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.
Employee engagement is a fuzzy concept that usually generates a fuzzy metric. Most of us conduct employee engagement and we assume the results never vary, that somehow a one-time snapshot on the third Thursday in March reflects how our employees feel about their jobs every day.
The bottom line is PEPCO’s Baltic states’ turnover has decreased by 67%...and PEPCO has yet to leverage the full power of Stay Interviews as they have taken them to the Area Manager and Store Manager levels only. Kristina tells me the likely next step is to implement Stay Interviews to include all PEPCO employees.