{"id":2210,"date":"2021-08-30T02:04:07","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T02:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/sea\/?p=2210"},"modified":"2023-03-01T21:18:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T21:18:11","slug":"the-employee-resignation-apocalypse-is-nigh-and-what-to-do-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/sea\/2021\/08\/the-employee-resignation-apocalypse-is-nigh-and-what-to-do-about-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Employee Resignation Apocalypse Is Nigh And What To Do About It"},"content":{"rendered":"

My doomscrolling surfaces article after article about a wave of resignations supposedly coming to organisations worldwide. It seems that because of the safety measures for avoiding the spread of COVID-19 and its variants we, the workers of the world, have realized we can work from home and enjoy flexible working conditions while remaining productive. But\u00a0some employers<\/a>\u00a0are hesitant to make the shift to more flexible working conditions, and their workers are thinking about looking elsewhere. This isn\u2019t just anecdotal. A recent global survey conducted by\u00a0EY<\/a> found that over half of surveyed employees worldwide would consider leaving their job post-COVID-19 pandemic if they were not afforded some form of flexibility in where and when they work.<\/p>\n

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Several organisations have posted similar stories with equally disturbing numbers, predicting about half of workers across all sectors will exit their current employment in search of more flexible, accommodating positions over the next year.\u00a0Forbes<\/a>,\u00a0CNBC<\/a>, and many other large and reputable organisations are publishing articles saying the same thing.<\/p>\n

How to weather employee resignations<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Voluntary turnover can be an expensive and productivity sapping process, even under the best of conditions. If a tsunami of resignations hits the global marketplace, the impact could have devastating consequences for even large established organisations. Clearly, new thinking and strategies are in order.\u00a0The way I see it, either HR teams can try and stem the tide by offering flexible working conditions, or they can take a different angle, perhaps concentrating on offering employees new career directions, or mentoring and training programs to enhance their skills beyond what they would get doing their day job. By offering a clear career direction or opportunities people wouldn\u2019t normally have, employers might entice employees to stay, even if flexible working conditions are not on the table.<\/p>\n

What flexible working conditions actually mean<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Australian Fair Work Ombudsman<\/a>\u00a0defines flexible work as the ability to decide, within certain conditions, where and when work will be done. In Australia, workers employed at the same company for at least 12 months\u00a0can apply to adjust their hours, patterns, and most important, their location if their employer is amenable to the changes.<\/p>\n

During the COVID lockdowns, workers appreciated\u00a0unexpected advantages<\/a>\u00a0from working from home or other non-office locations. These included better work\/life balance, less commuting stress, money savings, and location independence, especially for people who lived in rural or very remote locations. What\u2019s more, employer diversity got an uplift where people with socioeconomic challenges like affordable transportation or food were equalised with other workers because they could work from home.<\/p>\n

In many cases, workers have received subsidy payments from their local governments to compensate for the economic impact of COVID. For the first time in a long time, people have some savings to \u2018bridge the gap\u2019 from one employer to another. This freedom allows them to think more holistically about their happiness and wellbeing, in other words \u2013 does their job allow for quality of life, and if not, can they obtain work\/life balance elsewhere<\/p>\n

Entice with career opportunities<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In my\u00a0previous blog<\/a>, I described the emergence of Opportunity Marketplaces. These software solutions match skills, competencies, and employee desires with existing opportunities including jobs, learning and mentoring options, external training, skill-building seminars and workshops, and more. With a service like this, employers are telling employees \u2019we value your skills and want to leverage them in the best way possible.\u2019<\/p>\n

Diversity can head off mass worker exodus<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Diversity programs are another way to keep top talent. Diversity programs help organizations find rare skills more easily by widening the pool of candidates. Once on board, a strong diversity commitment encourages workers to stay.<\/p>\n

Richard Howell, tribal leader for diversity at ANZ Banking Group, recently spoke at SAP\u2019s\u00a0HR Connect\u00a0event about his company\u2019s\u00a0internal development<\/a>\u00a0program for employees that uses skill matching technology. Like\u00a0many organisations<\/a>, ANZ Banking Group is acting on a variety of workplace diversity commitments for business results. Racially diverse teams perform better by\u00a0as much as 35<\/a>\u00a0percent.\u00a0Better performance translates to higher job satisfaction and reduced turnover. Companies that practice diversity produce\u00a019 percent more revenue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Real or not, employee resignations are a business opportunity<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If the wave of resignations does happen, the good news is that there are tools, programs, and philosophies that can help. The flip side to this apocalypse story is that if there are mass resignations, the labour market will be flooded with talent. The strategy for capturing all that talent to perhaps \u2013 fill some recent vacancies\u2026well that is a topic for another blog.<\/p>\n