The Great Resignation: 4 Strategies to Overcome Disengagement & Attrition

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were a record 11.5 million job openings at the end of March 2022.

We’re still in the midst of the Great Resignation, and with employees leaving positions, companies are spending a lot of time and resources hiring new employees. In the meantime, current managers are struggling with increased workloads and fewer workers to manage them.

Understanding the underlying causes of employee disengagement and attrition is key to attracting and retaining top talent and keeping your business profitable and productive.

The Role of Managers in Engagement and Retention

According to Gallup’s State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders, managers account for around 70% of the variance in employee engagement. It’s possible that this may account for why employees have low engagement globally.

Effective managers engage teams and inspire them to perform well, creating environments of accountability. In turn, this leads to a profitable and productive workplace. Managers are also responsible for work assignments, communication, and possible new roles and opportunities.

If a manager has poor communication or managerial skills, they’re not able to communicate effectively to employees, oversee projects, or find opportunities for their employees to grow and advance. Without these skills, they can’t inspire engagement or longevity in their teams.

Poor project or task management and inconsistent communication fail to set the expectations and accountability employees need to stay motivated and reach either their own goals or the company’s goals.

All this considered, a manager is vital to the employee’s career and future growth. Despite this, poor managers are rampant and a clear reason that many employees leave. Without an effective manager, an employee may not get the feedback, mentoring, and career opportunities they need to fuel their growth, causing them to look elsewhere to find the opportunities that would satisfy them.

Strategies for Managers to Overcome Disengagement and Attrition

Cultivate Connection with Managers and Team Members

Employees can feel disconnected anywhere, but it’s more apparent in remote and hybrid teams. These employees may become isolated for long periods, which is detrimental to the overall sense of team camaraderie. Employees may also feel “lost” in respect to how their roles and work fit into the big picture.

One way managers can foster connection with team members is through one-on-one coaching, in-person training, positive conversations, and regular check-ins. Many employees are seeking feedback and clear expectations, but with the shift to remote environments, they may not have these opportunities.

This doesn’t need to be elaborate – just a simple text or message to say hi can keep the connection. A smile and a few minutes of small talk on a conference call shows you care about your employees. Managers play a big role in keeping the whole team feeling connected, and small gestures go a long way.

Deliver Effective and Timely Communication

Managers can communicate, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re communicating effectively. These skills are vital to any workplace, especially between the manager and their teams. Without direction and clear instructions, employees may become unproductive, disengaged, and disinterested. When you consider that managers communicate just about everything an employee does, it follows that poor communication will cause them to lose their fire.

Two of the most important skills for managers with communication are transparency and honesty. These traits foster the trust that’s necessary between managers and employees. In practice, this is an authentic and genuine manager who is consistent in their words and actions. Honesty in practice is a manager who tells the truth (when appropriate) to develop stronger communication channels with employees.

This can be challenging with remote or hybrid teams. Communication can fall by the wayside, but managers need to be timely with their guidance, feedback, and responses.

Add Variety and Challenges

Employees may get bored with their roles or their job responsibilities, especially if they’re doing the same thing each day. These employees are more prone to burnout, and by extension, attrition.

Managers can bring more variety or challenges into the workday to keep things interesting for employees and help them stay motivated and excited. Challenges and variety don’t have to be all day, every day, but just a few change-ups can be enough to break up the monotony.

What does this look like in practice? Managers can delight and surprise teams with small gestures, such as scheduling team meetings for shorter sessions or hosting silly themed meetings like “Monday NFL,” where employees are encouraged to show their team spirit with hats and jerseys. Framing a new client initiative as a brainstorming session is also a way to challenge employees and spice things up.

Simply adding something different or unique to the workday can push employees out of their “autopilot” mode and give them a renewed interest in their roles.

Use Training and Development Strategically

According to the Gallup State of the American Workplace report, a lack of career growth and development is a key driver behind resignations. Furthermore, LinkedIn’s 2021 Workplace Learning Report estimates that 94% of employees would choose to stay longer at an organization that offers career training and development.

No matter the size of your company, you can promote employee growth opportunities with the right training and development programs. Even if you’re understaffed, without resources, or without a significant budget, you can aspire to higher levels of success with employees who are consistently developed and nurtured.

Another benefit of employee training and development is that employees who can link their goals to larger organizational goals are more likely to be engaged and invested in its success. In short, when you invest in your employees, they’re invested in your company.

Training doesn’t have to be expensive to work. Employees at all levels can benefit from formal education and training as well as low-cost internal initiatives like mentor partnerships. The whole team should be involved in training and development discussions to determine strategic areas for growth and improvement.

Managers Are a Key Component of Employee Retention

Motivated employees are essential to any company, especially amid the Great Resignation. Managers play a key role in an employee’s satisfaction – or dissatisfaction – but with the right strategies in place, companies can create effective managers that engage their employees to improve retention and reduce attrition.