Employee feedback shows hundreds of thousands are choosing not to return to work. Or are contemplating hybrid workplace options.Sometimes that means hopping the fence for greener fields, resulting in a mass workplace exodus. Industries are facing turbulent talent times. What are the drivers of this mass employee resignation that everyone’s talking about? What can you do to reduce the impact on your organization? Social media and conventional news outlets can’t seem to report enough about the seismic shift upending employee recruitment and retention practices. Studies show 95% of workers are currently considering changing jobs and 92% are willing to switch industries to land a new position. In April, 649,000 retail workersgave notice in the U.S. which is the “largest one-month exodus since the Labor Department began tracking such data more than 20 years ago.” Why are people leaving or entertaining the idea of jumping ship? Economists and policymakers, journalists and social commentators are happy to share their opinions. But it’s active listening in the workplace that tells you what’s really going on in the minds of your workforce. Active listening--an approach that combines frequent employee surveying with a genuine commitment to listen, learn, and act--can stem the flow of talent and even enhance your employer brand.
Employee Feedback Removes All the Guesswork
Return to work survey questions can confirm or refute whether your hybrid workplace employees mirror the findings of insurance and financial services giant Prudential. Results tell us “one in three American workers would not want to work for an employer that required them to be on-site full time.” Do your employees’ sentiments actually align with those studies that indicate massive numbers of workers are ready to change jobs? This employee retention survey example will clarify whether your organization needs to brace for a heated war on talent. Recent research from talent solutions firm Robert Half indicates that 95% of senior managers find it challenging to source skilled professionals. Digging for details from your people can help HR and leaders address the reasons behind such challenges. A variety of employee surveys that span from a candidate and new hire experiences through to retirement remove all the guesswork. Employee feedback pinpoints where successes are occurring and where your organization needs to take action.Active listening steps up your game.
How Employee Feedback and Active Listening in the Hybrid Workplace Make a Difference
“It’s not a ‘labor shortage. It’s a great reassessment of work in America” a recent Washington Post headline cautioned. Active listening gives you the ability to reassess your organization and the impact recent and potential changes have on your people. How? By regularly touching base with your people. Asking for frequent employee feedback. Weekly one-on-one Sync-Ups between a manager and their team members, helps to set the stage. By issuing pulse surveys that include return to work survey questions for employees, hybrid work model survey questions, and work from home survey questions. By interpreting and acting on survey insights, touching base again to find out if the actions you've taken are on target. By asking what can be done better and why. Tracking whether initiatives are moving the needle in the right direction. Reassessing and fine-tuning. Active listening is a never-ending commitment to creating the best possible employee experience based on the experiences and insights of your employees. And given the new hybrid world of work that we’re all trying to find our way through, that feedback has never been more important than it is now.
Reasons for the Mass Employee Exodus – According to Experts
Hypothetical reasons for an employee mass exodus are as plentiful as the statistics making headlines. In retail and hospitality sectors, for instance, women dominate the workforce. Experts say female retail employees are probably overwhelmed by childcare and other family responsibilities. Unpredictable schedules, unpaid sick leave, zero benefits, disrespectful customers, low wages, and negative management hasten their flight. Labor experts weigh in with their take on the upheaval in other sectors. You’ve read and heard how employees are at their breaking point after a dismal stretch of uncertainty. Increased workloads, blurred boundaries between work and home life and the stress that comes with all of that are fuelling a burnout epidemic. Academia and business consultants surmise that people want more control over their lives. Control over where and when and how they work. They write and lecture about how that level of control is found in workplaces that support flexible work approaches. But why take their word for it when you can get the real skinny, the truth about your organization and the needs of your employees, direct from the horse's mouth? What approaches appeal to your workforce? What policies or processes or other factors need closer reassessment?
Reasons for the Mass Employee Exodus – Ask for Feedback to Find Out for Yourself
The hybrid workplace is transformative on so many levels. Under these ever-changing conditions, active listening helps your organization become the employer it aspires to be.How do you manage a team where some people are on-site daily and others occasionally? How can you foster team connection when your people are regionally, nationally, or globally dispersed? Despite best intentions, are you inadvertently reinforcing a version of the old boys' club if team members close in proximity get together socially (building familiarity and camaraderie in the process) while other remote workers further afield miss out? How does that play out in terms of communication? Equity? Career growth? Is your new hybrid approach working for everyone? Is there any kind of impact on employee loyalty? Where’s the tipping point behind employee resignations? Why? WorkTango's Employee Experience Platform gives you the Survey Insights to understand why. The analytic reporting features to hear the voice of employees more clearly. And the expert guidance to transform your evolving hybrid workplace into a dynamic active listening workplace; an organization your employees are proud to recommend to others.
