Grateful for the Job…
That’s not necessarily a true sentiment among workers in 2021, considering some 4.3 million people quit jobs in August and 4.4 million in September.
The Labor Department data breaks down the August numbers as follows: 892,000 workers in restaurants, bars and hotels; 721,000 in retail; 706,000 in professional business services; and 534,000 in health care and social assistance jobs.
While the reasons for leaving vary depending on the segment of the economy, a number of factors contribute to this phenomenon. They include workers sensing opportunity and better pay elsewhere, long commutes, inconvenient hours, and poor compensation, lack of stable child care, toxic work environments, and lack of flexibility. With the rise of the coronavirus’s delta variant, people continue to express health and safety concerns in the workplace.
The Great Resignation is real. Employees are reassessing work—what they want to do and where they want to do it when it comes to earning a living. This leaves employers—especially those in the professional services sector—to face a range of questions such as how they deal with remote and flexible work, compensation and bonus packages.
So how can employers retain workers? How can they ensure that their employees are, in fact, grateful for the job in their organization? Here are some things leaders can do:
Create a positive employee experience. This starts with listening to your employees. The pandemic experience has changed your employees’ needs and expectations. Listen to their concerns and honestly communicate with them, especially about what you can and cannot do and why. Recognizing and appreciating employees goes a long way to building trust, which is critical.
Review your total rewards, especially your benefits. Workers are reporting stress and burnout. Do your benefits address your employees’ overall wellbeing? Beyond offering an EAP, consider their physical, mental, emotional, and financial wellbeing. Take a close look at how you manage leave policies.
Provide flexibility which extends beyond work from home or remote working. It also includes flextime or work arrangements like job sharing. Understand what your employees need and want in this changed world.
Develop your employees. Employees, especially younger ones, want the opportunity to learn new things and for career growth. Remember while employees are reassessing work, employers are reassessing the roles and skills their organizations need in this changing environment. Give people the opportunity to do something different for your organization.
When we signed the contract to write The Big Book of HR, 10th Anniversary Edition the ink was barely dry on the page when the pandemic hit in 2020. That certainly left some challenges—unknowns about how the workplace would change. However, employee retention will always be critical to organizations. That’s why all the topics above are covered in the new edition in detail with up-to-date information. Pre-order your copy today at https://tinyurl.com/ejjbkp69 to ensure you receive it by its official publication date of January 1, 2022 or sooner.
We are grateful for you, our readers.