Dive Brief:

• Nearly 50% of employees surveyed by Perceptyx said they were unhappy at work. While some said they were burned out and ready to quit, 34% of employees surveyed said they were discontent, unmotivated — and had no plans to leave.
• These discontented employees that Perceptyx called "the disconnected" show dissatisfaction in various ways, according to the report released Oct. 28: they are 44 times less likely than "energized" employees to recommend their employer; 50 times more likely to indicate they don't understand the expectations of their role, department or company; and unlikely to recommend an organization's products or services.
• "Employers need to make engaging The Disconnected a top priority. The alternative is to write off a third of their workforce as the working dead," Perceptyx's Director of Research and Insights Emily Killham said in a statement. "That's not just unproductive, it's fundamentally unfair. Employees aren't disconnected by nature —and they don't have to stay that way. Employers have the power to energize their employees, but it takes active listening, deep understanding, and most importantly, the willingness to act."                

Dive Insight:

While employees have not been shy about their willingness to walk away from employers, not everyone is leaving — and the effects on those left behind could do long-lasting damage to the employee experience, a Society for Human Resource Management survey revealed this month.

A Limeade report released in September showed that 1 in 4 workers who left their jobs said they did so without another lined up, due in large part to a lack of flexibility and employee care. In the SHRM survey, however, employees who were left behind reported taking up more work and responsibilities, feeling more frustration and, ultimately, less loyalty to their organizations. Employers may be struggling to balance the demands that the Great Resignation has thus created.

Employers may need to begin by re-assessing how their organizations approach flexibility, especially in a world shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, experts previously wrote for HR Dive. Hybrid work has gained popularity, but disagreement continues between employers and employees regarding how exactly that will look. 

To keep people centered and on board, experts recommended that employers emphasize purpose — a key issue for the "disconnecteds" in Perceptyx's survey. For some companies, that may look like allowing greater connectivity at work between team members and between managers, allowing more one-on-one conversations to build camaraderie. Other execs have chosen to emphasize benefits or have doubled-down on their strengths rather than chase "shiny objects."

Regardless, the Great Resignation is already here; a June survey by Robert Half noted that 1 in 3 workers were ready to walk away.