For more than the last year, employers in the United States have found themselves in an unprecedented position. For the first time in recent history, they have faced large-scale employee shortages and a significant uptick in the number of workers leaving their jobs.
While the service industry may be where the impact of these resignations is most visible to the public, no industry has escaped this shift in employment power dynamics unscathed. Workers, frustrated by inadequate compensation, unrealistic employer demands and unhealthy corporate cultures, have been quitting their jobs in record numbers.
There are two ways to minimize the damage the Great Resignation will cause your company and one way it could also benefit your business.
Reach out to your top talent
During times of higher-than-average turnover, retaining your current staff should be a top priority. It will be much more expensive to recruit a new worker and try to work around crucial vacancies at your company than it will be to keep those workers with your business in many cases.
Giving performance reviews and checking in with your staff could help keep them happy with their current jobs. When you communicate with your workers about their job satisfaction, you are less likely to face a rash of sudden resignations.
Don’t penalize the workers who stay
When there is a shift in your employee roster, your company may need to make some changes to prevent even worse losses. With each worker that quits, the risk of other members of the same department leaving due to increased job responsibilities goes up as well.
Mandating overtime for everyone in a department and canceling vacation requests will likely only push more workers to consider moving on to greener pastures. Having contingency plans in place in case multiple workers resign at once, like a staffing agreement with a local temp agency, can help you adjust to resignations without stressing your remaining staff.
The Great Resignation is a great time to recruit
Workers all over have started to realize that their value is truly what generates company profits. Those who may have long felt loyal to their employer may be more willing than ever before to consider moving to a new company.
Listing job openings on popular employment websites or looking through resumes to recruit people for job openings you have not yet listed could be a way to make the great resignation actually benefit your company by bringing in better talent. So long as you have a healthy business culture and offer competitive compensation, you could be in a position to bring in new hires that help your company thrive.