Wellbeing is the key to managing the great resignation
06/08/2023
The great resignation isn’t a single risk but a series of risks that needs co-ordination between the management team and leaders in human resources, risk and operational teams to help navigate.
The great resignation is a risk management challenge
The great resignation, quiet quitting, and burnout[1] are terms that have become familiar since the pandemic. For organisations these terms represent a consequence where people are unavailable to work, but they don’t tell us how the workforce is changing or how to manage the risks.
The popular theory is that many workers are either thinking about leaving their jobs, have left, or are exiting the workforce entirely[2]. Following the pandemic there were stories about individuals re-evaluating their priorities, relocating from busy cities to the countryside, or leaving high pressure jobs and prioritising their health and wellbeing due to burnout.
The hard data doesn’t quite back up the popular portrayal[3].There are many potential causes and therein lies the challenge for organisational leaders. Burnout is on the rise[4] and many of our customers identify recruitment and retention of talent as a top strategic risk. Loss of key people can present business continuity challenges too, including when it happens in the supply chain.
The pandemic disrupted how and when many, but not all, of us work. For those who can hybrid working from home, remotely or in an office in a flexible way, is now standard. Given this the time is right to consider and re-evaluate these risks before deciding how to effectively manage them.
What are the risks?
Work-related burnout, stress, depression, and anxiety are all on the rise. Managing psychosocial risks (the risks that arise from how our work and workplace is designed) involves identifying and assessing the causes of these problems in your workplace. This includes job design, training, supervision and deadlines among other factors.
Similarly, talent recruitment and retention risk can have many causes from lack of development or progression opportunities to burnout and lack of flexible working. Assessing the root cause using data will help understand why this happens.
Workplace design can have a significant bearing on the employee experience. Internet of Things (IoT) sensors can monitor in real-time how a building or workplace is being used and what the physical environment is like. Understanding occupancy rates at different times, temperatures, humidity and so on can be used to design a better working environment in line with how and when people want to work.
Disruption to business caused by people leaving your organisation or the supply chain should be planned for to ensure minimal impact on customers and employees.
Managing the risks
What can be done to manage the range of risks and causes that underlie burnout, loss of talent and disengaged workers?
- Recognise it is a strategic risk, identify the root causes and agree which senior leader will ‘own’ it.
- Psychosocial risk management is important to embed well-being in job design and employee experience. Discounted gym memberships may be useful but don’t address root causes of burnout, stress, depression, or anxiety.
- Listen to your people and analyse the data. Look at leaver and stayer interviews or surveys, what people write on Glassdoor. Consider how productive people are and how can you support them and design a better working environment.
- Don’t assume everyone wants to work from home or remotely all the time. Work out what ‘flexible working’ means for people and design your work and workplace to support that. Consider how this applies to people who do not work in desk-based roles such as in health care, education or manufacturing.
- Identify critical roles and those most at risk by identifying where critical knowledge is. Such as salespeople with key customer relationships, top collaborators and performers or people with relationships with critical suppliers.
- Assess the pipeline of talent you have and invest in development for people who have the potential to fill critical roles in the short, medium or long term.
- Contingency plan for loss of key people or the inability to fill roles and engage with critical suppliers to understand how they will respond.
Collaboration is important to manage burnout and prepare for disruption
Terms like the great resignation, quiet quitting and burnout are now commonplace. Building a sustainable workforce that attracts and retains talented people requires management of these risks. Leaders need to understand the potential root causes and then use this insight to work together to help people flourish in a positive work environment.
For more information about how Zurich Resilience Solutions can support your risk management strategies please contact zrs.enquiries@uk.zurich.com or visit https://www.zurich.co.uk/business/our-expertise/zurich-resilience-solutions
