Throughout the period plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic, the implementation of flexible work arrangements across the spectrum of remote, hybrid and physical work has disrupted work as we know it. Understanding how the new workplace demands and dynamics impact workers is essential as these changes have been the most influential event affecting a company’s ability to retain their brightest talents in the past year.
The published findings from the annual Work Trend Index survey can help us understand how their workers have been impacted by the drastic changes to work and their trickle-down effect onto talent retention. The Work Trend Index survey was conducted by an independent research firm Edelmen Data x Intelligence, on 31,092 fully or self-employed workers spanning 31 markets from 12 to 25 January 2021.
Take a look at the different Push and Pull factors below:
Push Factors: What is Driving Talent away?
1. Flexible Work Allows Talent to go Anywhere
The next major transition of work is already in motion. Many leading companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft have already begun their shift towards hybrid work — a blended model where some employees return to the workplace and others continue to work from home.
Each choice comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages, but regardless of the preferred model employed, workers’ expectations for flexible working arrangements to continue will create a fundamental shift in workers' attitude towards career advancement and alternative opportunities.
Now that people can work from anywhere, they can consider job opportunities from everywhere! This is shown in the Work Trend Index, which reports that 41% of the global workforce are likely to consider leaving their current employer within the next year, while 46% of remote workers surveyed are planning to make a major pivot or career transition.
Not only are the attitudes of the workers changing, the introduction of remote work has also produced an inflation of job opportunities. Remote job postings on LinkedIn increased more than five times during the pandemic, and people will start responding.
2. Disconnect between Leaders and Employees
The survey found a discrepancy between Leaders (workers farther along in their careers) who report themselves thriving, while employees (especially those new to the job) report themselves struggling to cope with the new normal. There are many reasons for such a disparity between leaders and employees.
Socially, employees that are newer to their role will have faced with an additional difficulty in the form of unfamiliar colleagues, brought upon by the lack of opportunities to interact with them personally. This is exacerbated by the tendency for remote work to isolate individuals, especially from those outside of their immediate team. Anonymised collaboration trends between billions of Outlook emails and Microsoft Teams clearly illustrate a dramatic fall in inter-team interactions over time.
Emotionally, employees are burdened with the stresses of adjusting to new-found responsibilities such as operating tele-conferencing tools and digital solutions. Moreover, the existing stress of managing work-related matters from home can be further exacerbated by additional familial responsibilities of childcare or eldercare. The Modern Families Index conducted by Bright Horizons identified reported that 81% of the 16-25 year olds surveyed expressed a need to consider childcare options before accepting a promotion or new job. Whereas, 84% of 35-44 year olds considered eldercare considerations.
3. Increased Exhaustion from Compromised Work-life Balance
Throughout the protracted period of remote work, despite the radically different experience between working in-office compared to working at home, productivity and overall performance has retained the same or higher level for most companies. However, such performance metrics does not capture the full picture. Despite evidence of sustained performance, a fifth of respondents report that their employer disregard about their work-life balance, 54% feel overworked and 39% feel exhausted.
This feedback is backed by the substantial surge in usage of Microsoft digital solutions between February 2020-2021:
Pull Factors: How can we Retain Talent?
1. Embracing & Learning from Challenges
The ability to adapt to this period of unprecedented change will certainly impact talent retention and attraction to your company. When leaders possess a clear vision and direction, it will also encourage trust and believe from workers to their leaders.
For leaders to successfully manoeuvre this period, it is necessary to consider ways to manage the emotional impact on workers alongside maintaining their level of productivity. Leaders can begin by considering the following questions:
- How are workers doing?
- What do they need?
- Who will be able to work remotely?
- Who works physically and how often?
- Are workers fully equipped for prolonged remote work?
Although the circumstance of each company is unique, finding your own solution to these questions will help address common concerns plaguing most employees. With the blended approach of Hybrid Work, a key area of concern will be discriminatory practices or assessments between those that work in-office and those that work remotely. This can be resolved with investment in office space and technology used by workers to connect physical and digital sides of Hybrid work.
2. Authenticity spurs Productivity and Well-being
Rebuilding an inclusive culture that unites both in-office and remote working staff will be paramount in accounting for possible social engagement issues between the two groups.
This process requires leaders to reflect and reconsider their current employee experience. This necessitates critical assessment of current policies in terms of ability to facilitate inter-department interaction and identify areas of provide workers with sufficient support.
Authentic interaction is a key area that the home-based nature of remote work has created more opportunities for. The Work Trend Index reports that 20% of employees have met their colleagues’ pets or families virtually and 17% have even cried with a colleague in 2021. As a result, it produces stronger work relationships, higher productivity and boosts overall staff well-being.
3. Caring begins from the Top
Since the accumulation of exhaustion stems from (a)increased workload, (b)added familial responsibilities and (c)time spent on tele-conferencing tools, combating it must be approached top-down, right from the leaders.
To do so, Leaders can consider taking the following steps:
- Reduce workload
- Combine asynchronous and synchronous collaboration
- Encourage taking breaks
- Provide practical support for childcare and eldercare
With increasing talks of the COVID-19 situation developing towards an endemic situation, flexible work arrangements are likely to continue. This situation presents an opportunity for workers to move on from their current situation, which makes it more pertinent for leaders to put in the effort to show their workers that they care!
Take some time to reflect- What are some ways that you/your company have tried to help your workers (manage productivity & well-being) amidst this period of flexible work arrangement? Can the findings from the Work Trend Index improve your current policies?
To find out more about Talent Retention and Organisational Development, contact us at connect@pace-od.com.
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