So now comes new information in the past seven days that drives home that this wacky idea of 3.2% unemployment by year end is real. And as hard as it is to retain your best current workers, retaining is a better strategy than recruiting…against the headwinds of all that is listed above. How does one recruit better when unemployment is becoming 3.2%? And maybe even worse in your local market?
Working From Home is hardly new so any predictions about its strengths and weaknesses have already been proven, just not the grand scale that we might soon see. But having said that, WFH during the pandemic is not the same as regular, organized, we-all-buy-into-this WFH that we will see in the future.
In their weekly member newsletter yesterday, SHRM predicted a turnover “tsunami” once the pandemic ends, re-surfacing that employee retention is at major risk regardless of today’s unemployment rate.
The best and most comprehensive study on how U.S. companies are doing, specifically with retaining and advancing Black workers, was recently released. And the outcome says we have work to do.
Shannon brought her concerns, Not expecting to learn, That her boss could connect, Who was once circumspect, So both felt good when they adjourned.
Millions of people lost jobs in the pandemic. The largest group were laid off in March and April 2020, but layoffs continued above pre-pandemic averages even in recent weeks. Several factors, though, prevent these people from filling the positions that are open.
The much-less told story of 2020 is how many women dropped out of the workforce and most of them still remain on the sidelines. The reasons for this particular contribution to your turnover rates cover a lot of ground.
Several years ago, AngloGold Ashanti invited me to help them lower their turnover rates in African gold mines…for jobs a full four kilometers underground. AngloGold Ashanti’s turnover situation was just like many of ours. Too few workers available, the jobs had their shortcomings, and their workers didn’t stay.
Remember way back when, before the pandemic, when it was hard to find qualified candidates for most jobs? That was February 2020, exactly one year ago, when our unemployment rate hit its floor of 3.5%. Consider the off-setting turbulence that same market will face in 2021 if unemployment falls to 3.2% within a year.
There needs to be a new-found mathematical equation that says (1) if you have high turnover that impacts productivity and (2) you have high spans of control and (3) you have a clue about how much turnover costs, then (4) maybe you should rethink your high spans of control.