Written by: Gauri Kacherikar, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Neha is a Director of a leading Global Organization in the US. She has donned many hats and excelled in all of them. She picked up responsibilities of growing new markets just before the pandemic. Little did she guess that the daycares would be closed, and the work from home would make her life miserable. After a struggle for a month, she soon realized that this was the golden time of her life. On her personal front a mother of two young ones, ageing parents had always been her priority. The work-from-home option gave her the time to spend with her little ones, take care of her family as well as focus on her career growth. When she was asked to join back to office, she realized that working from home was the best arrangement of her career and she started exploring opportunities that provided a hybrid model of working.
The Pandemic has led to the 2021 ‘Great Resignation’, which distinguishes itself from previous high-turnover periods as it is characterized by elevated levels of burnout, gender differences, and a new wave of employee expectations regarding flexible and remote working. The statistics are substantial, and they point towards a pivotal change in what has now become an employee’s market where workers are driving the future of the workplace.
Many people are looking for a change. Are employees leaving your company?
It is important to take such results with a pinch of salt, as it’s much easier to ‘want’ a new job than to actually get one, organizations must pause to evaluate the colossal impact that potentially losing almost half of their talent will have on their business. These resignations are now happening on a mass because the entire world has collectively experienced the ‘shock’ of a lifetime with COVID-19, causing individuals to confront their own mortality and appreciate that life is simply too short to spend wasting time in a purposeless job that they don’t enjoy, feel appreciated in or that doesn’t allow them to enjoy a life outside of their career.
Employees are leaving due to:
Burnouts: While the pandemic may have shut down the world outside, it surely amplified the pace of work. Many employees especially women feel that they cannot continue with this pace and are quitting for their health.
Changing Values: Millions of working parents, especially working mothers, have left their careers in the last year to focus on caregiving. The majority of them don’t intend to work for the time being. Some of the workforces is hesitant to return to the office. After a year of lockdown, many have emerged with new priorities for their passion and jobs are not at the top of their list.
Better Offers: Employers are raising the average salaries to attract talent. Savvy job seekers are aware of this and are jumping options with multiple offers in their hands.
What can Organization’s do?
Employee engagement is the best way to measure how likely you are to experience employee turnover – an engaged employee is more productive and committed to the organization they belong to. A company that prioritizes engagement will have clear common goals, open communication, psychological safety, and a culture of support – employees want to feel valued and heard by their managers and colleagues. This ties in with the post-pandemic existential shift where people want to feel like their jobs have a purpose. If employees are feeling ignored, undervalued, lacking recognition, or possibly feeling as though they are not working to their potential then they’ll seek out this purpose elsewhere. Modern retention strategies like embracing remote work policies permanently, fueling the passion of the employees, providing coaching for employees, are highly effective at reducing churn and keeping employees engaged.
How can Coaching help?
Invest in Retention: An executive coach will add value to the process of developing and strengthening leadership and communication skills and will help your organization grow and succeed. Companies thrive when leaders are intentionally developed, and everyone is singing from the same sheet of music. For example, when groups of people — such as high-potential employees or recent management hires — join in coaching to improve both their individual leadership skills and, as a group, learn to work from the same songbook, your company will be poised for long-term success.
Growth, fulfillment, and belonging are the types of deeper-level results needed to retain employees in today’s workforce. A tool like coaching often helps get employees there. The role of a coach is to help people get what they really want out of life and work. By meeting virtually with the same coach on a weekly basis, employees benefit from having someone who is truly in their corner with no ulterior motives. The conversation skills of a coach will help bring in clarity to the employees to understand what are they really looking out for? These inputs are critical to the organization to provide the employee with the opportunities that he or she desires to retain them.
Most coaches are incredible planners and have an uncanny eye to observe and plan immediate ways to address needs and deficiencies. Command and control management and leadership is no longer tenable in a fast-moving and VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world. People across the organization need to be able to make rapid decisions and respond to changing conditions on a moment-by-moment basis. Coaching creates the conditions in organizations to best meet these challenges. These include agility, so companies can respond quickly in a fast-moving world; open communication, so that any problems can be communicated, and action is taken; increased trust and for staff to be more self-responsible; and for people to be fully engaged in their work so that they find fulfilment at work.
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Gauri Kacherikar, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Gauri Kacherikar is a global business leader and has extensive experience working with the Nordics. She comes with unique capabilities and has led businesses across diverse sectors, including Public and Healthcare, Financial Services. She believes her learnings from the Stockholm School of Economics have contributed to her futuristic approach and thought leadership.
As a Coach, she brings an uncanny ability to nurture, coach people to achieve their goals, and advance their career paths. Her mission is to empower women to grow as successful entrepreneurs/corporate executives. Her signature program, "MidLife Energizer," has helped women transform their lives and dreams to find their purpose. "Build Your Executive Presence" is another program that has assisted women in their career trajectories. She has been recognized by the Swedish Royal Family for her gender equality initiatives and is a winner of the Sandvik India Diversity Awards.
