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LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky highlighted a 54% rise in job changes among LinkedIn users over the past year, underscoring the critical need for organizations to focus on talent retention. This surge, part of the broader “Great Resignation” phenomenon described by psychologist Anthony Klotz, is driven by shifting priorities post-pandemic, with Gen Z and Millennials significantly increasing job transitions by 80% and 50%, respectively. The pandemic accelerated reevaluation of work-life balance, with many employees seeking not just higher salaries but greater flexibility, career growth, and alignment with company values such as equality and social responsibility. Companies must therefore reshape their engagement strategies to connect with these evolving needs, fostering a shared vision that integrates both the rational and emotional motivations of their workforce.
However, current global workplace engagement remains low, with Gallup reporting only 20% of employees are actively engaged, causing substantial productivity losses estimated at $8.1 trillion annually. Experts like Arantxa Balsón and Tammy Erickson emphasize that post-pandemic organizations need to be resilient, people-centered, and creativity-driven ecosystems. Creating fertile environments where employees and companies mutually influence each other, recognize shared values, and encourage innovation is essential. Leadership must evolve towards coaching and effective communication to mobilize talent and cultivate continuous learning. Ultimately, fostering employee commitment not only boosts productivity but also enhances corporate reputation and long-term success.
Committed workers feel part of a shared vision with their company.
LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky has revealed that the percentage of LinkedIn users who changed jobs in the last year has increased by 54%, which shows the importance of retaining talent in organizations. For her part, the co-founder and CEO of IN4IMPACT, Arantxa Balsón, assures in one of our webinars on the future of work, that after the pandemic, organizations assume a third of turnover, when before this percentage used to be around 12%.
These data are part of the phenomenon that organizational psychologist Anthony Klotz has called ‘The Great Resignation‘. In particular, according to LinkedIn, Gen Z’s job transitions increased by 80% and Millennials’ by 50%. This process is influenced by the remodeling of priorities generated by the pandemic, an event that has accelerated decisions in the workplace and life. According to Klotz, precariousness and the increase in cases of burnout may have pushed many people to reorder their lives.
Business values to reflect on
Workers want something better, not so much in terms of salary, but in terms of greater flexibility and career projection. They also want to see themselves reflected in business values of equality and social responsibility. Companies that want to attract talent will have to reshape their offerings in the direction of greater engagement, which involves connecting with these needs and values.
Being engaged, in fact, means feeling part of a shared vision. In this vision, the organization represents a vehicle and a tool for its implementation. This is an implication that must involve both the rational sphere of the professional who evaluates his or her work on the basis of tangible and quantifiable elements, as well as the emotional and behavioral sphere.
However, Gallup’s ‘State of the Global Workplace‘ report shows that only 20% of HR is currently engaged in their work. This negatively affects issues such as productivity or the ability to face a transformation. Specifically, according to Gallup, this lack of commitment costs the world economy 8.1 trillion dollars each year, almost 10% of global GDP, in lost productivity.
Create a fertile environment
According to Arantxa Balsón, “post-pandemic organisations must be ecological, ecosystemic, economic, hybrid, exponential, resilient and, above all, connected to people. An organization that does not take care of its community, and the people who make it up, will not succeed.”
Fertile ground for employee engagement is those environments in which company and worker interact as two communicating vessels capable of influencing and enriching each other. In them, one recognizes the value of the other, as well as in which objectives and values they coincide. This is the key why business values play an important role in attracting and retaining talent.
As Tammy Erickson, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the London Business School, explains on the occasion of the Future Trends Forum meeting on ‘The Future of Work‘, “you have to create an environment that people choose to join”.
In addition, according to Erickson, “the most important work a company must do is the mobilization of intelligence: the companies that will be successful in 2030 will be those that bet on creativity,” he says. Initiatives such as Cre100do seek precisely to help Spanish medium-sized companies in attracting and retaining talent, the most important element in the knowledge economy.
In this sense, the role of managers is fundamental. To encourage the flourishing of ideas and promote innovation, they must be able to communicate effectively with employees and be prepared to listen. Arantxa Balsón believes that “the leadership style must change to mobilise talent in a much more shared sense. The CEO must be, above all, a coach to extract the maximum value from his organization.”
In addition to determining an increase in productivity, having employees committed to company values has a positive influence on the corporate image. “We must define a shared purpose, generating a context where we all want to learn permanently,” concludes Balsón.
Cofundadora y directora ejecutiva de IN4IMPACT
