One Third Of Millennials Plan To Quit Their Jobs After The Pandemic—Here’s Why, And What…

As the boundaries between work and life have increasingly blurred, leading to a rise in burnout, one in three Millennials say they plan to look for a new job once the pandemic is over, a new survey finds.

They’re not alone: Some 26% of all workers expect to change jobs when the health crisis has subsided, according to Prudential’s Pulse of the American Worker Survey. Of these workers, 80% are concerned about their career growth.

“A lot of employers and a lot of leaders didn’t cope very well with the pandemic and, as a result, their people have been out there languishing,” says Jeff Kortes, an employee retention expert and consultant. “People who weren’t thinking of moving before the pandemic are now because of the way their employers treated them or failed to treat them.”

In February, roughly 3.4 million U.S. workers quit their jobs, according to data released by the Labor Department on Tuesday. This number, however, has largely remained unchanged for the majority of the pandemic, with the quit rate averaging around 2.3% for February and the past few months.

State and local government education, educational services and real estate, rental and leasing were among the fields that saw the most workers quit their jobs in February, while the federal government saw the least amount of movement.

Corporate culture seems to be playing a significant role in employees’ career decisions. Nearly half of workers who plan to leave their jobs would grade their current employers’ efforts to maintain culture during the pandemic as a “C” or lower, according to the Prudential survey.

Kortes says this has had an especially adverse effect on Millennial employees. “A lot of Millennials who are younger and not married are sitting in their apartments by themselves. They can’t go out and have a drink with coworkers, they can’t go out for lunch,” he says. “They are very isolated and it’s killing corporate culture.”

What can employers do to retain their talent? More generous compensation aside, employees surveyed by Prudential cited flexible schedules, advancement opportunities and remote-work arrangements as the top ways to encourage them to stay put.

“Leaders must be focused on cultivating thriving cultures of internal mobility, prioritizing continuous learning and delivering robust benefits to support their workers,” Prudential Vice Chair Rob Falzon said in a statement.

Also critical to employee retention are regular interactions, Kortes says. He advises managers to check in with their employees every single day, even if just to ask how they are doing.

“I think a lot of organizations have shot themselves in the foot [by not doing this],” he says. “Leaders need to understand what their people are thinking.”