Recent research by McKinsey shows that understanding your employees could be the key to turning attrition into attraction.
The great resignation in the form of increased employee attrition continues to be a challenge for organisations to deal with. A recent survey by Gartner in the IT sector found that only 29% of employees intend to stay with their current employer and a survey by Randstad in the UK found that 69% of people are planning to move jobs.
To understand what’s driving attrition McKinsey have recently conducted a large scale survey of 250 employers and 5774 employees in multiple industries in Australia, Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Better understanding of employees
The research uncovered a single powerful insight. Employers need to get a deeper understanding of their employees.
This is highlighted most starkly by the difference between the needs employees articulate about what’s more likely to help them stay in their role and the perceptions of employers about what will make a difference.
Broadly the employer response is transactional. Their response could typically be to offer better compensation, adjusted workloads or a promotion.
Employee responses however are relational. They want to feel valued by their manager, have a sense of belonging to the organisation and have trusting and caring teammates.
Employee response is as much about values, connection and community as pay or conditions. The risk is that employers who respond with a transactional solution amplify the problem by making the employees feel even less understood and valued.
Personalised and involved thinking
So how well do you understand employee needs in your organisation? Do you know what makes people stay? Do you have empathetic leaders attuned to employee needs? Have you involved your employees in shaping wellbeing strategy within the organisation and built a tailored, personalised strategy designed around their needs?
For us that involvement is key. The organisations we’ve seen shaping the most powerful wellbeing strategies have combined a data driven approach to understanding their employees Mental Fitness with a collaborative, co-creation driven approach, involving people across the organisation in shaping wellbeing around actual rather than perceived needs, a process that can itself enhance a sense of belonging and connectedness within the organisation.
Want to take this further?
If your organisation is aiming to be in the vanguard of putting Mental Fitness at the heart of organisational development and you’d like help to gain a deeper understanding of your employees, we’d love to talk.
Read: Check out our post on building a wellbeing strategy in your organisation. Click here.
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