This is a guest post by Asha Tarry, a business consultant, psychotherapist, and life coach, who discusses the “Great Resignation” of 2021, especially among Black and Latinx employees. She dives into how making wellness in the workplace a priority may slow the migration away from the office. 

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Covid-19 pandemic and the shutdown that followed turned the business world upside down. Many businesses failed to survive the unprecedented upheaval wrought by the virus. Those who did survive face a new reckoning, what the news media calls “The Great Resignation.”

Per a study conducted by Microsoft, an astonishing 40% of workers are considering leaving their jobs in 2021. The reasons vary, but the issue is especially poignant for Black and Latinx workers who experienced problems in the workplace pre-Covid. In organizations where employee harassment, microaggressions, or lack of promotion amongst people of color existed pre-pandemic, the problem exponentially grew amid the stress of unprecedented disruption.

Is It All Worth It?

Many workers seem to be questioning if returning to the 9-5 grind is worth it. The pandemic caused people to reevaluate priorities and wake up to the fact that life is short and not one day is promised to us. Civil unrest and a remarkably heated election season amplified personal values. Employees found that they may be spending most of their time working for a corporation whose values do not align with their own. Perhaps the company culture is unwelcoming to marginalized groups, and a hostile environment has been created.

The Diversity Buzzword 

Before the pandemic, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) would report harassment at work, daily microaggressions, and even work-related PTSD. Diversity efforts were not widespread and change was slow to come. White men still represented 85% of Fortune 500 CEOs. Amid the pandemic shutdown and significant unrest in the summer of 2020 following the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, the pressure on companies to seriously ramp up their diversity in hiring and promoting was strong.

Still, a lot of what followed the outcry seemed performative. Companies would post black boxes in solidarity on Instagram or pledge to feature more BIPOC in their advertising, but the numbers did not reflect a significant shift.

A Wake-Up Call

As people stay true to their word to quit their jobs, companies are left scratching their heads, wondering where they went wrong and how to fix the issue. Some corporations, resistant to change, blame government stimulus money for their loss of employees. Still, others fall back on that age-old adage of the younger generation not having any work ethic.

The stories of the people who have quit, however, tell a different story. Many Black and Latinx women who have left their corporate jobs are starting their own businesses, choosing to work hard for themselves instead of building someone else’s business. Still, others are following long-abandoned dreams, going back to school or starting jobs in different industries. This reluctance to return to in-person work as the pandemic winds down is especially evident in customer-facing roles.

The Wellness Factor

Every talking point surrounding the “Great Migration” leads us to a story of people taking care of themselves, sometimes for the first time in their lives. Self-care, wellness, and mindfulness may have been viewed as indulgences pre-pandemic but have taken on new meaning as we learned to refocus on caring for ourselves and each other during a historic crisis.

Companies that integrate an idea of employee wellness into their workday will likely see greater retention and employee satisfaction, especially with regard to Black and Latinx employees. These groups need to feel that their employers care about their experience at work enough to dive head-first into substantial diversity and wellness initiatives.

Step one remains taking the talk of diversity and to transform that into action. When a person knows that their concerns are heard and considered, they feel a sense of security in their environment. Building a secure environment is wellness, even if it may not be what immediately comes to mind when you hear the word.

Other paths to organizational wellness include:

• Strong healthcare/mental health benefits
• Paid time off and generous family leave to allow people to care for those around them
• Work from home options – The pandemic showed many companies that they could go remote  without sacrificing productivity.
• Recognizing that wellness programs are not one-size-fits-all: Different ethnic groups have different health concerns. Tailoring wellness initiatives to a diverse workforce ensures greater benefits overall.

Slowing the Great Resignation

People are leaving their jobs because they see something better on the other side. To retain their employee base, businesses and corporations have to be mindful of the “why” and “who” behind the mass exodus.

Once organizations seriously reflect on who is choosing to leave and the personal reasons why they will be well on their way to perhaps slowing the Great Resignation and greatly improving their overall workplace wellness.

This is a guest post by Asha Tarry, a business consultant, psychotherapist, and life coach, who discusses the “Great Resignation” of 2021, especially among Black and Latinx employees. She dives into how making wellness in the workplace a priority may slow the migration away from the office. 

About Asha

Asha Tarry is an author, an award-winning community mental health advocate, psychotherapist, and certified life coach. Tarry is the founder of Behavioral Health Consulting Services LMSW, PLLC which provides consulting, counseling, and coaching to creatives and small business owners in the wellness and entertainment industries and educational sector.  As a treating provider, Tarry has 20 years of experience providing evaluations, diagnoses, treatment, and life-enhancing skills to children, adults, families, and couples.

A significant portion of Ms. Tarry’s work has been conducted in marginalized communities with survivors of intergenerational trauma as well as with professionals in search of a fulfilling life. As a writer and speaker for several publications, which once included one of the nation’s largest online medical news outlets in the black community, BlackDoctor.org, Tarry has effectively demonstrated anecdotal evidence that therapy works and that mindfulness is a holistic way of healing oneself on a continuous basis.

Tarry’s work as a mindfulness practitioner has been utilized by professionals in the United States, Asia, and Europe with partnerships through Thrive Global, an Arianna Huffington company, to prevent employees from experiencing workplace burnout. The goal of Tarry’s work is to enlighten, educate, and create safe spaces for everyone, from children to the elderly to live more emotionally empowered and mentally resilient. Her new book is called Adulting as a Millennial: A Guide to Everything Your Parents Didn’t Teach You.

Visit https://lifecoachasha.com/ for more information.

Follow Asha Tarry on Instagram at @ashatarrymental

Thanks to geralt on Pixabay for the image.