Recent shifts in employment dynamics brought on by the ravages of the pandemic are leading to the Great Resignation. The popular concept, also known as The Big Quit, refers to employees resigning from their jobs en masse.
The resignation trend first started in the United States in early 2021, and is now taking over the world of work by a storm.
The job quitting trend started because the pandemic exposed a lot more people to remote work. Some more cynical observers believe that the younger, Gen Z and Millennials, generations are averse to hard work altogether.
Others are more open to exploring other factors that could explain the low retention rates.
Here are seven reasons that explain why people are quitting their jobs en masse:
- Availability of Better Paying Opportunities
Employees quit their jobs because better opportunities become available. As soon as they receive a position that matches their interests and preferences, they don’t waste time taking the leap of faith.
The fact that better pay alone encourages employees to shift to a new company emphasizes that money is a significant driving factor in employee retention.
It is pertinent to mention, however, that the luxury of switching jobs can only present itself to employees when they believe the market is pulsating with opportunities.
- Failure to Find Value
When students are still studying their courses, they’re guided by a certain vision for the future. However, the rapidly-evolving situation made our knowledge obsolete.
Business administrators, specifically, need to rethink their role since the power dynamic has shifted in favor of the employees. Those inclined to the business administration side of things studying in programs like the General Master of Business Administration Degree have to accept and embrace the new rules of the game.
they’re looking for employment opportunities that provide them with practical knowledge application. According to Oregon Technology in Education Council (OTEC), individuals learn a great deal of information during their degrees, but information only converts to knowledge with experience. Not all people have money at the top of their priority list; most individuals lose motivation if they believe their job doesn’t provide enough value in terms of skills application. Low motivation results in fleeting interests, encouraging people to quit their current jobs and move towards more promising positions.
- Toxic Corporate Culture
Forbes identifies a toxic corporate culture with ten warning signs that include a dissatisfied workforce, lack of core values, high turnover rates, and more. A company that features any of these within its own work environment can be rightly diagnosed as having a toxic culture.
According to a survey conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA), 79% of employees experience work-related stress when working in a toxic environment. Most employees feel subjected to disrespectful and unethical behaviors, which forces them to give up on their jobs, regardless of how well the position aligns with their career goals.
- Inclination Toward Flexible and Remote Work Opportunities
Before Covid-19 shook up the world, most employees were burned out working on their regular 9 to 5. If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, many employees would never have gotten the chance to experience the joys of working from home.
Now that most people have experienced flexibility that remote working offers, they seem reluctant to just switch back to working from an office. Even though the extreme pandemic ordeals are now in the past, the majority still prefers to work from their homes as remote work provides the benefits of spending more time with family, less money and time wasted on commuting to and from work, and the flexibility to work part time to earn more.
- Lack of Direction
The organization, company culture, and employers are not always the ones to blame for the increasingly high turnover rates. In several cases, employees are quitting on personal grounds. Maybe the job is not what they imagined it to be; maybe they’ve recently stumbled upon a new-found interest in another field; maybe they want to pursue higher education before giving in to the relentless corporate work cycle – whatever their reasons may be, sometimes employees have personal reasons for quitting.
Shifts of this nature are usually made by employees who come evaluate their position in a new light. Halfway through their work tenure, a midlife crisis can force some to switch paths and resign.
- A Sense of Disconnect
Porter’s personality-job fit theory revolves around the idea that the more company and individual traits align, the higher workplace satisfaction for that person will be. This organizational psychology theory states that a person is more likely to commit to the organization’s success if their goals and values are intertwined.
Therefore, if the organizational values mismatch with those of the individual’s, a sense of disconnect is inevitable. The feeling of disconnect can widen if there are further incidents of personality-job mismatch, which can then lead the employee calling it quits.
- Preference for Meaningful Work
People these days are increasingly becoming aware of the kind of world they are living in. The younger generation is more active on social issues and are putting their weight behind reforms, sustainable activities, humanitarian movements, and much more.
Social work, impactful jobs, and a sense of purpose matters to the employees of today. Therefore, companies that don’t focus on environmental or social initiatives end up experiencing an alarming drop in employee retention over time.
Conclusion
The Great Resignation is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges facing companies and organizations post-pandemic. Regardless of all the effort and investment it takes to convert a trainee into a permanent employee, most employees are quitting for both general and personal reasons. While retention cannot be guaranteed, especially in the current times, measures can be enforced that can lead to the alleviation of the some of the factors raising employee turnover. These include providing a more supportive work culture, being open to feedback from employees regarding how the culture should be reformulated to align with their preferences, and an acceptance of the hybrid and remote work phenomena that is becoming increasingly harder to deny.