20/01/2022
**Getting ready for The Great Resignation? Consider this first.**
I’m fascinated with the idea of The Great Resignation that is supposedly going to happen in the next few months. The idea that people simply can’t carry on with what is demanded of them at work. No doubt prompted by multiple lockdowns and the lens through which Covid-19 has sharpened our vision on the world, millions globally are set to quit their jobs.
To be fair, much of modern life is completely unsustainable; I mean who says we need deliveries within the hour, 7 day a week, 24-hour shopping and the like? The natural cycles of wake / sleep, work / rest, have been collectively upended. And the fallout is brutal.
Perhaps we’ll take a shorter lunch break so we can “get things done”, perhaps we’ll start a bit earlier, finish a bit later, work on our days off, put up with unreasonable demands “just this once”, until these behaviours become regular occurrences. On a mass scale. Somethings’ got to give.
And yet one problem coming with The Great Resignation is that of churn. About 10 years ago when I myself was on the brink of resigning from an office position, I read a book (I can’t remember the title) about work culture and the issue of churn. As I understand it, nowadays churn is the number of customers who no longer use or buy a product, but in the book the concept of churn described the number of staff cycling through positions. I had witnessed it myself, that with every departure the department lost a body of knowledge that had to built up again by the new person replacing them. At one time it had happened so frequently it felt like a monumental waste of energy, and I wasn’t sure that the body of knowledge was being sufficiently replaced with every new arrival.
So, what to do? Exit interviews might deliver insights. But before that happens, really asking workers how they work best, what are the conditions that enable creativity and cooperation, what are their needs. Staff that are ignored become thorns.
All this to say that before resigning too soon, would giving consideration to soothing our nervous systems to transmute built up stress be a better strategy? Building in more rest and relaxation, favouring being in a parasympathetic state versus sympathetic nervous dominance might be a more sustainable approach to surviving and thriving in the modern workplace, for both employers and employees.
There are numerous studies out of Denmark, more precisely the Danish Postal service that recounted fewer days off sick, absenteeism and better morale with regular reflexology treatments for their staff onsite. So employers, it is worth investing in your workforce’ downtime, and employees it’s worth asking for better conditions. Everybody wins either way!
My question to you is would you have stayed / stay longer in a work role if surrounding conditions were better? Think of the analogy of a plant that is dying in one environment but change up the lighting or water and suddenly it thrives. The plant was not at fault, it was the conditions under which it was trying to grow. Sound familiar?
