In the first week of 2022, statistics surfaced that proved something most people already knew: record-high numbers of Americans are quitting their jobs. While it is obvious that this trend was caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, many business owners are baffled by the exact mechanisms that are pushing this trend. Simultaneously, employees continue to quit, citing their employers’ lack of empathy for employee struggles.
Clearly, we need better communication between business owners and employees so that we can clear up the confusions around the Great Resignation and decrease employee turnover. This is why our team at Matcha Design has researched the factors that are causing the Great Resignation and compiled a list of the things that employers need their employees to know and vice versa.
Five Things Business Owners Know
As an employer, you should try to communicate these five facts to your employees to help them reconsider the wisdom of quitting their job.
1. Being Your Own Boss Isn’t for Everyone
Many employees, inspired by the internet culture of entrepreneur influencers, have decided to quit their jobs and make their skills or hobbies a job. While this is a good choice for some individuals, there are many people who do not have all of the skills they need to run a full business. Trying to make a hobby a side hustle is usually better than making it a full time job.
2. Nobody Will Save You
As a business owner, you know that if there is extra work to be done, it will eventually fall to you. Since you are the top dog, you do not have the privilege of passing extra work off to your superior. Employees should understand that having someone to pass work on to is a privilege that comes from working in a business.
3. Employers Are Struggling Post-Pandemic
The pandemic completely changed the world of business. Many business owners are trying to figure out how much they will return to their old normal as business returns to normal more or less.
4. The Grass Isn’t Always Greener
Many employees do not understand the tactics that prospective employers use to poach employees from current employers. As a business owner, you should help your employees understand these techniques that prospective employers might use.
5. Turnover Hurts Business
Many employees feel replaceable. This mentality makes them think that quitting will not impact your business. Help your employees understand that they hold unique institutional knowledge that is important to you.
Five Things Employees Know
Employers often think that employees are simply dissatisfied and have developed unreasonably high standards during the pandemic. This is just one part of the puzzle. The pandemic has radically altered many peoples’ priorities, which makes it difficult to return to the exact same job they had pre-pandemic.
1. The Pandemic Revealed Employer’s Priorities
Many employees are resigning because of the way the pandemic made their employers treat them. Some employers made employees feel like they had to work in unsafe conditions because the wellbeing of the business was more important than their health and safety. Employers today need to help their employees feel safe again.
2. Struggle Leads To Passion
Employees are also armed with much more knowledge about their skills and interests now. For many people, the pandemic was a time that they spent diving into hobbies and learning new things. This led some people to want to change careers, but it also made some people want to bring their passions and interests to their career.
3. Jobs Are What You Are Allowed To Make Them
Employees know that a job is only as good as it can be adapted to the employee’s unique needs. During the pandemic, many employees had the chance to identify and meet their own needs for the first time–whether that means making your own schedule or spending more time with your family. Employees want to bring their new self-knowledge to jobs.
4. Employees Are Grieving
It might not seem like it, but all of us are grieving the pandemic in some little way. While some people are grieving because of lost family members, others are grieving because of two years that they lost. These losses will take time to heal, and employers need to find ways to support their workforce through these difficult losses.
5. Building Empathy Is Key
In the end, we all just want to feel understood. So whether you are an employee struggling to return to the workforce with your new interests, self knowledge, and personal baggage or an employer struggling to keep a small company afloat, the solution to the great resignation will be building the empathy between employers and employees.
