How Businesses Can Navigate the Big Quit to Retain and Attract Talent

Have you heard about The Big Quit yet? Of course you have - we’ve been talking about it since last year and any leader, HR, talent manager or business owner will already be far too familiar with the #1 challenge that businesses are reporting facing across the globe; The Great Resignation.

The ‘Great Resignation’ is a phenomenon that describes record numbers of people leaving their jobs, specifically after the COVID-19 pandemic; an issue felt across the globe. This was prophesised in 2020, as people began to anticipate changes in attitudes to work and indeed, life as a whole post-pandemic.

Once a theorised potential side effect, The Great Resignation, (also known as The Big Quit and The Great Reshuffle) certainly came true in 2021, as confidence in the job market rose and people across the world decided to leave their jobs, companies and sometimes their entire career for a new challenge.

Now, in 2022, the Big Quit continues to gain traction with 56.9% of marketers planning to leave their job this year. As a result, companies are revaluating the procedures, policies and benefits they have in place as a way of retaining and attracting top talent.

In this blog, we’ll detail 5 key ways that employers can navigate The Big Quit to survive and even thrive in times of hardship to make their business as competitive as possible to retain and attract talent.

Seek feedback from your employees

The most important way to understand how businesses can retain and attract employees best is to first, listen. A study from McKinsey found that there is a clear disconnect with employers, who are often misunderstanding the real reasons their people are resigning.

‘For example, when employers were asked why their people had quit, they cited compensation, work–life balance, and poor physical and emotional health. These issues did matter to employees—just not as much as employers thought they did.

By contrast, the top three factors employees cited as reasons for quitting were that they didn’t feel valued by their organizations (54 percent) or their managers (52 percent) or because they didn’t feel a sense of belonging at work (51 percent).’

This is the first and most effective way that leaders can directly impact engagement. By leveraging the opportunity to communicate with your people and asking them what they’d like to see happen, you’re buying them into the process and building a community that is people-first. Bring them into the conversation and treat their working experience as a priority; or another company surely will.

Re-evaluate your ways of working

It seems like every company out there is introducing hybrid, flexible working these days! Well, that’s because they are.

Businesses that are able to offer hybrid, remote and flexible working patterns will always have the competitive edge for attracting new talent. As the idea of the four-day work week is also picking up steam, offering choice in terms of where and when employees work has become the standard, and businesses that do not offer flexibility can expect more resignations in the coming months, as talent is poached.

This is especially true within our industry, where 82.6% of marketers rate flexible or hybrid working as important or very important, as reported by Marketing Week. This is not to say that there is no appetite to have a physical workspace, as more and more people crave the interaction and creative collaboration that comes from being in an office, and look towards a hybrid solution.

Remember that a one-size-fits-all approach is bound to make engagement levels plummet and turnover skyrocket. Decisions should be made as a collective and not mandated, and if possible, bespoke to each employee.

Focus on creating a great culture

Not feeling valued by their organisations or managers are the top two reasons people cited for leaving their jobs, which shows that generally, too many companies have a poor or underperforming workplace culture.

Show appreciation to your employees more regularly by looking at your compensation and benefits policies and make some improvements. If you don’t have a reward and recognition scheme in place, it’s time to get it up and running. If you don’t know your team member’s birthdays to get them a gift in time – set reminders. Basic engagement activities that used to be benefits are now the bare minimum, so if you’ve already got some great schemes in place, think bigger.

Hand in hand with a great workplace culture is a focus on diversity and inclusion. Ensure your working environment is as inclusive as possible and that your policies reflect that. Do you have a D&I agenda? Is your executive team diverse? Do you offer diversity, bias and inclusion training to employees? Does your office have a prayer room? Are your parental leave policies up to date? Do you communicate about your D&I agenda regularly? Is there a pay gap – it’s the time to show you are willing to go the extra mile and be transparent about what you’re doing.

Evaluate your leadership teams, and ensure they are diverse and the right people to be leading the charge, especially when it comes to wellbeing. The key to embedding a fantastic culture is by having a top-notch leadership team that are passionate about great engagement.

Invest in Marketing

As we wrote about in our Top Trends for 2022 PDF, this year businesses will be competing with others for talent – something that we know all too well will require fantastic, effective marketing and communication.

Companies can no longer be average; they need to show why they’re the best place to work and have the proof to go with it. By having a creative marketing team, businesses can serve as their own PR machine, shouting about the benefits they offer, the happiness of their employees and the wonderful doughnuts the HR Co-Ordinator brought in for the whole team at lunchtime.

The world is increasingly digital and having a strong online presence is the only way to get noticed and stay relevant in a highly competitive market. Invest in your social, marketing, PR and strategy team and ensure they have great things to shout about by having a great culture, strong and demonstrable company values, corporate responsibility activities and most importantly, an engaged workforce!

Focus on recruitment

Retaining talent always begins with the recruitment process. Although advertising a job vacancy is straightforward, hiring the right people is one of the most challenging tasks that employers face.

That’s where we come in! By briefing us on your requirements, roles or projects we can help you boost your recruitment efforts by bringing fantastic people to you. We’ve been doing this for 30 years and have access to the best pool of talent in the region, so no matter how complex your situation, organisation, project or role; we get it. Brief us today!