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?
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.
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.
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.
We have a client with very high entry-level turnover where we are implementing customized solutions to fix it. And we WILL fix it. But this story is about the top of the organization rather than the bottom.
This is a time when not only top performers can go anywhere, but all employees are taking stock of their own happiness, their families’ health and stability, and asking what matters to them most. Connecting, communicating, and applying Stay Interviews has never mattered more.