How Virtual Events Can Fight The Great Resignation

With more and more people working from home, jobs have become more transactional due to the pandemic. When you’re on a video call, for instance, it’s more difficult to establish context. You might see someone frowning during a meeting and not know that it’s because of something going on in their surroundings—something that you cannot see.

The Problem With Virtual Work Arrangements

Like rapidly going through tabs when browsing the web or mindlessly flicking between channels on the TV, people are now working through computer and laptop displays. And when you’re watching somebody on a screen, it’s so much easier to zone out during a meeting. 

Many bosses worry about productivity during this new era. For employees, it’s most definitely an experience they will remember for a long time. When people are working from home, loneliness can set in. Working alone also makes people more vulnerable to functioning only as an individual and not as a team.

Learning how to work from home is something that both managers and staff have to conquer. Jumping on video calls is no longer enough. New ways need to be sought to support flexible work whilst staying connected.

How To Prevent Staff Churn

One of the consequences of the pandemic is that people have been pushed to re-evaluate their careers. Many are giving more importance to flexible work as opposed to just the salary package being offered. That said, lack of flexibility in work arrangements has caused massive talent shortages.

To prevent staff churn, companies need to re-imagine the way they conduct business remotely. Employees want to have a voice, and they’re prepared to abandon ship if they think they aren’t being heard.

Using Virtual Events To Fight The Great Resignation

Internal virtual events are an excellent way to drive engagement and promote inclusivity. For example, all-hands weekly meetings with interactive polls and moderated chat allow you to test decisions, seek your employees’ opinions, and gain insights. 

Virtual event platforms also make building a virtual headquarters possible. If Zoom is the room, then your virtual event platform is the entire building. People will be able to wander around and join video rooms organized by department, project, or initiative. This can bring about the spontaneity we used to experience in the office.

Leadership needs to keep the talent they have but also realize that if you lose people, the talent pool is now much larger. You have people applying to jobs outside their immediate vicinity. You can hire staff not just from other cities, but also from other countries. This helps you increase diversity and inclusion, secure the right skills, and bring different perspectives.

Still, to grow most efficiently, you must retain your staff. Rather than replacing employees, the most important thing is to keep them in the first place.

Retaining Employees Through Virtual Activities

Enhancing staff experience through virtual events isn’t just for the satisfaction of employees. It also gives management sophisticated analytics to see who is engaged and who is not. For example, you can keep track of who turns up to an event and gauge how much they contribute to conversations.

Virtual events can also build trust among members of your organization. They are a great avenue to establish rapport and teamwork among peers, management, and employees. After all, saying that you will do something and then following through reliably is an excellent trust-builder.

But what about those who are not able to show up? Let’s say some of your employees are busy working on other projects for customers. Virtual event platforms allow you to record presentations for playback later. It doesn’t matter whether the event is live or on-demand as you can track engagements both synchronously and asynchronously.

In conclusion, virtual event platform analytics helps you establish which of your most talented people are disengaged. With this evidence, you can establish new ways to re-engage those staff, allowing you to regain their trust and stop the great resignation in its tracks. 

The Bottom Line

Work is becoming more flexible, and therefore prone to feeling more transactional. This reality is something that you won’t be able to control. However, your staff can be given more sophisticated online experiences when working from home. These experiences, if done right, will prove to be memorable, bring people together, and improve your remote culture to fight back against the great resignation.