F E AT U R E Construction Outlook: Retaining Top Employees Should Be Your Top Priority by Dale Carnegie staff Reports that we are about to see a wave of employee departures as the pandemic eases suggest that companies in many industries must take action or brace themselves for significant turnover. In a recent global survey by Dale Carnegie Training, we found that most employees (79%) are confident in their organization’s future. Many, however, do not intend to stay with them for much longer. In the U.S., for instance, a record number of people left their employers in April and high numbers continue to quit.
Reasons For Post-Pandemic Employee Departures Some of the departures are easily explained. A number were just delayed due to uncertainty in the first months of pandemic. Early on, many older workers took the opportunity to simply retire a little earlier than planned, reversing a decades-long trend. Some quit to take care of their own health or that of loved ones. Others found the pandemic experience changed their core attitude toward the purpose work has in their lives and are reassessing accordingly. But these explanations do not fully account for what appears to be a remarkably large group still at work who are currently looking to leave their current situation.
Employees Were Generally Satisfied with the Way Leaders Managed the Crisis When we asked more than 6,500 employees around the world how satisfied they were with the way their organization managed its business and people during the pandemic, 71% said they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied”. Fast forward to now and our examination of the emotional drivers of employee engagement, we found that, since the Covid-19 emergency, a
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significant number of workers (roughly 6 in 10) actually reported feeling neutral to less connected, empowered, valued, and appreciated by their leaders and organizations than during the Pandemic. In addition, job satisfaction during the pandemic has been high. As was reported in Forbes in May 2021, “many of the components of employee job satisfaction that companies directly control, such as the health plan, performance review process, flexible time plan, family leave plan, sick leave, and supervisor, significantly improved in 2020” with those changes carrying over into 2021. If all this is true, why are so many considering leaving?
How The Employee Experience Has Evolved Covid-19 has shattered the “employee experience” that organizations have spent years crafting to attract and retain talented employees. It made aspects of work life easier for some and tougher for others. Those working from home no longer share similar offices or workstations, lunchrooms, or even internet speeds. People in the field office have had to adapt to virus-driven safety guidelines. Times of stress tend to be revealing. When we asked how well their organization stayed true to its values when making decisions during the Covid19 emergency, just 62% said “well” or “very well”. Memories of this period will influence people’s feelings about their organization’s culture for some time.
Employees Have Come to Expect Empathy, but Leaders Find It Hard to Sustain The effects of the pandemic also resulted in empathetic behavior some employees never expected from their
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leaders: offering to cover the costs for • Most employees are confident in their organization’s future. At the same time, there are a considerable number who do not intend to be part of it. Employee exits are on the rise. • Clues to why this trend is occurring can be found in how leaders are handling the closing stages of the pandemic. • For many organizations, it is time to evaluate and mend a fragmented employee experience. backup childcare, extra sick leave and “hero pay” for front line workers. Several companies have committed to cover education costs for the children of its employees who succumbed to the virus. In fact, research shows that workplace empathy ratings rebounded in 2021 after years of decline. Yet as (what we hope is) the conclusion of the health emergency nears, many CEOs can’t wait to get back to the “old normal” that better suited their own preferences. However, these preferences often conflict with those of many of their employees. Empathy doesn’t come naturally to many senior leaders. In their 2021 State of Workplace Empathy study, Businessolver reported that, this year, nearly 7 in 10 leaders admitted they fear they will be less respected if they show empathy in the workplace and about the same number said they struggle to consistently show empathy in their work life. On both points, there were big increases over 2020 suggesting many leaders are finding empathy especially hard to sustain over the long term. It wouldn’t be surprising if employees now feel a sense of betrayal as leaders’ empathy begins to
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