The Great Resignation

By Catherine Lang-Cline

Portfolio Creative has been finding marketing talent for our clients for over 16 years, so we are very familiar with making every work situation work. What we are amazed at right now is “The Great Resignation.” “The Great Resignation” is what people are calling the huge shift happening right now with employees. People are leaving their jobs and work situations based on how their companies worked with them through the pandemic and they are working with them now. It is a movement as people are evaluating what is important to them in life and not what they initially signed up for at their current job. It is also not something that is coming, it is something happening right now.

Employers believe resigning employees will number around 7%. They may be surprised that it stands in stark contrast to other employee surveys. On the high end, career website Monster found 95% of workers are currently considering changing jobs. Separately, Microsoft research found that 41% of the global workforce is weighing leaving their current employer this year.

I remember my dad never making exceptions to his 9-5 responsibilities, for any reason. Job security was the only thing on his mind. Now, all of the data points, for white-collar roles especially, are no longer about job security. So what do they want? In most cases, a remote or hybrid solution.

Your employees were able to pull off some amazing things when given the challenge to suddenly work from home. Not only did they keep your company running, but they were able to control their hours and work in their sweatpants. While this was all happening, did you trust them? Do you still trust them? How important is having every employee back for 40 hours? Because it appears that your conversations are going to revolve around flexibility. Employees are preferring to work from home rather than to live at work.

You may believe that you need to require people to be in the office because of teamwork, collaboration, coaching, mentoring, and apprenticeship. Maybe that is all true. Think about how all of that could look going forward in a remote or hybrid world. Here are some of the things companies are talking about:

  • Virtual calls continue

  • Daily check-ins are scheduled

  • Office space becoming“hoteling” space

  • Employees are only required to be in the office once or twice a week

  • Employees are only required to be in the office once or twice a month

  • Set goals, not the hours you expect work to happen

Migration to what people see as a better way of working and living is underway and in order to keep your best people, you need to be flexible. Contact us if you find yourself in need of your next full-time, hybrid, or remote marketing person. We recruit, you hire, problem solved.