The Great Resignation Sweeping America – and How Sweeping Can Help

The Great Resignation, or the ongoing trend of employees quitting their jobs, is a significant stress factor for American companies as it continues to accelerate. What was known as The Great Resignation 2021 is quickly becoming The Great Resignation 2022.

Why is this happening? What can you do to stop it? More specifically, how can you maintain a work environment that rewards excellence and keeps your most valuable workers?

As workers reconsider their time investment in the workplace, and become increasingly discerning, office managers and hiring administrators are at their wits’ end searching for solutions.

The best way to begin fighting this worrisome trend is by getting organized, so here are our top tips:

Improve Concentration during the Great Resignation

During the Big Quit, many employees report feeling unmotivated and distracted at their job before they decide to resign from their current position. Employees on seemingly smaller and smaller staffs start to feel burnt out, taking on multiple workloads at once; and the increasing demand for skilled labor is only accelerating.

The Great Resignation has been very effective at putting pressure on companies; in the 3rd quarter of 2021, productivity fell 5.2% across all nonfarm industries while unit labor costs increased by 9.6%. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “this is the largest decline in quarterly productivity since the second quarter of 1960.” So how can you keep your current employees productive, and avoid this worrisome trend?

A simple solution to this problem is to improve employees’ work environment. Frustrated employees can find themselves looking for the smallest objects under all of the office clutter… and we lose precious work minutes every time we go searching for a lost item in the office. A messy space can cause anxiety and stress, and be a demotivating factor, especially if an employee has to clean up at the end of the day on top of their other tasks. Hiring a professional cleaning service to brighten your environment will give your employees an office space where they can shine brighter.

Delegating cleaning tasks to the professionals can help employees be more concentrated on their duties, and will help them be more productive in the long run. 

Increase Motivation during the Great Resignation

To keep your best and brightest employees, focus on strategies to help them rediscover what makes their work meaningful. Unlike extrinsic motivation, such as a prize lottery or breakroom bean bags, intrinsic motivation is the key that unlocks employee engagement.

Happy employees are doing work which aligns with what motivates them, and they have some control over what that work comprises. A good manager will work together with an employee to create and refine the job role to fit best with that employee’s career plan. Listening is central to employee motivation, and can make an underappreciated employee feel seen.

Making yourself available for employees to express their needs means they’re less likely to quit – and losing just one worker can have a tremendous effect on an organization during the Great Resignation. After one employee leaves, others will follow suit, according to trend reporting by USA Today.

“It’s become a vicious cycle of sorts,” said Johnny Taylor, CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management.

Minimize Sick Days to Help With the Great Resignation

The Great Resignation 2021 appears to be a mental contagion, but let’s not ignore normal contagions. Any office space is at risk to become a breeding ground for germs, bacteria, and viruses without proper care. These contaminants are known to cause illness, which can spread around your office and hurt morale as well as productivity. Office illness is very stressful for not just the employee who falls ill, but their coworkers who have to help support the missing role, and may be at risk from the spread.

Properly cleaning and sanitizing spaces with professional grade cleaning chemicals daily can significantly minimize sick days, thus improving productivity and fostering an efficient workplace. 

Although we can’t prevent germs from coming into our beautiful facilities, we can do our best to protect our employees’ health. During The Great Resignation, many employees are actively reconsidering their working conditions. – and reconsidering the health risks they are taking in the workplace. Especially for industries that cannot work remotely, providing a clean and healthy space is crucial in 2022 to keep top employees.

With Buildingstars Commercial Cleaning Services, you never have to worry about the health of your facility. We take the stress out of worrying about contagious disease spread at the office, and establish scientific-based processes and an intensive custom cleaning schedule, so you can focus on running your business smoothly. Even if you already have a cleaning services partner, you may not be sure if they’re following the appropriate steps to identify and handle all of your health and safety needs.