Will employers see resignation spikes this summer?

Dive Brief:

While general wisdom holds that few people wanted to leave their jobs during the pandemic, data from Visier shows that voluntary resignations did not drop as dramatically as may have been presumed — and for some groups of employees, resignations even increased, the workforce analytics platform’s report said. The report analyzed anonymized, standardized workforce data of over 9 million employee records from more than 4,000 companies.
From its tracking of resignations since 2018, Visier noted that summer months tend to have a spike in departures, and that trend held true in 2020. Last summer did see some new developments in resignation patterns, however. Resignations from female workers increased sharply in 2020, while male workers had fewer departures than usual, meaning employers could see a spike of resignations this summer from men if the pattern holds true, Visier said.
Resignations were up in March this year, Visier said, particularly in healthcare and high tech, meaning the trend could be "starting to evolve." Overall, however, women and mid-career workers were most likely to submit resignations, even during the pandemic. Managers, in particular, led a spike of departures in December 2020 at a rate 11.8% higher than the year prior.

Dive Insight:

As summer heats up and the job market stabilizes due in part to widespread vaccination in the U.S., employers are grappling with a worker's market once again. Restaurants, in particular, are struggling to find workers after a rough year, even though job recovery has been slower than expected, recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports show.

While it may still be too early to tell the impact of continued recovery on the job market, employers could see a potential reckoning based on their actions during the height of the pandemic. Two in five workers surveyed in December by SilkRoad Technology said they planned to resign based on how their employer handled the pandemic. The survey also revealed a potential disconnect between employees and execs; while 86% of execs surveyed said they demonstrated their commitment to their employees during the pandemic, more than half of employees surveyed said they wanted more support.

And as employers adjust to post-pandemic life, those that seek to return to the status quo could also see backlash. More than two-thirds of workers surveyed by Prudential in March said they wanted a hybrid workplace and close to half said they would find a different job if their employer moved away from remote or hybrid work in the long-term.

Women were especially hit hard by the demands of the pandemic. To help, ADP recommends maintaining flexible work policies and asking employees what they need to stay productive and healthy, among other actions.