By Peter Lorant, COO, EMEA at Zendesk

In what has been an alarming turn for businesses, employees worldwide have been leaving their jobs in record numbers. In the UK, job vacancies reached a 20 year high of 1.1 million between July and September of this year. Meanwhile in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, more than a third of all companies are reporting a shortage of skilled workers. According to one Microsoft study, 41% of workers globally, to be exact, considered leaving their current employer in 2021.

The pandemic has not only prompted many of us to reflect on our career path and work/life balance with fresh eyes, but post-pandemic economic and industry growth, together with more flexible working practices has given people far more choice about when and where they can work going forward. The increasing adoption of more digital ways of working also means that if someone is unhappy in their current role, they can just as easily jump ship to a company on the next continent as in the next town.

Nicknamed the Great Resignation by economists, this trend has meant that demand for talent is fast outstripping supply, with customer service roles in the retail and service industries being especially hard hit. Across segments, employers reported difficulties hiring in recent months, but SMBs have been feeling the tightest squeeze (82% vs. 75% for enterprise), according to a recent report by Indeed. We’re now in an employee’s market, and management teams are working overtime to try to figure out how to keep hold of their increasingly valuable workforce.

Evidence tells us that properly supporting your staff and making them feel valued, empowered and effective plays a huge part in how loyal they feel to a company and how long they stay. Giving them access to the right tools and technology to make their jobs both manageable and productive can also serve to help avoid burnout. For SMB customer service teams that are stretched thin for time and resources during the pandemic, where demands on customer service hit a peak, this may have been tricky. However, employees are now voting with their feet – and it’s forcing businesses to rethink how they attract and retain experienced staff. That requires a combination of engaging them with meaningful work; while supporting their balance with the right tools and processes.

Prepare for remote work scenarios to continue

A lot of workers – from busy parents to those who prefer a more rural existence – greatly value the flexible working practices they adopted during the height of the pandemic, and many want to maintain a remote or hybrid working routine. Zendesk’s State of CX Maturity study, which surveyed SMB business leaders across Europe found that, on average, 28% of customer experience staff were remote workers prior to the outbreak. As we emerge from the pandemic, business leaders anticipate that percentage will increase to 34%. The implications are clear – with a 21% increase in the remote working staff, investments in collaboration technologies, open cloud-based platforms, and other technologies to enable remote work will all need to continue.

This is not only important to safeguard remote productivity and performance management, but also so that employees can continue to feel connected to their colleagues wherever they are working from and supported by management. Both of these are very much still front of mind for employees as they strive to navigate our post pandemic ‘new normal’. By investing in training, flexibility and wellbeing – and trusting employees to find the right balance – businesses can avoid creating a disconnect that could lead to resignation. This is particularly true for smaller businesses where it’s easy to underestimate the need to foster colleagueship and cross-functional learning in tighter workforces.

Make multi-channel service more convenient to provide

The same survey found that 95% of SMBs in Europe employ customer service staff to work across multiple service channels, such as phone, email or chat, when dealing with customers and their queries. That can be a lot of content and requests for one service agent to manage. Giving teams cross-channel visibility to see the total volume of customer enquiries coming in, as well as an easy way to switch between them, is key to empowering staff to manage more queries, more easily. At the same time, automation tools can take on the workload of more repetitive and basic tasks so that agents can focus on the more detailed requests that make the best use of their skills. Technology that lets employees stitch all these engagements together across silos allows them to deliver more consistent and contextual service, which supports their effectiveness and, in turn, job satisfaction.

Play the long game to reduce churn

Giving staff the best tools, customer visibility, and information to do their jobs not only helps them be more effective, but it is correlated with greater fulfilment and less burnout. This is especially important for smaller businesses, where losing even one team member can leave a big gap, with fewer people to pitch in until a replacement is found. What’s more, small businesses in Europe and the UK that adopt customer service best practices (what the research refers to as “Champions”) are more than three times more likely to have excellent agent retention. They also estimate it would take 65% less time to ramp their team and scale quickly.

While it might be tempting for businesses to jump straight to well-intentioned quick fixes when they see employees heading for the door, what will likely prove far more beneficial is taking the time to investigate the true causes of any employee exodus. A reactionary bump in pay, for example, will not be a long-term substitute for strong bonds forged with colleagues, a sense of purpose, and true management appreciation. With 64% of employers expecting the hiring difficulties to continue or worsen over the next six months, SMBs cannot afford to sit tight. However, by listening to their teams and investing in the things that really matter to them, they could be the business attracting new talent – not losing it.