February Connections video: Shifting perspective on the Great Resignation

Hi, everybody! Erin Koss here, CEO at Syte Consulting Group. It’s going to be raw and real today as I’m sitting here in the Austin airport at the end of a two-week stay with one of our just most beloved clients after an epic cut over to go live. This was the culmination of two years of work and effort. But I’m sitting here waiting for a plane in the middle of the night storm.

And it’s been raw and real for the last couple of days. Before things got too far into February, I just wanted to share some things that came up for me in the month that is focused on Valentine’s Day and love. As I look at that and I look at where I’ve been in the last two weeks in all the best ways, I was thinking about the great resignation and this thing that keeps coming up over and over. People keep bringing it up.

I thought to myself if this really a great resignation. What does that mean? Of course, people are making some big changes and Covid brought about a lot of things that made us look at things differently. But what I think about is whether it’s big changes and big moves or just the day-to-day changes that happen in just the natural course of doing business for manufacturing clients. For us and for you, you don’t want to fight the fact that some people just need to go, move on, and do their thing and do something different. How do we support them in doing that?

In these places where you really feel like it’s a good fit and retention is something that really matters to you and matters to them, the question becomes how can we find ways to love on people that are meaningful to them? One of the things that showed up for me is we were just grinding it out, doing this cutover and implementation for the last ten days. If you’ve ever had that experience or big project, it comes to a climax. You’re all in it and you’re all together. In this case, many of us were on-site and many of us were remote. They wanted to be on-site but couldn’t be for different reasons.

It was just such a hard thing for so many folks who wanted to feel connected and engaged. It just reminded me that it’s one of the challenges or one of the things that’s causing some of the resignation, so to speak, as people stop feeling as connected as they used to feel. I just think about how do we make them feel? How do we help them feel connected when we want them to be and they want to be? I think of a couple of things that came up for me. One is how do you show them that you care about them?

I think it’s something that we can get really focused on at a leadership level that is the sort of  tasks that we’ve got to make sure we check the box on. What I realized and was thinking about this last couple of weeks when we were grinding it out is that it’s so much about just paying attention. It’s really looking at the people that are standing next to you, really thinking about what it is they’re doing day-to-day right now. It’s possibly the big picture as well and how can you serve them in ways that are meaningful to them right now and that would resonate for them. As an example, one of our team members was remote, and he was massively critical to the project. He wanted to be on-site so badly and just couldn’t be for a couple of reasons so we drop shipped him once every day, just like we had it delivered.

No matter where he was or where we were, we had it delivered and he was grinding it out and working 16 hours days. I feel like that was something that was really meaningful to him. It was a big thing, but it was meaningful and it was helpful. I think the other thing I saw was with this combination of remote and on-site experience that we had where we’ve been mostly 100% remote. It’s meaningful and important to get together in person as much as we can. I know Covid is still limiting that and I just want to just raise the red flag about that.

When we all got us all together for this project because we had to be on-site and we had to manage it accordingly. But the level of energy and positivity and all of the things, it’s just such a great reminder of how important it is to be together and stay connected. I know that it would still limit some of that and I think it’s something where as things ease up. We still want to be careful not to say, oh, we’ve done this remote thing for two years and so we can just keep doing that. I think it’s yes, and a recognition of both matters.

At the end of the day, I think for employees that want to be with us and stay with our firms and our companies, we have to think about how we connect with them on a regular basis. How do we just pay attention to what would be most meaningful and helpful to them in that moment? Sometimes, certainly in the big scheme of things, paying attention to the big picture and where it is they’re trying to go in their career. Those things, matter, too. But sometimes I think we forget to just look at what are the small things that we can do that would be meaningful and build connection, which honestly is the biggest thing to keeping the people that are really meant to be where you’re at. I just would leave you with that thought and remind that February is the month of love.

How can you love on the people around you, particularly your employees that are just the lifeblood of your company, just like they are at mine? How do you love on them day-to-day? You got to pay attention. You got to look at them. You got to connect with them.

And that will tell you all you need to know, right?

It’s the way to stay connected. Pay attention. I’ll leave you with that and I appreciate you and I thank you for dialing in and letting me be a little real and raw today. Tt’s been a crazy 24 hours in an airport. Thank you and appreciate you so much. Have a great day!