Taking a Look at the Great Resignation

Our episode is about how the job market and job expectations are changing significantly and really focused on how are employees responding to this quick, somewhat of a diametric shift that's actually happening within the workforce now and employees. One of the key things we of focus on here is , um, gonna be around the war for talent is on. As all of you have heard , um, the great resignation has been occurring. A lot of people have been leaving their jobs for many reasons coming out of COVID.

And a lot of that was for , uh , many, many factors. One of the key things was a lot of people were simply not. They weren't looking for jobs during the height of COVID. And so there was just simply some pent up demands. And in some cases too , for pent up demands for people actually wanting to leave their job because they were not that satisfied in their job, but they were too scared to leave during COVID because so many employers not hiring.

So what's happened there over the last couple of years that , um, you just had a lot of people who were not that thrilled with their jobs. They hung onto their jobs because they needed to have the paycheck and benefits. And now that the labor market and , uh , hopefully COVID is coming to an end. Uh , people are looking at a very, very quick pace now, and I actually turning into resignations and what's happening there, of course, for the employers.

How quickly are employers reacting to this and what's going on there? I think one of the key things we're focused on too, is that compensation is rising significantly for this, this hard defined .

And sometimes especially if you specific labor markets and even in general labor , uh, working in the service industry, for instance, in restaurants, in , uh, looking at hotels as a lot of industries start picking up significantly in the restaurant and hotel space or hospitality market, you're finding that people are a lot of , a lot of have mandated a $15 an hour minimum wage.

And a lot of companies are also having to pay over that because they're still finding a lot of people are not rejoining the workforce. So that's one of the key things you have to do is really focus on what can you pay. And when you look at it too , compensation is one of the answers course.

But I would say one of the key things is to make sure you not only are paying market competitive rates for new hires, but one of the key things you have to do also of course, is look at your internal workforce because if you end up bringing in a person at a job and let's say salary wise , you're bringing them at at $50,000, but your average good employee internally is making $45,000. Guess what? That's gonna create a recipe for disaster.

So as you're, if you need to be hiring and paying more for people, you are bringing into the workforce, make sure you take care of the people who are tried and true and are consistent people who are already good performers with your organization. Because if you're only taking care of new hires, guess what? You're just gonna be creating a ticking time bomb for people who are gonna be quickly looking for other opportunities.

If you don't actually continue to keep their pay competitive, if you need help with that, that's something definitely our firm HR catalyst can help you with, but you know, stay tuned on that one . We can talk about that later, or you can contact us directly offer perks that matter within the organization. One of the key things we really want to focus on now, and a number of employees, employer are really focused on training and developing their people.

It's not just enough to pay a competitive wage anymore. One of the key things is also is looking for having people or having organizations that's really focused on taking care of their people and also retraining them, offering them career element opportunities in some cases, tuition, reimbursement. And so those are some of the key things, and that's not just for high tech companies, but even a company that's , um, like Chipotle is doing that.

They're actually paying for people to , uh , go back and get , um, get , uh , they're finish their degree, or maybe get a, a master's degree. You go into their managerial program. Southwest airlines is also doing that, but if you're a smaller company, make sure you're also doing that for your employees too. Of course it may be at a much smaller scale, but making sure that you could actually do things to help them in their career development.

One of the key things, why people leave, especially your top talent leaves organization. And this has been like this for years, is that the , the organization, they feel like they're in a dead end job and there's no career development and there's no room for upward mobility. So whatever you can do there, whatever dollar you invest is going to create a huge return on investment or ROI for the, those organizations that can really be focused on that.

The next thing is really focusing around flexibility. One of the key things that came out of COVID , which is probably one of those positive things, which , uh , you have to think about is flexibility. We have so many millions of knowledge workers now in the U United States. If they have a cell phone and they have a computer and they have a internet connection, that's high speed , an employee can work from anywhere. And this goes for a large component of the workforce.

Of course, if you're in a service industry, manufacturing, industry construction, et cetera , it doesn't work that well. But for a lot of organizations that hire a lot of knowledge workers, it's very easy for them to actually work remotely. What does that look like? A lot of companies have now moved to something now called a hybrid type of work environment where come into the office maybe two days a week or three days a week. And then you work the rest of the time from home.

And some employees like that balance because it works out perfectly, especially for employees who have perhaps younger children or even perhaps aging parents having that level of workforce flexibility. It doesn't in most cases, cost company, a single penny. And this time you can actually sometimes reduce your real estate footprint.

And if you're paying for a high end real estate in downtown Dallas or downtown Los Angeles or New York, if you can actually reduce the square footage for your employee base from for 500 employees down to 250, guess what you've actually created a huge bottom line savings within the organization.

The other thing it does is it helps you to be more attractive in the workforce because if you're looking at, and you're advertising for positions, if you take a look at career builder or indeed or LinkedIn jobs, there are so many thousands of jobs that are advertised as remote out only a hundred percent remote opportunities or hybrid opportunities. Now that if you're fixated in the past and focused on having your employee, they must have a button, the seat and work from the office.

Guess what you're actually living in the dark ages. If there's an option for them to be working from either a hybrid capacity. So many days in the office and so many at home or possibly full-time remote. The other key thing that does for you is really focuses on creating the opportunity to actually open up the labor pool for you significantly.

If you have an office, for instance, in , uh , where our consulting practice is , where based in the Dallas area, if you want your people to be in Dallas, but that person lives in , um, Cedar rapids, Iowa, or they live in , uh, they live in California or Florida and they love the beach.

Um, if they're a knowledge worker, why can't they stay working exactly where they're at and being full time remote, because that will save the company money in real, but it would also create maybe a high level of job satisfaction, high level of engagement, and a huge amount of studies actually say that employees who work from home are actually more productive. And a lot of times you just kinda lose track of time. And so you don't have perhaps a 45 minute or an hour long commute to work.

And the commute back home , uh, with the gas prices, the way they are now, you're not paying for gas , uh , and filling up at the pump every week. So guess what? This creates a huge retention tool for retaining key talent within your organization.

So when you're focusing on this really focus on , um, looking at different ways that you can actually change the way that you actually structure your work environment and making sure that you are, you stay competitive in a very, very competitive labor market. Right now, those are some critical things that I would say you really need to focus on, and those are gonna be critical for your overall success moving forward. Well, that about covers it for today. Thanks for listening.

And for more things pertaining to HR, visit HRcatalystconsulting.com. Don't forget to like us and subs subscribe to our podcast until next time. This is Mark Mitford. Thanks for listening. Take care. Bye-bye .