The Real Reasons Workers Don’t Want To Go Back To The Office
The Great Resignation is here. According to a PwC survey, 65% surveyed employees are looking for a new job and 88% of executives are seeing “higher turnover than normal.” Employers across sectors are struggling to tackle employee burnout along with a lingering labor shortage. In the midst of a continuing pandemic, many of today’s American workers are looking to the greater benefits and higher wages a new career path can bring them.
When nationwide shutdowns began and a significant portion of work transitioned from the office to the home via video conferencing, the old conversation began anew: “Am I working to live, or living to work?” The many answers to this question have many American workers seeking the benefit of greater workplace flexibility. According to the same PwC survey mentioned earlier, 20% of surveyed employees want to continue the hybrid work model and only 40% of U.S companies offer paid parental leave for both parents.
To learn about what’s driving today’s Great Resignation and the solutions needed to create a sustainable workforce, Consciously Unbiased Director of Content Holly Corbett sat down with some amazing panelists for a Consciously Unbiased LinkedIn Live conversation. They discussed the causes of America’s high turnover rates, how companies can help initiate greater work-life balance for their employees, and steps that leaders of all levels can take to help create a workplace that respects the agency of all employees. Here are some key takeaways from the conversation.
Employment Boundaries
“One of the main things that we’re seeing across our client base in terms of the conversation around returning back to work, and maybe some anxiety that’s being built is that many folks are deciding to resign as a employment boundary,” says Dr. LaNail Plummer, CEO, Onyx Therapy Group. “They know that they have the skillset and the capabilities to do the work and to likely do it from home or to do it from remote places that allow for them to balance out and have harmony in their mental health. Sometimes the workplace in itself causes stress, whether it’s related to the commute or some of the interactions that are happening between colleagues or some microaggressions or some micromanagement.”
Going Back to the Workplace in Times of Uncertainty
“The idea of going back to a workplace when other things are so uncertain — school closures, health and what’s happening in this world — it feels a little bit forced,” says Kristy Wallace, CEO, Ellevate Network. “There’s so many other factors and variables that you are contending with. The idea of then adding these guard rails, which in many ways are helpful because they provide direction, can be a little stifling when you’re trying to understand what the future looks like after we’ve seen the past year and a half to be so uncertain. ”
Employees Aren’t the Only Ones Who Need to Adapt
“Folks are realizing that they can take care of themselves better at home” says Julius Boatwright, Founder, Steel Smiling. “They can be there more for themselves and if it’s something that you can do at home in your own space, then why not encourage that? Why not adapt to that change in employee behavior?”
Employees Are Experiencing An Awakening to Their Own Power
“People are having an awakening and awakening to their own power to say: You know what? Maybe I don’t have to sacrifice so much. Maybe actually I can dig into my truth a little bit and find out what I need and want, and actually honor that,” says Tosca DiMatteo, Corporate Whisperer, TOSCA Coaching & Consulting. “I think companies have been operating so long on the basis that employees are lucky to be here and now employees are like: You know what? Maybe it’s a little bit more of an abundance mindset to say, ‘Hey, I can find something that actually works for me. I’m going to go find that and there will be workplaces that accommodate me.’ So that’s my take on why people are leaving. They’re waking up and they’re saying I’m taking my power back.”
Fulfillment, Contemptment & Satisfaction
The other interesting thing that took place during this pandemic is that so many people started focusing on self care because they could,” says Dr. Plummer. “They started paying attention to their sensory experiences, what they were looking at, what they were hearing, and they found fulfillment, contentment, and satisfaction. Nobody wants to give that up. Nobody wants to give up the fact that they can’t go out for a walk, because their break is only 15 minutes when it actually could be 30. So people are starting to grieve the loss of self. Some of us as employers or supervisors need to consider that our employees may be resigning because they’re grieving the potential loss of self and they’re grieving the potential loss of self care. They don’t have to give that up because there’s other companies that’ll allow them to be successful, use their skills mentality and still prioritize their self care and their mental health.”
The Redefinition of Efficiency
“I think as executives and policy makers and HR representatives, we’re now having to reimagine what efficiency looks like, what processes look like and how we include lack of emotional intelligence and empathy into those processes,” says Boatwright. “We’ve heard time and time again that this new generation — and it’s usually not a strengths-based way of referring to the new generation — the new generation doesn’t want to work; the new generation doesn’t want to do this or that. That’s not the truth, it’s that the new generation is redefining the way in which they do work using technology to leverage those things and still having a high level of emotional intelligence at the core of those policies and practices as well. So I think we have to be mindful and intentional about the grieving process of what was, and then sort of this re-imagining and re-emerging of what is now and what will be in the future.”
The Four-Day Workweek
“Something we’ve been doing at Elevate is really experimenting with the four-day workweek,” says Wallace. “Every other week is a four day work week. I think that this is again: Looking at the structures and systems that our businesses are built on, counterintuitive to the 40-hour work week and ‘we need to be working these hours’, ‘we need to be in the office’. No, what we’ve found as we’ve given our team that space to take for themselves, is they’re more focused on the work. They’re really happy in the office. They feel more engaged.”
Increased Workload
“One of the things that we didn’t acknowledge that we can have another conversation on is the impact of the pandemic directly on workload,” says Boatwright. “A lot of organizations and companies that their workload drastically increased because they were excellent at what they do. So the companies and organizations that were maybe downsizing and short-staffed and losing people, somebody is picking up that responsibility. Some organizations and companies are picking up those clients and serving them to some degree, right? Then what has to happen in that moment? You have exponential growth, you’d have to start hiring more people. You have one person who’s now doing the job of three people or two people.”
A Cultural Divide
Now we’re recognizing that there’s a cultural divide, because a lot of the people who are doing the work are not in the same culture of the people who are running the business,” says Dr. Plummer. “So there’s this pushback and so it’s not just on the employee to make this shift. The organizations have to make the shift and they have to be wanting to make the shift. So when we go back to the topic of the great resignation, what it’s causing is a lot of CEOs to think what is happening, right? We’re finally getting the attention of the CEOs to say, look at emotional intelligence, look at humanity, look at who these people are, their needs, their values, their experiences, and not just their skill sets. We are not robots. We are humans that have so much value to add to a business. Now we’re finally getting their attention through resignations.”
The Stigma Facing Caregivers
“Our workplaces don’t support working caregivers,” says Wallace. “That is a bold statement, but if you look at policy, if you look at the private sector and paid leave and not just paid maternity leave but also caregiver leave; we have an aging population or we’re taking care of parents and others as well. We need space just to process and have space for ourselves too, so we are in a place where stigma still exists. The stigma around: Who’s able to show up, who can travel and who can put in the time? We live in a system that wasn’t built for women and particularly for people of color. It was built many, many, many years ago and we need to disrupt that because it was built for predominantly white men who had the freedom and flexibility to go into the office, to travel and have that face-time. The bigger thing is to just have a hard look at your systems and your structures. Who are you supporting, who is represented in your leadership and who’s represented within your organization? How are you creating the space to really speak one-on-one with those in your organization who are caregivers or people of color to understand their lived experiences?”
