Remote and hybrid work have significantly contributed to the Great Detachment trend, leaving employees feeling disconnected from their employers!

💡Since mid-2024, the Great Detachment has taken over from the Great Resignation, which occurred in mid-2021.

📈 Job-seeking activity has reached its highest peak since 2015, while overall satisfaction with employers has hit an all-time low.

💥 Some new research investigated the relation of hybrid work and relevant working conditions with the psychological detachment of employees. However, it has been proven that fully remote workers consistently feel less connected to their organization’s mission and purpose compared to their hybrid counterparts.

📣 The Great Detachment aligns with notable declines in two key aspects of employee engagement:

✔️ Clear understanding of work expectations

✔️ A sense of connection to the company’s mission and purpose

➡️ Five significant organizational changes in recent years that may be driving the Great Detachment phenomenon, according to a new interesting research published by Gallup using data 📊 from US employees of Gallup.

✅What is the Great detachment?

Researchers have identified the Great Detachment as a phenomenon where employees across America are feeling more disconnected from their jobs than ever before.

The Great Detachment coincides with significant declines in two critical elements of employee engagement: clarity of expectations at work and feeling connected to the company’s mission and purpose.

✅What is the consequences of the Great Detachment?

For employers, this implies that although turnover rates may have decreased, hidden risks such as employee productivity issues and potential talent loss remain.

☝️ Additionally, when employees feel disconnected from their work, organizational change initiatives are likely to face indifference or resistance.

✅What is causing this Great Detachment?

Researchers have identified five significant organizational changes in recent years that may be driving the Great Detachment phenomenon:

1️⃣ Rapid organizational change: Most companies underwent rapid transformations post-2020. Record-high turnover and hiring during the Great Resignation resulted in many employees finding their footing in a new career. Today, seven in 10 employees (73%) say their organization has experienced some level of disruptive change in the past year. The more disruption that employees have experienced, the more likely they are to feel burned out today. Further, as businesses adjust to fluctuating markets, managers are reporting disruption from the restructuring of teams (55%) and additional job responsibilities for employees (69%), while nearly half (46%) report budget cuts. Consequently, many managers are tasked with stabilizing disrupted teams and onboarding new employees while navigating a tighter budget.

2️⃣ Hybrid and remote growing pains: Hybrid work entails switching work locations throughout the week and often results in team members working different schedules, which naturally challenges communication and coordination. The physical distancing inherent to remote work can also create an emotional distance.

In another intriguing study published in October 2024, Kerstin Rieder discovered that working from home can encourage psychological detachment from work, as long as health-promoting working conditions are maintained.

3️⃣ New customer expectations: Fifty-six percent of employees report noticing changes in customer expectations since the pandemic, with 71% of those employees attributing changes to more demanding customers or higher expectations for a better digital experience.

4️⃣ New employee expectations: The pandemic caused many to reevaluate what they want from their career and employer. Work-life balance and better compensation packages became more important to employees, along with expectations for remote work flexibility. A mismatch between what employees expect and what employers offer can leave employees feeling undervalued and questioning their future.

5️⃣ Broken performance management practices: Most leaders have very little confidence in their performance management systems, leaving organizations without a reliable way to clarify expectations, align teams, recognize achievements and develop employees. This is particularly problematic in a highly disrupted environment riddled with changing expectations and employees working remotely more often.

These shifts have left employees feeling disoriented and disconnected from their employer.

📍 Finally, researchers suggest that by concentrating on these two factors, leaders can effectively tackle their most significant vulnerabilities in this new era of work:

✔️ Reset Expectations and Priorities

The most fundamental aspect of employees' performance and development at work is knowing what is expected of them. Without clear expectations, there is no agreed-upon standard for success.

To reverse this trend, leaders and managers should get back to the basics: They need to have two-way conversations with their team members to set expectations in a new or changing work environment. This is especially true for younger or new hybrid employees.

✔️ Connect Individual Contributions to Mission and Purpose

Finding mission and purpose in one’s work provides intrinsic motivation for high performance. People want to know their work matters and that their employer makes a difference in the world. Mission and purpose also bond people together. Highly engaged employees feel like they belong to a community, not just a job.

☝️ 𝙈𝙮 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬:

This remarkable research has uncovered a fascinating new trend of detachment that has indeed replaced the Great Resignation. Researchers emphasize that this trend stems from a decline in employee engagement, which could have disastrous consequences for businesses and organizational change. Leaders and managers must prioritize identifying these detached employees and finding ways to reengage them swiftly. Otherwise, a potential domino effect could occur, although this has not been definitively proven by the research.

🙏Thank you Gallup researchers team for sharing these insightful findings:

Ben Wigert, Ph.D, MBA Corey Tatel, Ph.D.

Dave Ulrich

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