How to mitigate the effects of The Great Resignation

This article aims to answers a few questions, including:

• What is The Great resignation?
• What are the consequences of The Great Resignation?
• How can brands prevent the disruption of The Great Resignation?

What is The Great Resignation?

In the wake of Covid-19, millions of people have been leaving their job roles across many industries. The disruption caused by the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have caused many to reassess their priorities and direction in terms of life and career. Reuters found that in April 2021, over four million people resigned from their jobs in the US alone. This mass exodus has been dubbed as ‘The Great Resignation’.

The CX Network Advisory Board members at the September meeting agreed they are witnessing this trend in their own observations. One particular individual noted that multiple senior members from their company’s CX team had recently resigned, and there had been similar movement within the organization’s IT department.

What are the consequences of The Great Resignation?

The Great Resignation can lead to staff storages, which puts pressure on the remaining employees serving customers. This strain can lead to increased lead times, gaps in knowledge or skillsets of teams and a higher customer to agent ratio. This can all negatively affect customer service KPIs, leading to lower NPS scores and increased frustration for customers.

When considering why mass resignations may be felt more keenly by those in CX teams, a member noted that CX practitioners must hold a high level of resiliency and endurance to see through the needed technological, cultural and process changes to improve customer experiences. As this is not an easy skill to recruit for, the departure of CX practitioners often creates a skills vacuum at organizations.  

How can brands prevent the disruption of The Great Resignation?

When asked how brands can look to limit the disruption customers feel from The Great Resignation, consensus from the board noted that investing in the employee experience is key. Employee feedback programs can help brands discover more about the company culture, uncover blind spots that are damaging the employee experience as well as methods to rectify issues and implement the right cultural approach.

By instilling a positive experience and focusing on employee experience and happiness, brands can not only improve the end customer experience, but also prevent employees from leaving. A study recently found that 37 per cent of employees feel most encouraged by personal recognition. If employees are congratulated for their performance they will feel both encouraged to provide similar customer service in the future, and also as an employee.

One member suggested a method for employee satisfaction employed at a previous position, where employees were encouraged to send their positive customer interactions to their manager. Each month, the company’s executive CX members would select the best story and reward the employee, and every six months, a book of all the stories would be published and the employees that contributed the ten best stories would get the chance to meet the CEO. This helped celebrate employee success and help them feel recognized.

Founder and CEO of FridayPulse, Nic Marks says the most important factors for employee happiness are:

• To connect with others
• To feel like they are being treated fairly
• To feel like they are being challenged, to feel like they are being inspired
• To feel like they are accomplishing meaningful tasks

By mining your Voice of the Employee program, companies can track these issues and employee sentiment. If they appear, they will be able to make an effort to address these areas in order to positively impact the employee experience.

While The Great Resignation may cause disruption to your organization, a continual focus on employee satisfaction and happiness can minimize its impact by increasing strengthening employee morale. By increasing morale, organizations make their employees less likely to resign.

Access more employee experience related content here.