The Great Resignation, also sometimes called The Big Quit rolls on… and the research on the why is beginning to roll in. A lot has been said about the role of compensation (stagnant wages being eroded by inflation for example). And at this stage we probably all deserve a pay rise. Yet that won’t reverse the trend. Culture is an often overlooked ingredient – and a decisive factor.
This point is reinforced by messrs Sull, Sull,Zweig in their recent MIT Sloan Management Review article: Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation. Some quick excerpts below – that said, I encourage you to read the whole article. Especially as you reflect with your board colleagues on how to drive #EthicalBusinessPractice.
Top Predictors of Attrition During the Great Resignation
“A toxic culture is 10.4 times more likely to contribute to attrition than compensation.”
And to make it more relatable, the authors helpfully include a look at some real-life examples – and the differences are startling.
Workers are 3.8 times more likely to leave Tesla than Ford, for example, and more than twice as likely to quit JetBlue than Southwest Airlines.
And the punchline from the research should also be of interest to those working with #EthicalBusinessRegulation:
A toxic corporate culture is the single best predictor of which companies suffered from high attrition in the first six months of the Great Resignation.
Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation by Donald Sull, Charles Sull, and Ben Zweig
Research using employee data reveals the top five predictors of attrition and four actions managers can take in the short term to reduce attrition.
Cover image: wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Resignation