You know a trend is significant when it gets named, like “Cable Cutting” or “Binge Watching.”
By that measure, “The Great Resignation” is real.
The data supports the name. In August, a record 4.3 million Americans quite their job and there were more than 10 million vacancies.
That makes the challenge of building a world-class team focused on staging a world-class customer experience even more daunting.
If you are a business leader today, trying to grow and scale a business, this is a serious problem.
And it reinforces a key concept that I see every day in our work at FiveFour: The employee experience is now more important than ever.
So, what do employees want? Beyond salary increases, how do you improve your employee experience and keep the good people you have now?
I ran across this insightful passage from an interview with Anthony Klotz, an associate professor in the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University.
Klotz is credited with the term The Great Resignation to describe the recent wave of people quitting their jobs.
Klotz says in the interview with The Verse, that companies need to be cognizant of compensation when building employee loyalty but meaning and purpose are key elements in today’s workforce. The pandemic reshuffled our priorities and it’s not just that everybody wants to work from home.
It’s incumbent upon leadership to instill that meaning and purpose.
“I think purpose-driven leadership does work,” Klotz said. “Over the last 18 months, a lot of organizations have been firefighting—rightfully so—but they’ve gotten away from reminding employees of how their jobs create meaning and purpose in other people’s lives and their own lives—the pro-social piece. I tell leaders, it’s time to take purpose-driven leadership seriously, because you can help employees make sense of ‘What am I doing for eight hours a day?’”
Now, I’ll admit that it can all seem academic and squishy.
But here’s the thing. You can measure employee engagement, which is the first step to managing it.
There are systems and strategies to learn what your employees think of their jobs. You can define your culture and build a world-class team that gets you to the customer experience you need to compete in today’s marketplace.
It takes commitment, the ability to listen and the willingness to act.
Not only is it possible – it’s imperative.
If you want to chat more about the employee experience, book a time on my calendar. I have some thoughts.