In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans are quitting their jobs. You may have heard business owners’ cries that “No one wants to work anymore!” but that’s not quite accurate. Instead, two years of pandemic life in which some employees quite literally risked their lives for their jobs are causing those same workers to reassess their priorities. As a result, there’s now a lower tolerance for poor management, bare-minimum salaries, and rigid working conditions.
Marketers should take note of what’s happening with the Great Resignation, because this culture shift could also affect the way consumers interact with brands and products. Here are some lessons to take away from the current state of (un)employment in America.
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Know your consumers’ value (because they do)
A key driver of the Great Resignation is that workers are finally coming to realize their own value. As it turns out, people generally don’t want to risk illness or death for minimum wage, even if you call them “essential workers.” The more stories of mass resignations hit the news, the more people are inspired to take control of their own lives and say goodbye to jobs that don’t pay them what they’re worth. Because this has created a worker’s market, people are now in better positions to negotiate for fair wages and working conditions.
Consumers are also aware of their value; treat them like just another faceless entity with a credit card and they’ll gladly go elsewhere. Don’t waste their time or attempt to sway them with overly salesy language. Treat them like humans first, not just consumers. Remember, you need them — not the other way around.
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Examine your assumptions
When it comes to the Great Resignation, there’s an assumption that it’s being driven by those with entry-level jobs in their teens and early 20s — those digital natives otherwise known as Gen Z. However, according to the Harvard Business Review, “Employees between 30 and 45 years old have had the greatest increase in resignation rates, with an average increase of more than 20% between 2020 and 2021.” In other words, mid-career Millennials are the ones driving this movement, and it’s not because they’re young, naive, or don’t understand the value of hard work. When you look deeper, you might find that dealing with crushing student debt, job insecurity, lack of benefits, and multiple recessions has pushed this age group to the brink.
If you’re struggling with retention, you must similarly reexamine what you think you know about your consumers. Is it just about prices, or is customer service a concern? Has your digital presence failed to keep up with recent innovations? If you don’t analyze where churn is coming from, any solution will be like using a Band-aid to cover up a bullet hole.
Embrace the new normal
The pandemic showed that many jobs that previously could be done just as well — if not more productively — from home. And yet, one of the reasons for the Great Resignation is that businesses expected a return to the office instead of adapting to their employees’ overwhelming preference to make remote work a permanent situation.
The world is changing, and there’s not going to be a clean return to the way things were. Instead, brands need to adapt and treat evolving consumer expectations like the new normal. The last two years have drastically changed millions of lives, and there’s no going back now. Accept it, embrace it, and evolve accordingly.
There are a lot of misconceptions about the Great Resignation, but when you look closer, it’s not hard to understand why so many were inspired to re-examine their priorities. Similarly, brands need to cast aside their own assumptions, analyze the data, and do everything they can to make their customers feel valued.