Prior to the Covid pandemic, burnout levels were already sufficient enough for the World Health Organisation to declare it an occupational disease. Indeed, survey data from the University of Phoenix revealed that around half of us have suffered from burnout at work.

It’s a situation that has gotten worse during the pandemic, with data from OC Tanner suggesting a 15% growth in burnout, with a disgraceful 81% of employees at the worst organizations suffering from it.

With many of us working remotely during the pandemic, the frequent Zoom calls have given us a glimpse into the personal lives of our colleagues. The challenges of homeschooling children or caring for sick relatives, of redundancies and other financial pressures, or, of course, of the health risks and grief that have sadly affected so many have been exposed in a way perhaps never seen before. It’s no wonder that there is an overwhelming desire for more humane leadership from our organizations.

“While organizations have a direct impact on employees’ careers, organizational leaders are often skeptical about how much they should cross over into other areas of their employees’ lives,” write Gallup’s Jim Clifton and Jim Harter in their recent book Wellbeing at Work. “How much should an organization delve into someone’s life outside of work anyway? Is it even appropriate for organizations to concern themselves with, say, an employee’s physical health or community involvement?”

Sticking around

Of course, as future of work expert, Steve Cadigan highlights in Workquake, this bargaining relationship is complicated by the increasingly footloose nature of the modern worker.  Cadigan illustrates that people today are changing jobs at a rate never seen before.

Indeed, he argues that it is this mobility that gives many of us what we perceive to be job security as this mobility helps us to develop an ever-expanding professional network that helps us to continue growing and finding new opportunities.

From an organizational perspective, however, it creates the inevitable conundrum of investing significantly in people who may decide to move on.  Is it really feasible to commit to employees who are increasingly footloose?

Why we move

It’s a topic examined in a recent study from INSEAD, which explored it through the lens of employee development.  The researchers explored some of the reasons why people leave organizations.

The researchers examined around 9,500 data points in the United States over a six-year period that included the Fukashima nuclear disaster in the middle.  Nearly 800 firms were located within 80km of a nuclear plant in the US, with a control group of equal size located up to 240km away.

The findings illustrate how no matter how much firms invest in employee engagement and development, they can often be blindsided by unforeseen events, such as the Fukushima incident, which created significant concern among the public about the safety of the sector and indeed on the potential implications for the surrounding region.  The data revealed significant employee departures from firms in the vicinity of US nuclear plants.

Butterfly effect

This is important, as many might be tempted to explain away the mass departures typified by the “Great Resignation” as a one-off phenomenon caused by the pandemic, but research from Citi Global Perspectives and Solutions in conjunction with the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies at Cambridge Judge Business School suggests that would be an unwise thing to do.

The report suggests that our difficulty in predicting such events is less due to their inherent uncertainty as it is to do with our failure to adequately recall events from the distant past.

“As a result of a myriad of factors, global risks have changed in their frequency and impact as well as their economic tenacity throughout the 20th century,” the authors say. “The average period of time between crises from 1700 to 1900 was 21 years; since 1960, the interval has shrunk to just eight. Similarly, the interval between major natural, technological, and geopolitical catastrophes has also shrunk as the impacts of these risks have evolved a global spread.”

Driving loyalty

Just as in the INSEAD study, research from Exeter University says that even though it may seem risky, the only option organizations have is to continue investing in people, even if they may move onto pastures new after you have backed them so heavily.

The study also highlights the crucial role our managers play in engendering loyalty. The results revealed that employees with a strong relationship with their boss were more likely to feel empowered, and to subsequently take an active attitude towards their work.

“We also found that a quality relationship with a boss caused greater feelings of psychological empowerment and this effect was felt more strongly when the relationship was viewed as important by the employee,” the researchers explain. “For instance, if a member of staff receives recognition and praise from a leader, it has more impact on the way they view their own competencies the more importance they place on that relationship.

Letting people go

Of course, there are also advantages from letting people go, because it’s quite possible that you’ll be able to hire them back again.  Research from Cornell University reminds us just what a fertile source of talent former employees make, however. 

Central to the allure of these boomerang employees is the detailed knowledge they gained of other organizations in their time away.  This value is particularly great when that knowledge is of a rival firm.  It’s not for nothing that so many firms, especially in the tech space, place such hefty restrictions on just where people can go, especially for their most senior people.

The paper highlights that the strength of many organizations is in the various foibles that take new hires so long to learn.  The norms and routines that underpin behavior, the people to speak to when looking to get things done, and the places to go for the information you require.  All of this insider information is hugely important in terms of the way an organization functions, but it’s largely only available to those on the inside.  When employees get an experience of multiple organizations, however, they become increasingly valuable as they gain a richer understanding of this organizational glue.

If job hopping is becoming the norm, therefore, it’s best to carry on investing in your people, backing them across their whole life, and being comfortable with the fact that mobility will happen, and it can be beneficial to you as a business.

“Perhaps we have overvalued employee retention and undervalued the power of movement and how that can contribute to a highly connected nerve center for employees and their futures,” Cadigan says.