The Great Resignation

One positive impact of the Great Resignation is that it’s giving corporate leadership a pressing reason to take a closer look at their company culture, employer brand and their employee value proposition. It’s a good time to evaluate the potential answers to the question, “Why would employees choose to work here, instead of anywhere else?”

It’s a big question, and one that internal communications can help impact. The answers might include a strong culture, meaningful work, an inspirational vision, and great relationships with co-workers and managers.

But it’s also useful to examine the areas of the culture and the company that are making employees dissatisfied and possibly open to an offer from another company. Here are five danger signs to consider.

Not feeling valued as a person

Employees want to know their company cares about them as people, not just as sources of productivity. They’d like their managers to be flexible about their individual needs, like accommodating their desire to manage family responsibilities as well as work priorities. They want support for all areas of their lives, including mental health as well as physical wellness. They want acknowledgement for their contributions, and rewards as well as recognition.

Stagnant career growth

Employees can get antsy when they don’t see the next step in their career happening as quickly as they’d like. They want help from a mentor or manager in planning their career path, as well as training and development to prepare them for their next promotion. It’s helpful to provide opportunities based on employees’ potential, rather than their proven experience. If they don’t see how they can grow their career where they are, they may decide to switch companies.

Not seeing how their work matters

Your employees spend a significant portion of their lives at work, and they’d like to feel that what they do is meaningful. Use internal communications to help them understand how their individual roles contribute to the success of leadership’s vision. And help leadership craft a vision that’s inspirational to employees. Contributing to a certain revenue goal is harder to get excited about than improving the world in some way, even a small and very specific way.

Experiencing prolonged burnout

Healthcare workers are exhausted. Retail and restaurant employees are feeling bruised by rude and angry customer behavior. Corporate employees who’ve experienced more family time working at home during the pandemic may be less willing to go back to long commutes. And employees of all stripes are reevaluating their willingness to sacrifice work/life balance. If employees at your company have been fighting burnout, they may welcome the possibility of greener pastures.

Finding higher salaries elsewhere

This is an issue for the company’s top leadership and not something HR or internal communications can solve on their own. But when your compensation model isn’t competitive with others in your industry or area, employees will figure that out. If you offer exceptional work/life balance, incredibly rapid career growth or particularly meaningful work, this might be less of an issue, but at a certain point, paying people more may be less costly than replacing them.