Flexible Hours, WFH and Start-to-Finish Benefits Can Help PR’s Caring Culture Tame ‘The Big Quit’

Recruitment and retention of top talent was an issue for PR long before the pandemic struck. For years, firms and in-house teams competed for employees using salary, upward mobility, health benefits and other perks, such as paid time off and summer Fridays.

Things are different now.

The shared pause from the coronavirus and WFH and, in some cases, death of friends and family, led communicators (and people in many other sectors) to reassess their professional and personal lives. This shared experience, in turn, pushed people toward pandemic epiphanies, according to Dr. Anthony Klotz, the Texas A&M professor who anticipated and dubbed the summer 2021 job exodus ‘The Great Resignation.’ In August, 4.3 million U.S. workers resigned.

In addition to, or because of, pandemic epiphanies, the work paradigm is slowly moving away from the employee-as-servant model. Companies, including those in the communication sector or employing PR pros in-house, are feeling pressure to respond to staff desires for flexible schedules, salary increases, and transportation and childcare benefits, among other things.