, or are considering doing so.
That’s a huge increase over annualized voluntary attrition
benchmarks in the technology industry, which have hovered around 13% to 15% in
the past few years. What’s behind it? To find the truth, we must do a little
digging. And what we find may surprise us.
In my research, departures generally happen for one of three
reasons:
1) Employees
are exhausted (burnout),
2) They are
making a career change (opt-out), or
3) They are
offering themselves a sabbatical to simply enjoy living (timeout).
Spotting the right cause is critical to taking the right actions to
prevent employees from walking out.
Burnout
In a recent Citrix survey of 1,000 knowledge workers who have changed
roles in the last 12 months, 35% said they did so because they were “burned
out.” So
what is burnout, exactly? It’s a condition caused by prolonged stress and
over-demands in the workplace without the resources to navigate.
Pre-pandemic, six
causes of workplace burnout were identified and the World
Health Organization classified it as “an occupational phenomenon.”
Burnout is characterized by three dimensions:
- Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion,
- Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job, and
- Reduced professional efficacy.
While burnout is explicitly associated with the workplace, it
should be noted that our diminished capacity to manage it is undoubtedly
correlated to the resources we’ve expended to manage the collective trauma and
uncertainty of the pandemic.
Solutions:
- Automatic opt-in to mental health support. People need to emote. Make visits with mental health professionals an organizational norm. Allow space and support to release emotions and navigate the challenges of work and life. Making an employee assistance program (EAP) available is currently about as far as forward-thinking organizations are going. They need to go farther and automatically default to mental health visits for all employees on a monthly basis. Mental health support can broaden beyond burnout and cover a wide range of mindset challenges that will develop a more resilient workforce overall.
- Remove administrative drag. People are fueled when they are passionate about their jobs and engaged in the work they do. When asked what keeps them in their current roles, 53% of the workers who responded to the Citrix survey said they “like what they do.” Administrative, boring, non-impact adding tasks diminish a sense of progress, which is shown to be the single largest driver of engagement. And as the Citrix survey also reveals, they cause workers to bolt.
o
38% of those workers polled who have moved on
said they did so because they were not engaged in or passionate about their
former role.
o
31% were frustrated by overly complicated
technology and processes.
o 47% believe they can do more meaningful work in their new jobs.
With the right workplace collaboration tools, companies
- Care for those who
care for others. Managers are the glue of your organization.
Create a differentiated experience that gives them the space they need to
succeed with offerings like accelerated PTO accumulation, additional days off,
designated days to think and rewards for empathetic leadership
- Use the burnout
antidote framework: Demand,
Control, Support.
o
Demand: Look
at workload and add resources where resources are needed or reduce
non-essential tasks. This can also be temporary (example, when a team member is
on parental leave or a new technology launches)
o
Control: Give
employees control where you can. For example, allowing them to choose when they
come to the office or from which location they work most productively.
o
Support: Meet
them where they are. Encourage relationship connections. Ask them what they
need and build programs and personalization to match.
Opt-Out
Neurobiologically, we seek to surround ourselves with certainty.
Certainty is a form of protection. It’s the illusion we are safe and we are in
control.
The last 19 months, we’ve felt someone else is driving. Quite
recklessly, I might add. Taking a leap puts us in the driver’s seat of something,
at least for a bit. And there’s data to support it, as 13% of people who’ve
ditched jobs say they saw doing so as a way to regain some of the control
they’ve lost over their lives.
The problem is, sustained satisfaction requires a deeper level of
self-reflection. Jonathan Fields, author of the book, Sparketype, refers
to the historical time during which we’re living as a sacred
opportunity. He encourages those looking for more meaning
and fulfillment in work to discover their unique imprint (aka Sparketype) and warns against launching
from one empty career pursuit to another without first examining what brings us
joy. In other words, don’t run from something, but to something.
Solutions:
- Offer workplace programs for self-reflection
and discovery: Make it part of the learning curriculum to assess strengths,
discuss dreams and coach actions that empower the employee to match strengths
and dreams to their day-to-day work. Encourage employees to create
the role they want as part of the role they’re in.
- Build a robust internal mobility program and a culture that encourages positioning employees based on their strengths and welcomes ‘rotations’ as a mindset to build a career.
- Find out what dull, unchallenging,
administrative work, or friction fills their day, then assemble teams to fix
it. Pay particular attention to more junior roles, which tend to be more
task-focused than senior roles. Find ways to challenge and develop your newest
generation in the workforce or you’ll be left without a leadership bench.
According to a recent
study commissioned by Adobe, Gen Z is most likely to describe their job as repetitive
(65%) and tiring (65%).
- Make the exit experience extraordinary and welcome ‘boomerangs’ back with open arms.
Timeout
Noel Bell, a London-based specialist in personal
growth, said it best, “The pressures of the
pandemic have reminded us all that life might be short and we are tasked to
assess how, and with whom, we are spending our precious time.”
Solutions:
- Offer sabbaticals. The most frequent argument
against sabbaticals tends to be “we will lose productivity.” I disagree. A
12-week sabbatical is approximately the same amount of time it will take to backfill
the position if that top-performer leaves. Not to mention the six to 12 months
of ramp time for your new hire to contribute at the level at which the
incumbent was performing. And, just remember the cost of filling a vacancy
averages 33% of
the employee’s salary.
Perhaps this widespread workforce shuffle is a necessary part of
innovation. Perhaps these unique, new applications of skillsets will be what
brings diversity of thought to our teams.
Perhaps these vacancies will be what allows committed companies to
bring racial and gender diversity to our organizations.
Perhaps the lessons that need to be learned, and the lives that
need to be lived, are what organizations are being called to nurture.
Don’t fight the tide.
Learn from it.
Listen.
Harness it.
Then, make something magnificent out of it.
About the Author
Amy Haworth, senior director, employee experience, at Citrix.