For those of us who study workforce data and those who live with the results of workforce shortages, the question is, “Would a recession bring with it a silver lining by realigning our number of workers with our number of open jobs?”
The feedback from my SHRM22 Annual Conference concurrent session tells me participants were starving for real retention solutions, at a time when all U.S. companies were facing 11 million open jobs and 3.5% unemployment.
The Predictive Index asked over 200 CEOs “Do you believe “The Great Resignation” is over?” Their responses were shocking and conflicted mightily with the conclusions of many respected economists.
PBS News released a new study last week and it reads like the same-old talk. Quit reasons include “young-people” rhetoric, reduction in hours or benefits, options to work remotely or for more flexible hours, relocation, lost their jobs, and of course the old standard, “better opportunity”. Here is a wake-up call regarding the real reasons employees are leaving.
The phrase “Quiet Quitters” was introduced by Sona Movsesian, Conan O’Brien’s assistant, who is proud of her job neglect and believes that most people are mediocre. Maybe she’s right, but we believe focusing on retention is a good way to overcome lamenting about the Quiet Quitters to focus on the opportunity to keep your best workers.
McKinsey just announced that more than half of the job quitters during “The Great Resignation” did not return to their same industries. We’ve all heard stories of how the pandemic period caused workers to rethink their jobs and their lives, and now we have very hard data that proves it.
Here’s a mid-2022 data update that perhaps best predicts the futures of both “The Great Resignation” and our total economy. Let’s compare three key economic indicators for the period ending December 31st, 2021 to six months later ending in June of this year.
Let's start with, "Which method are you using to cut turnover?" This is a quiz with two possible answers, with one being right and the other being very, very wrong. And as a clue, the correct answer is based on science whereas the wrong answer is based on “best practices”.
In preparation for Dick Finnegan’s #SHRM22 mega-session: Case Studies: Cutting Turnover 20% and More During "The Great Resignation” we are reposting our blog that contains several real-world examples of clients cutting turnover that will be shared with updated data and additional examples from the stage.
Most reporting on the causes of The Great Resignation miss the mark because the bigger story is about demographics. Two numbers we track month-to-month, how many workers are voluntarily quitting and how many jobs are open, is the hard data that tells us about the actual number of available workers.