5 Great Resignation Responses Of Leaders

Leading Choices leadership career newsletter Great Resignation

The Great Resignation is a phenomenon backed by data. While the workforce leaves at record rates, professionals show they have made a choice. As leaders, you have a choice to make: how will you respond? What can you do in your organization to create a better workplace that attracts and retains talent?

This week, I hosted a Great Resignation Roundtable on LinkedIn. We have had expert guests at the roundtable from WorkHuman, and from Aible. These leaders shared their insight on what we can do to respond to the challenges brought about by the Great Resignation. Our audience was equally engaged in this lively discussion about the meaning of “better” for the workforce.

The Great Resignation Is More Than A Buzzword

The Great Resignation is a phenomenon showing us that workers have made a choice. Leaders have a choice in their response. Share on X

The Great Resignation is more than a buzzword. Here are some figures to get the dimensions of this phenomenon:

  • More people have left their job in April than any other month this year per the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the record has been broken every month since then.
  • In October this year, we also reached a new record high of 11 million job openings. The U.S. job market now has almost 5 million more open positions than job seekers.
  • An article in WIRED magazine stated that for the tech industry, this could be called “The Great Reconsideration” instead where workers reconsider the importance of pay against gains of flexibility or more spare time?
  • The Harvard Business Review states that resignation rates are highest among mid-career employees (30-45 years) and in tech & health care industries.
  • A survey by Korn Ferry found that over 90 percent of retailers are struggling to fill empty positions, even though nearly one in three offer sign-on bonuses and another third have instituted paid referral programs. Amazon announced this week that they are
  • Reasons stated across the media for resigning is looking for “better”, meaning:
    1. getting better pay and perks
    2. better culture
    3. better bosses
    4. and more

How Can A Leader Respond And Create “Better”?

What does “better” look like?

This is what we discussed during the roundtable. It included actions ranging from compensation to creating a more humane workplace. Here are the ideas in summary:

  • Getting a better sentiment of employees to be able to relate better and identify what makes work more attractive
  • Providing more flexibility (location and office hours)
  • Improving pay according to the market rate, not “internal policy”
  • Recognizing people’s contributions with appreciation
  • Practicing “the generous check-in”

These suggestions were backed by study results and success stories.

Watch the replay here:

What Response Will You Choose?

Which of these insights and ideas has caught your attention? Were there any that made you uncomfortable? If so, why?

The Great Resignation may not affect your industry to the same degree today as other industries. However, it would be shortsighted to think there won’t be “spill-over effects” from this growing trend as the news spread. A disconnected, but the like-minded crowd is setting new expectations. Leaders have the choice to take part in shaping the future of these expectations within their organizations.

Take this to dialogue in your organization. Listen to the concerns of your team. Ask new questions within your executive team that challenge the status quo. Or, start by simply tuning in on public channels and listening to what the “quitters” or “dropouts” are saying about the reasons they have left.

Take a look at these other resources on the topic:

Here’s making leading choices!

LC#016