Let’s Play “The Great Resignation” Game

June 28, 2022
Richard Finnegan
Articles

What the Data Tells Us About “The Great Resignation”

All games…board games, video games baseball games…are built on foundations of rules, methods, and winners and losers. Let’s build a game regarding “The Great Resignation”…or TGR going forward.

Being smart kids, let’s also add a very adult, research-based component. The Chicago fed recently announced that TGR has had a significant impact on inflation,[i] while other reporting indicates TGR and supply chain woes are clearly intertwined.[ii] So this tells us that TGR does not work in a vacuum but is instead part of the cause-and-effect machinery of our total economy. Two examples come immediately to mind:

American Airlines just closed off three locations due in part to pilot turnover, adding to the record number of flights being canceled over the past few months with a major reason being…you guessed it…not enough workers.

A report from my hometown of Pittsburgh said beer drinkers had become frustrated because beer trucks were arriving at their favorite watering holes just once per week instead of twice, all because the beer makers couldn’t retain truck drivers, so they were scheduling one delivery per week instead of two.

In the first example, I’d bet $5 American Airlines will raise prices somewhere to offset the loss of those routes, adding to inflationary woes. And turnover of beer truck drivers is impacting revenues so someone must pay…and it’s those frustrated beer drinkers who will feel the pinch. And the smarties at the bar will think this is just about supply chain versus what we know, that TGR is causing the driver shortage.

Then here is an obvious third example. Companies are raising pay to push back on employee quits, all while MIT tells us pay is the 16^th reason employees are quitting.[iii] Hello more inflation.

Building “The Great Resignation” Game

So here are the rules of our game:

Every time you become frustrated by some level of service…with flights, beer, or otherwise…make a note of it and check one of the following boxes beside that note to indicate this service-snafu’s greatest cause:

And when you read or listen to news stories that are in any way related to our economy, check one of those same boxes.

Then after one week, total the number of boxes you checked for each of the three choices to determine which of our three related economic struggles is most impacting your life.

The winner of our game is whoever can get most of the members of your executive team to play the game. Those execs don’t have to actually record any event, but they must learn that “The Great Resignation” isn’t going to go away any time soon. Even if we face a recession, our 11.5 million open jobs will decrease but we can’t reverse 70 years of our falling birthrate to create more workers.

Think of our challenge this way. Financial experts are burning late hours trying to solve how their companies can maintain high profitability while fighting the headwinds of inflation and supply chain challenges. Do you think those same finance gurus have solutions or even empathy for helping to “The Great Resignation”?

“The Great Resignation” Was Inevitable

Here’s a chart that should make us wonder how we didn’t see this coming:

Since the mid-seventies our birthrate has been below or barely at the line for our replacement rate, predicting we will eventually become Japan where deaths out-pace births. As I reported here a few months ago, economists tell us the only solution for maintaining and building our economy is to increase immigration[i]. Who wants to go first and suggest that to anyone in Washington DC?

There ultimately is but one solution, and that is to retain the good workers you already have. I can’t honestly think of a second solution…and it certainly isn’t trying to out-recruit others because we’ve all watched our dogs chase their tails.

You Can Cut Turnover Even During The Great Resignation

Schedule a conversation with me at DFinnegan@C-SuiteAnalytics.com to discuss your employee retention roadblocks and I’ll share ideas for how you can move forward and what is working for other companies to cut turnover by 20% and more, even during The Great Resignation that may benefit you.

[i] https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2022/465

[ii] https://www.businessinsider.com/sc/how-to-navigate-great-resignation-supply-chain-challenges-2022-2

[iii] https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/toxic-culture-is-driving-the-great-resignation/