The ‘Great Resignation’ occurred almost a year ago. The incident led to a widespread restructuring of the workplace and the way people work, with working from home becoming the norm. There have been significant changes to the social relationship between employers and employees. Commenting on the fact Dr Shikha Goyal, associate professor, Mittal School of Business, Lovely Professional University, says, “A bolt from the blue best describes the situation of The Great Resignation. What has happened now is that organisations are not able to breathe and feel suffocated as employees are moving towards silent quitting. And companies are struggling to source talent as well as retain talent in their organisation. The strategy to make a shift or navigate from The Great Resignation can be termed ‘The Great Re-evaluation’ of priorities.
To move ahead on the path of The Great Re-evaluation, companies should start reworking their hiring process. Employers need to rethink their traditional hiring strategies and bring a creative approach to acquiring new talent. HR alone cannot bring change; leaders need to take responsibility as they are the ones who can create such a working environment that increases the retention ratio. A transition in the control of the needs of employees will bring a better employee experience. For this, companies need to focus on benefits, compensation, and company culture by creating an alignment between employee needs and organisational goals.” To keep up with shifting business environments, companies and HR professionals must constantly change their strategies.
HR departments must always be open to adapting, regardless of external factors like technological advancements, a wide range of applicant behaviors, bigger or smaller budgets, etc. “Many organisations today are wary of being bitten by the bug of ‘The Great Resignation’ which creates a void in their talent pool and overall organisational well-being. Viewed from a different perspective, it is an opportunity for organisations to relook at their systemic culture and bring about change to give their employees deeper reasons to stay on.
Creating meaningful and purpose-driven workplaces, accepting the fact that employees are in the driver’s seat and aligning organizational core values with what matters to employees, building hiring capabilities to make the shift from pedigree-based to competency-based hiring, working towards retaining efforts rather than hiring efforts, and promoting diversity, equity and inclusion can be some of the ways for companies to navigate The Great Resignation,” Nandita Krishan, General Manager, Client Engagement, Facilitation and OD, Marching Sheep, comments.
Employee involvement has been shown to keep employees in organisations from before the epidemic to the present. “In India, the Great Resignation is also referred to as the Great Reshuffle, where people are exploring job change”, says Dr Pelleti Swarupa, Associate Professor, KLH Global Business School, Hyderabad, “This has allowed workers to rethink their careers, work conditions, and long-term goals. Most of the employees plan to resign irrespective of the industry resulting in high attrition rates according to the management consulting firm.
There is a need to survey and identify the reasons behind it. It will be challenging for the organizations and must address the sustainability of the workforce.” She adds. Adding to the above statement, John Kallelil, CEO and Founder, XED, says, “Led by an intense competition for talent, a high number of vacancies and a low unemployment rate, the great resignation became a trending phenomenon. This has particularly hit the small and medium businesses harder. The great resignation is nothing but the symptom of an underlying problem.”
Employees usually leave managers, not organisations. This has forced leaders to rethink not only their recruitment strategy but also employee experience, work culture, freedom and flexibility. “Organsations need to think beyond monetary incentives and bonuses to understand how to retain and engage their most valued employees in these times. From offering hybrid/remote options to evolving their leadership styles to improving work/life balance, there are many initiatives being launched across companies to tackle the challenge looming large,” he asserts.
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