How flexible organizations can create stability in the Great Resignation

After more than two years of the pains and pivots associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s clear that both employers and employees are faced with an opportunity to reimagine the ways in which we work. By now we know that many workers are in a state of flux: The Great Resignation has become shorthand for a recalibration of the labor market that is taking on a different feel in different countries.

Figures from the end of 2021 show Australia saw the rate of job switching 10% higher than the pre-COVID-19 average. Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower said its resignation rates remained low during the pandemic, but more labor turnover is expected especially in growth sectors of the economy. The United States, meanwhile, saw a staggering 47.4 million workers in the United States alone voluntarily leave their jobs in 2021.

As the job market is running very hot, with record vacancies around the world, talented people have no shortage of options for work and career.

But there’s a risk that focus on resignations alone is making the phenomenon sound simpler than it should. At this stage of the great talent reshuffle, organizations will benefit from focusing on why employees are more mobile and what are the best ways to respond.

What employees want most

The data underpinning the reason for such a shift in resignations shows that workers are reassessing and reprioritizing what they value most from an employer, and they’re willing to act deliberately to fulfill those desires. More than just the resignations, one could see it as the result of many in the workforce aspiring to recalibrate work and life. 

For many, this process starts with flexibility.

Nine in 10 respondents to the EY 2021 Work Reimagined Employee Survey considered leaving their job if they weren’t given it. On average, that included working remotely for two to three days a week.

The latest EY Future Consumer Index, meanwhile, confirmed flexibility (26%) in the top three key considerations for workers considering a new role, followed by compensation (25%), and purpose and culture (19%).

Moving on doesn’t necessarily equate to joining a different organization – the Index revealed that 24% of Generation Z, for example, want to start a business of their own.

This is a new wave of self-starting employees, who clearly understand the new technology-driven ways of working that the pandemic helped normalize.

“While it’s easy to get hung up on the threat of losing talent, it’s more constructive for organizations to focus instead on harnessing the ambition and energy that drive people’s decisions. Then use this understanding as a catalyst to transform the business and experience it offers,” says Maya Smallwood, EY Global People Advisory Services Employee Experience Leader.

“For many people, this moment is not just about taking stock of how they want to live life and how work fits in to that picture,” she says. “It’s also about whether the organization they’re with can move with them.”

“When organizations ask their people to name a leader they trust, they may give the name of a person who’s not in a well-recognized geography or team, but is highly influential in an informal network,” says Smallwood. “We strongly recommend the types of analysis that allow organizations to see the quality of relationships, trust and how well individuals across functions are collaborating. It's about asking the intangible questions but getting the hard data to support the answers.”

5. Commit and communicate

Many organizations are failing to tell their people about the changes they’ve made – because they’re reserving the right to move back to how things were before the pandemic.

“This is not, and will never again be, just an HR conversation,” says Smallwood. “I’m seeing leaders across organizations eager to have these conversations. They're getting together, aligning, planning, and creating new functions and roles. It takes the enterprise working together, and it does take time, but the appetite for change really is there.”

“EY research in 2021 indicated that, while 83% of employers had planned for action in the journey to a post-pandemic new normal, 40% hadn’t actually indicated to their people what changes they could expect around flexibility,” adds Thompson. “Many don’t want it to become a permanent feature of their work environment; they want these policies to be short-term.”

Yet there’s little to be gained by such hedging. Organizations could instead choose to commit to bold changes and be proud to share the news.

This will require structural reform, buy-in at the top, and greater collaboration between leaders and across functions. And that means key decision-makers abandoning their silos.

If organizations align their resources to respond to the attitudes and aspirations of a more selective and empowered workforce, then those organizations can best position themselves for the present moment and for the future working world yet to be fully reimagined.