Does Hiring Teachers Help Solve The Great Resignation?

My eyes got big when I spotted an article titled, “Why More Employers Are Recruiting Teachers”.[i] This connected back to a previous post I did regarding how companies must re-think their stringent job requirements so they can open their recruitment to more applicants who have less on-paper qualifications.

Is The Great Resignation Getting Better?

Next, I wondered if The Great Resignation is by chance getting better because if it was, why on earth would employers be round-pegging teachers into square holes? So, I checked, and that answer is a loud “No”, that The Great Resignation is not improving at all. So suddenly hiring teachers for non-teaching jobs began to make sense.

Let’s first check in on The Great Resignation by presenting 2022 updates on job openings and quits. Here’s what the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us:

• Job openings at year end ’21 in thousands: 10,925
• Job openings January 2022 in thousands: 11,283
• Job openings February 2022 in thousands: 11,266

So, no good news there. Then let’s look at voluntary quits, the bellwether metric for The Great Resignation:

• 2021’s monthly average percent of quits: 2.7
• January 2022 percent of quits: 2.8
• February 2022 percent of quits: 2.9

Predictions For The Great Resignation

These differences look small until one realizes that we are on track for 34.2% of our workforce to quit this year, up from 32.5% in 2021. And that difference represents an additional 2.5 million workers who will walk off their jobs this year over last. And all of these quits are happening while the number of open jobs climbs higher.

These bad-news demographics conform to two predictions reported earlier here…

• First from the Wall Street Journal: “Many say the labor shortage will last several more years and some say it’s permanent”.
• And then from a report in Time Magazine: “Economists predict that The Great Resignation is only getting started, especially for Gen Z and millennial workers who are well-positioned to find new ways to earn income.”

The Great Resignation Shows Teachers Prepared to Move to Non-Teaching Roles

So, let’s go back to teachers and start with their availability. According to the National Education Association, a full 600,000 teachers have already left teaching since January 2020, and a recent NEA poll indicated 55% more will quit prematurely. So, teachers are fast becoming a very talented recruiting pool.

The article reported examples of teachers moving into non-teaching jobs while working for marketing firms, various consultancies, greeting card manufacturers, and pet care companies. These manager quotes drive home how all of those classroom years prepared teachers for different careers while applying the same skills:

• “We hired a biologist with teaching experience because she understood how to build a presentation for an audience.”
• “In our experience, teachers are very detail-oriented and operate on structured schedules.”
• “They are great communicators with strong written, verbal, and presentation skills.”
• “They’re usually technically savvy and comfortable with workplace tech.”
• “I am always blown away by their kind and gentle yet get-it-done attitude.”
• “Diligent, hardworking, flexible, amazing communicators and coachable. They were able to become project leads in a matter of months.”

Another hiring manager said teachers are “hardworking, no-nonsense, scrappy, great communicators who are able to complete assignments in a timely manner.”

The Great Resignation and Teacher Pay

How much do teachers expect to make? The current average teacher pay across the U.S is

$65,090[ii], though your local teachers might make more or less. And I’ll bet ex-teachers stay with their employers longer than most because they have switched to work in an adult environment and likely thrive on it.

Hiring former teachers is just one example of broadening our recruiting boundaries as traditional, resume-perfect applicants remain scarce. Which makes me wonder what other professional backgrounds just-right fits for your company’s openings might be, from jobs or industries you’ve never considered before.

Writing this piece brought to mind a book that’s been sitting on my bookshelf titled You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a “Useless” Liberal Arts Education. Scanning the contents, my immediate-favorite chapters are The Problem Solvers and Employers That Get It. I am looking forward to revisiting this book during my next flight. If you see me, ask me about it.

Employee Retention Is More Important Than Ever During The Great Resignation.

Schedule a conversation with me at DFinnegan@C-SuiteAnalytics.com to discuss your employee retention roadblocks and I’ll share ideas for how you can move forward and what is working for other companies to cut turnover by 20% and more, even during The Great Resignation that may benefit you.

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[i] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/why-more-employers-are-recruiting-teachers.aspx?utm_source=marketo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial~Talent~NL_2022-03-30_Talent-Acquisition&linktext=Why-More-Employers-Are-Recruiting-Teachers&mktoid=49296740&mkt_tok=ODIzLVRXUy05ODQAAAGDesHqvYKbmxaHUaO6vM2LzU1R5z0I99uWUUQoxTEU13jt2VwZe8IyShrYx_ZzO8pG_sEtycJtssBQJE-nHugE-CH8-nBtPKTRNznvYSqCD5BsYQ

[ii] https://www.google.com/search?q=average+teacher+salary+u.s.+2021&sxsrf=APq-WBs09cCHbR88fdt9XdLeZdxQwXr25w%3A1648817748060&source=hp&ei=VPZGYqWMAaKWwbkP9pCa2AQ&iflsig=AHkkrS4AAAAAYkcEZG_i18rHI9kbbkkQWoo4e3cQNpbs&oq=average+U.S.+teacher+&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAEYATIFCAAQgAQyBggAEBYQHjIGCAAQFhAeMgUIABCGAzIFCAAQhgMyBQgAEIYDMgUIABCGAzoECCMQJzoRCC4QgAQQsQMQgwEQxwEQ0QM6CAgAELEDEIMBOgsIABCABBCxAxCDAToOCC4QgAQQsQMQxwEQ0QM6CwguEIAEEMcBENEDOg4ILhCABBCxAxDHARCjAjoLCC4QgAQQsQMQ1AI6CAguEIAEELEDOgsILhCABBDHARCvAToICAAQgAQQsQM6CAgAEIAEEMkDOgUIABCSAzoFCAAQogQ6CAghEBYQHRAeUABY3zJgikloA3AAeACAAW2IAdQPkgEEMjIuMpgBAKABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz