People Are Quitting Their Jobs En Masse — Here’s What You Can Do To Protect Your Company

By John Berkowitz, CEO and co-founder of OJO Labs, for forbes.com

As millions of people emerge from what’s felt like a 15-month winter, business leaders need to inspire a recommitment from employees or be left wondering why they’ve just been hit with a deluge of resignation letters. Brought about by a Covid thaw, the coming months will feel like a global spring, with people buzzing as they step out of their homes after more than a year in social stasis. 

As reentry gains momentum, Americans are set to reevaluate everything, from where and how they live, to where and how they work. It’s going to be a period of significant change. The optimist in me believes it’ll be great news for the dearth of housing inventory plaguing the market — which, as an executive in the real estate industry, I welcome — but, as a leader, I know there’s also going to be a huge set of fresh challenges. 

The good news is that total housing inventory is beginning to trend upward, albeit still near record lows. Total housing inventory was at 1.16 million units at the end of April, according to recent data from the National Association of Realtors, which represents an increase of more than 10% from the previous month, but still down 20% from April 2020.

At the same time, home sales are up 20% year over year from January to April, according to the same report, so there’s this clear appetite for wanting to move, but simply not enough homes for sale on the market. OJO Labs’ home market of Austin, Texas, is ground zero for bidding wars and stiff competition in homeownership. 

An increase in total inventory is going to mean more options and give more people a chance at becoming a homeowner — and experiencing all of the joy, safety and generational wealth-building that comes along with that. That’s all really exciting.

But, the same clarity in vision that’s going to be a boon to the housing market is going to rock the business world, and companies that aren’t preparing now are going to suffer. Executives across the country are about to face a massive churn as people begin to see what life will be like on the other side of the pandemic — and again, decide they want to try something new. 

For many workers, these are incredibly exciting times. The change that’s coming is giving way to millions of new opportunities. There were more open jobs in April than at any other time in U.S. history, according to the monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, released by the U.S. Department of Labor. At the end of the month, the number of openings reached 9.2 million.

Concurrently, the quit rate reached an all-time high of 2.7% in April of this year. So there are more openings than ever before and people are quitting at a higher rate than ever before. For some unprepared employers, it’s a potential nightmare scenario. For the ones with the foresight of what the expectations of a post-Covid world looks like, that means the job market is about to be saturated with talent. 

With full alignment to your business model, one powerful way to inspire employee commitment is to connect them with a clear purpose. Articulating a reason to exist beyond making money provides a greater significance to the work and fuels employee passion, even as they reexamine every facet of their lives. It will also ensure your recruiting classes are full of equally passionate and energized new hires who picked your company over dozens of other opportunities. 

I’ve seen it firsthand with the tremendous enthusiasm of our new hires. We’ve also had a couple of people leave the company because they didn’t agree with our laser focus on knocking down barriers to homeownership and making the housing journey more equitable, and that’s OK. We’re looking for folks who are fueled by working for a purpose-driven company.

A recent companywide employee engagement survey we conducted found that our median retention score was unchanged from December to June. That tells me people are still inspired by our purpose even as the world opens up, yet we need to make sure leadership is delivering operationally on the commitments we make or we risk losing a cohort of employees. 

We’re managing employee engagement in other ways, too. We are constantly bringing our employees into the tent to help shape what our next phase of operations looks like. Holistically, we are taking into account differences across functions and roles, as we optimize our workplace for employee, business and societal impact. We power down a couple of weeks a year and have “unplugged” days off companywide to recharge. 

As leaders, we should stress open and transparent communication between employees and leadership, which not only gives us a strong pathway to convey how our purpose defines our work but allows employees to feel comfortable holding leadership accountable to their purpose. 

I know we need to lean into it now, more than ever. Every single one of us is waking up, looking in the mirror and asking ourselves, “Why am I doing what I’m doing?” If your employees don’t have a compelling answer — one that permeates every facet of the business and is exemplified from the highest levels of the company — then they’re going to be looking elsewhere.