Reframing ‘The Great Resignation’ As ‘The Great Opportunity’

 

Asking what to do about the “Great Resignation” is the wrong question right now. A better question is, “How can we benefit from this shift? How can we make it into a ‘Great Opportunity’ instead?” This reframes the concern of the very real current worker shortage and plugs into the new attitudes and desires of employees.

Changing your perspective from great resignation to great reshuffle, as explained in a recent Korn Ferry article, unlocks the mindset you need to act. The number of people leaving their positions is at an all-time high. Whether they take other positions, become solopreneurs or freelancers, retire, or just drop out of the workforce for now, this means that employees are searching for something different—and here lies the opportunity. We are seeing that people want more say at work, to take an active role in their career development, more choices about where and when they work, meaningful perks, and pay that makes them feel valued.

The good news is that so much disruption within the workforce gives you an opportunity to examine, refine and shift your culture. James Heskett in his new book, Win from Within: Build Organizational Culture for Competitive Advantage, talks about designing a culture to foster the ability to learn, adapt, innovate, and change anything, including strategy. Culture is the platform from which strategies can build a competitive advantage.

The Great Opportunity can be broken into three parts: increased autonomy, flexibility, and transparency at work.

Autonomy is a both useful concept and an actionable strategy. Employees want to feel that they have some control over their work, workplace and hours. Many leaders resist employee autonomy because they fear they will lose control.  Think of it as giving employees a canvas and painting supplies and allowing them to choose how they will paint the canvas, a concept introduced by management theorist Constantinos Markides. Essentially, the employer gives the structure—the canvas and paint—while offering autonomy—how the paint is used—to employees. This creates both boundaries and autonomy. Here are a few ways to create a culture that celebrates autonomy:

 

• Be very clear about expectations based on feedback from operations, partners and/or customers. Expectations should come from all levels of the organization centered on your strategy. Many strategies are too general, such as “create a customer-centric product.” This lacks specificity and opens the door for confusion and alignment issues. Try something like, “create products that please customers and keep them returning.”
• Have strong values and a shared motivating purpose. This is fundamental in business, yet it is unfortunately often missing. When employees are given or sold a purpose, they are less motivated than if they have a part in crafting the goals for their team or the outcome of their work.
• Rethink office space. Reimagining the office can save employees mental energy and companies money, while giving employees the autonomy to work in a way that suites them. I recently worked with a company that moved away from offices and cubicles to a flex office space: small office-like spaces for meetings or calls, a conference room for larger meetings and open areas for gathering and collaborating. And of course, we are seeing more companies opt for remote offices. In fact, I’m helping a newly fully remote team build their culture to this new work style.. A good resource with many more practical ideas about this is Erica Keswins’ Bring Your Human to Work.

• Run experiments. Many companies have the mindset that when developing a product, service or message, it must be perfectly developed in-house before releasing it. Yet successful and innovative companies run hundreds of experiments each year. They test their ideas to gather feedback, then adjust, collect more feedback, and adjust again—repeating the process until the product or service is ready for the market. Experiments build flexibility into the creation and implementation process, and work is better because of it.
• Be intentional about communication channels. Technology has given us many options to communicate: in-person, video, audio, digital and social. This is a huge success for humans, and can also be a major distraction. We want to use them all and often are not able to decide when or how to best do so. Remember when email was supposed to reduce workload? What about the promise of Slack for reducing emails? These two examples illustrate that there is power in both and being intentional about using them is key to reducing workloads and giving flexibility. We need to decide how each channel can increase the effectiveness of connections.  
• Think about the time it takes to do the work. This calls into question the concept of a 40-hour workweek. Being flexible about worktime means not considering time spent as the unit of accomplishment, but rather the completion of a task as the accomplishment. If performance is based on “completions” rather than “hours” there can be more worker flexibility (and this plays into autonomy as well).

• Be open with information. Information is the currency of business. Those in the know always have a leg up. Sharing messages with more people equalizes some structures, while still maintaining them. The decision here is how to be more open and truthful all the time.  
• Communicate promotions and opportunities for learning and advancement. Sharing the reasons for success and promotion openly is important—and not just after someone has been promoted.  Understanding the “system” allows employees to plan and focus. They should also understand the learning systems that are in place at the organization, whether in-person, digital, on-demand or self-study. This will allow employees to determine their career paths and learning goals. The one-size-fits-all model of learning is falling to the wayside. It’s all about options. Employees should have access and know about learning opportunities, even as soon as they start as a new employee.
• Rethink meetings. The meeting will never go away, but we have learned that it can take a different form. Create protocols for meetings. Consider who really needs to attend. Develop some clarity about the purpose of meetings and their desired outcome—and communicate this information. Well-run meetings with the right attendees can help buy valuable work time. Collaboration is key today for most challenges, but not every gathering needs to be a collaboration. Ultimately, everyone could use a little more time in his or her day.

Author Bio

Dr. Francis Eberle is a leadership and organizational advisor, speaker, and author who believes that people development is business development. He spent more than 25 years as an executive for non-profits and start-ups, and offers individual coaching, team development, and organizational performance improvement. Visit Price Associates Connect Dr. Francis Eberle