The Great Resignation is not just some buzzy phrase to describe the ongoing phenomenon in which workers are voluntarily quitting their jobs. It’s a very real threat to business, say dozens of large companies.
The talent squeeze coupled with employee churn have placed more work on fewer employees, who already face burnout, decreasing companies’ overall efficiency, damaging corporate culture, and increasing operational costs. Such high quit rates have become so deleterious that companies are flagging the Great Resignation as a potential business risk in their annual reports.
“The so-called ‘Great Resignation’ trend that began in 2021, in which U.S. employees voluntarily resigned from their jobs in large numbers, has further strained our ability to keep our restaurants fully staffed and negatively impacted employee satisfaction,” Chipotle Mexican Grill wrote in its recently released annual report. Burlington Stores, owner of the off-price Burlington Coat Factory chain, warned of “increased training and retention costs” if the Great Resignation continues to result in “historically high rates of turnover.” Some human resources professionals have also referred to the mass departures as a “turnover tsunami.”
In a database of companies that have filed annual 10-K reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2022, Fortune found references to the Great Resignation by some 100 companies. (The neologism didn’t appear in any annual reports last year.) Besides Chipotle and Burlington, that cohort includes eight Fortune 500 companies: pharmacy chain Rite Aid, spirits maker Constellation Brands, petroleum refiner Delek US, health insurer Cigna, electricity utility Xcel Energy, and packaging materials company Avery Dennison.
Rite Aid, which is banking heavily on an army of pharmacists to provide more health services in its drugstores—since it doesn’t have the capital that rivals CVS Health and Walgreens Boots Alliance do to build clinics—raised the specter of pharmacist shortages in its annual report released this week. This may “inhibit our ability to maintain store hours at preferred levels” and “could result in a material adverse effect” on business, the drugstore operator said.
A February report by Achievers Workforce Institute, which advises companies on employee engagement, said that 50% of U.S. workers report having looked for a new job in 2021. Delek said in its annual report that the job market has changed and workers “have shifted their views of what’s important” in part because of health concerns, the need for flexibility, and the success of remote work during the pandemic. Cigna lamented “increased worker attrition” while XCel bemoaned that “the competition for talent has become increasingly intense.”
But employers shouldn’t expect much relief anytime soon. Achievers Workforce Institute notes that a still considerable number of workers, 41%, will look for a new job this year.
Scott DeCarlo contributed reporting to this article.
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