We are now firmly in the midst of “The Great Resignation”, and the number of monthly quits have consistently exceeded their all-time highs. This gloomy picture would be incomplete, though, without looking beyond today, wondering how long the workforce clouds will stay dark. There are at least 10 reasons that forecast "The Great Resignation" as the new normal.
Each of you knows that nothing happens in organizations without accountability…nothing…yet my guess is fewer than 5% of global companies, large and small, actually hold someone accountable for turnover. This is why we always begin with converting turnover to dollars. It’s the turnover accountability wake-up call.
During a recent client discussion, I mentioned my belief that what matters most regarding employee retention and engagement is what employees talk about over dinner. That the feelings we tell ourselves on our way home from work plus any subsequent conversations we have soon after ultimately predicts how long we will stay and how committed we are to our day-to-day work.
I kept searching for clues as to how a poverty-stricken person views work, clinging to the naïve notion that work = money = getting out of poverty, so therefore one would give all to their job as the ticket out. Then I read more about poverty and the big lesson for me is that a poverty-stricken person’s reality is worse than I thought, with a lack of support systems and knowledge of hidden rules.
Last month the Wall Street Journal reported the results of a survey conducted with a large group of economists. Of the 52 economists surveyed, 22 predicted that workforce participation would never return to its pre-pandemic levels. So the challenge of recruiting and retaining in 2019 was cake compared to what’s ahead in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.
As I've shared in two recent articles, most employees won’t care about your referral program if you don’t pay out a significant chunk the day the referred employee starts – and Forbes agrees.
Pay at least half of the total reward to the referring employee on day one, especially if that employee is paid by the hour. Otherwise your referral program begins with a fatal flaw…at a time when you’ve never needed employee referrals more.
I’m looking forward to speaking at the SHRM21 annual conference in Las Vegas next week, and while I speak at the conference each year, this year I have been asked to prove that managers cause turnover and disengagement rather than HR. Here is a preview of my Mega Session.
Google has announced they will reduce pay for those employees who have chosen to work permanently from home if their remote location has “lower labor costs than where their former offices are located”. In other words, Google will permit me to continue working for them remotely if I take a pay cut.
The heat is on for companies of all sizes to declare if they will require their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19…risking that those refusing employees could lose their jobs.