The Great Resignation: Can Digital Signage Create a Better Workplace Culture?

Businesses and corporations, both large and small, across every industry are experiencing something previously never seen before: employees are resigning. In their thousands. 

This mass exodus of employees has been coined “The Great Resignation” by American psychologist Anothony Klotz and is being driven by the undercurrents of several issues impacting employee job satisfaction. But the number one force driving this global workplace walkout isn’t pay, it’s something else entirely.

With businesses across the board scrambling to hold onto their existing workforce, it bears examining exactly why this is happening - what’s driving the Great Resignation? And what can businesses do to keep their employees happy and satisfied so they won’t quit?

What Is “The Great Resignation”?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 3% of the U.S workforce resigned from their jobs in October 2021. To put that into perspective, that’s approximately 4.2 million people who quit their jobs during the month of October alone. 

But while the term “Great Resignation” implies that people are simply upping and quitting the world of work entirely, the data suggests that’s not quite the case. 

When COVID-19 hit the world (we know, we’re also sick of hearing about it, but its influence on our recent societal reshufflings can’t be overlooked) the ongoing brushes with possible death, illness, economic and social insecurity, coupled with the isolation of ongoing lockdowns and remote work had many of us re-examining how we’ve been living our lives up to this point.

Anthony Klotz called these collective introspections “pandemic epiphanies” and they largely revolved around how employees prioritize their lives which, up until 2020, had largely put work above all else. 

The pandemic gave employees around the world a chance to consider what really mattered to them and, for most employees, what they did for a living didn’t satisfy or make them happy in a meaningful way. 

This is an oversimplification, of course, but that’s the Great Resignation in a nutshell. But it’s incorrect to think that millions of workers are simply resigning and putting their feet up. 

Employees have used this period of unrest to job-switch within the same field, find better positions, seek more rewarding careers and even work for themselves. Businesses are not just losing workers, they’re losing workers to other businesses, some of which are even competitors. 

Employee Satisfaction and Toxic Workplace Culture

In a recent study examining the underlying reasons for recent employee turnover, it was found that compensation only ranked 16th among the top reasons driving employees to quit. In fact, the data found that a toxic corporate culture was 10.4 times more likely to drive an employee to quit their job than compensation. 

The analysis found that the leading elements that employees considered to make up a “toxic” workplace culture included unethical behaviors, a failure to promote fairness, inclusion, and diversity, and employees feeling disrespected by their managers, bosses, or the company as a whole.

Now, this isn’t to say that pay is not important. It is and does play a bigger predictive role in employee turnover in certain industries more than in others. 

But, across the board, employees are sending their bosses a clear message: We don’t feel valued. We don’t feel respected. We don’t feel needed.

A ping pong table does not equal company culture

Up until 2020, many companies understandably thought a positive company culture could be created through rewards-driven perks like free coffee, pizza days, or even a ping pong table. But employee entertainment and employee satisfaction are not the same. 

If a company’s workplace culture is alienating, dismissive or ignorant of employees’ concerns or wellbeing, fails to recognize employees’ value and contributions, and doesn’t work to create a welcoming, safe environment for everyone, then it won’t matter how many rewards or perks that company offers to its employees. Employees will still feel dissatisfied and turnover will likely remain high.

Building a positive workplace culture is challenging for any company, but especially for companies that employ a largely deskless workforce, where employees spend the majority of their day on their feet in a factory or warehouse or on the road alone. 

How Can Digital Signage Help to Build a Positive Company Culture?

It’s important to understand that digital signage is not a solution, it’s a means. It’s not the answer, it’s the trigger. Again, there’s no substitute for a workplace culture whose values champion and support fairness, inclusiveness, transparency, honesty, respect, and so forth. 

But digital signage can be used to communicate these values and to encourage a sense of community and shared worth among employees. This is especially important to a deskless workforce who are more likely to feel disconnected and undervalued due to the remote nature of their jobs. 

Utilizing digital signage on shared screens across a warehouse, factory, plant, or open office can offer a myriad of benefits for employees and the business as a whole.  

Boost internal communications

For many businesses, sharing NB information can be a logistical headache. Mass emails go ignored and unread in inboxes, post-it notes don’t even get spared a glance and verbal communication often descends into broken telephone. 

Digital signage can centralize and streamline all important communications, whether they’re internal or cross-departmental. Solid, accurate internal communications reduce employee confusion, misunderstanding, and frustrations over company news and updates. 

Celebrate employees and their achievements

How many times have you found out it was a colleague’s birthday right before clock-off time, or completely missed the opportunity to add your signature to the existing sea on a passed-around birthday card? 

Now imagine seeing a happy birthday message in plain sight on a screen when you walk into work first thing in the morning, allowing you to walk over and wish your colleague a happy birthday in person.

Digital signage provides companies with the means to celebrate their employees and help them to feel valued. Employees’ progress, victories, and achievements can be shared easily with the rest of the company. This will not only promote a sense of value and worth among employees but will also strengthen relationships between employees. 

Increase employee engagement and motivation

Digital signage improves employee engagement by helping employees to feel more connected to a company. For deskless employees, loneliness and isolation can drive down employee satisfaction more compared to an in-office or deskbound workforce. 

Digital signage can be used to encourage employees to engage with each other through coffee breaks, lunches, and sharing of moments. 

Keeping a workforce (particularly a deskless one) motivated can be a significant challenge. Digital signage that displays KPI progress and achievements, as well as team and individual success stories can boost employees’ morale, motivation, and desire to excel. 

Creating a company culture where employees' satisfaction, happiness, and sense of belonging thrive is not an overnight endeavor, but facilitating and sharing those values, beliefs, and practices seamlessly is easy with help from digital signage. 

At ScreenCloud we help companies create the experiences they want with digital signage software. Contact us to find out how we can help you.