Qualtrics: 57% of workers think quitting will fix burnout

Employees are in “a motivational dip at the moment” – that’s the view of employee experience (EX) giant Qualtrics’ director of EX strategy execution Sarah Marrs.

Just 66% of workers feel motivated by their employer to go above and beyond.

That’s down three percentage points from 69% in 2020, according to Qualtrics’ latest employee experience benchmark data from 19 million employees working at 865 companies across the world.

The EX situation is particularly stark in Germany and Japan (they saw a 12 and ten percentage point difference respectively).

The UK saw a four-point decline, France five-points, while the US and Australia experienced a two point decrease.

Qualtrics also discovered that employees across the world did not feel inspired to do their best work – this was down to 71% in 2022, from 75% in 2019.

All of this is pushing employees to consider quitting, which is surprising given the uncertainty of the economy currently.

The share of those planning to stay in their current job for more than three years has declined five percentage points from 2020 figures to 68%, according to Qualtrics.

This suggests that employees see a new job as a solution to their burnout (57%) because they have little trust that senior leadership will take any actions to improve their wellbeing and productivity challenges.

That trust has declined from 73% in 2020 to 70% in 2022.

Marrs shares: “Employees are pulling back as they’re not seeing rewards from their efforts.

“Of course, in a tighter economy, pay is a top factor in what people are looking for from a job, but employers should never underestimate the power of fulfilling work as its own reward.”

Leaders, rebuild that connection with workers

These stats are a wake-up call for employees – not only do they have high attrition rates, but their remaining workforce is quiet quitting due to struggles with stress and motivation.

The question that remains is how to nip this in the bud, and stop those quiet quitters turning into former employees.

Marrs argues that employees want “leaders to give them something to spark inspiration”.

“The leadership style needed for success today is very different to what it was pre-pandemic – if necessary, organizations should look at refreshing their leadership training to align to this”.

There is a particular need for leaders to step around their team’s career growth. A lack of learning and development is a major cause of high quit rates, and Qualtrics’ data found that just six in ten employees feel they know the next steps in their careers.

“The future is fuzzy and emerging job types are unclear – employees are looking to their managers to help them navigate this and give them guidance,” comments Marrs.

She concludes: “Ultimately, work with an employer is a relationship, and like any relationship it’s important to keep the lines of communication open.

“Organizations just need to be ready to harness employee feedback and extract the relevant information to make sure they are acting and responding to that insight.”