Covid changed pretty much everything. For most people (including your employees), it opened their eyes to what’s important in the world. Employees now demand much more from their organizations than “work” and “pay” and are willing to quit in order to find it.
With the “great resignation” in full swing, organizations must invest in helping their managers relearn skills that will enable them to address the new, unique needs of their teams.
To navigate this new world of work, here are three findings from the nearly 2 million employee response surveys we have collected at PassPoint.
1. Make employee mental health a top priority
It should go without saying that you cannot ignore the mental health of your employees. While some business leaders feel like mental health is an off-limits topic, it shouldn’t be treated as something taboo. 82.3% of PassPoint users feel like mental health is important to their productivity.
Here are some things your organization can do to help bring mental health to the forefront:
- Start by reviewing your existing health benefits and if they are being used: Do the insurance plans you offer to workers include mental health services? What about gym and workout reimbursement? Are your employees even using the resources you are offering? Employees today, especially millennials, are demanding different types of support. You may even find that the services your employees are demanding are less expensive to offer.
- Openly support mental health conversations: The most successful business leaders exhibit openness, honesty, and authenticity. Your business leaders should be the ones to start the discussion surrounding mental health. Showing your employees you are not afraid of the topic, shows your willingness to work with them to address it.
- Include mental health information in your new hire orientation. Communicate openly with your new employees about the benefits and resources you’re providing and stress the importance of self-care and burnout prevention. Remember, mental health resources are not just a “sales pitch” to hire new employees, it should be something that is continually reinforced through your company culture. The better you can highlight what your company offers the better chance you have of preventing the “great resignation” from hurting your business.
2. Understand the “why” with conversations
To truly understand what employees want from their organizations, PassPoint asks nearly 20 million questions every year to employees across multiple industries, company sizes, and levels in a company.
Questions range from simple yes or no to multiple-choice, but overall, our goal is to help your organization understand why employees are productive and what needs to change in order to achieve higher productivity.
Most businesses today focus on measurable metrics, like “how many days have you been absent”, but fail to understand why an employee is missing work. If an employee tells you there are “sick”, what’s the next course of action? “Cold/flu” sick has a different solution than “mental health” sick. Or maybe it’s “sick of work”.
Asking follow-up questions not only helps you understand the situation better but also helps your leaders display the empathy that employees desire. The building of that communication helps employees find a sense of place in a company and helps them perform better. This is the real way to prevent the great resignation from destroying your business.
If you’re not comfortable asking those questions, we’d love to share more about how our automated HR chatbot can solve that problem for you. Book a 15-minute demo today.
3. Foster a culture of care
Limeade, an organization dedicated to researching and improving employee well-being, recently released its new study, “The Great Resignation Update,” to examine why the “Great Resigners” left.
When asked how their new employer compared to their previous employer, job changers feel more comfortable disclosing a mental health condition and a greater sense that their new company cares about their well-being.
“When employees feel cared about, they’re more committed, engaged, have lower stress, and better well-being,” said Jessi Crast, a researcher at Limeade.
Crast defines a caring culture as “providing organizational support for employee’s social, physical, occupational, and emotional well-being.” One way to achieve a caring culture is by equipping managers with the right skills, like the ability to empathize with direct reports.
Other tips Crast recommends include fostering peer social networks, providing transparency from leadership, offering tools and resources, enabling two-way communication, and investing in employees’ development.
Summary
Ultimately, it boils down to listening to your employees. Employees want to be heard. By building a culture of openness, your employees can share what they need in order to be successful. If you can provide it, then great. But if you cannot, at least the departure won’t be a surprise. For many businesses, the “great resignation” is catching them by surprise. Don’t let your organization fall victim to it.