December 16, 2021

How to Avoid Being a Part of the Great Resignation

Sam Caucci

An employee sitting with her boss

Millions of people have left their jobs in droves this past year during the pandemic. This transformation has been due to an increasing need to have job security and better pay as a worker, and many have taken a step back to think about what truly matters to them and what they want to spend their time doing, including where they work. 

In order to address what is causing these shocking statistics, it is important to understand why this is happening. Research shows that the resignation rates are the highest among those who are in the middle of their career. Employees who are between the ages of 30 to 45 years old have had the highest increase in resignation rates. And in terms of industry, the resignations are the highest among those who work in the tech and healthcare industries. 

However, there’s no need to feel too alarmed. The term “Great Resignation” was actually coined back in 2019 before the pandemic by Anthony Klotz, an associate professor of management at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School. He used the term to describe employees who were seeking more flexibility and mobility in their lives. It is something that has happened before. 

There are three major things that employees are looking for during these periods: flexibility, good pay, and job security. During the past few years, HR departments have focused most of their efforts into creating culture and meaning in the workplace. And while that is great, it’s these three things that are foundational to that culture. Think of them as the bare minimum for people to be there and enjoy working for you. 

How Employers Can Improve Employee Retention During the Great Resignation

Recruiters will need to be more intentional with their recruitment strategies. Employers need to take the time to evaluate their industry and tailor their recruiting strategy to that. It’s important to take a data-driven approach in order to improve your retention rates. Pay attention to things like who has the highest turnover risk, why people might be leaving, and how you can prevent it. These details will look different for every organization and industry, but here are a couple of things that employers can do to effectively use their data to help improve employee retention:

Identify the problem.

Before you can solve the problems causing a high turnover at your company, you will first need to know your retention rate. You can use the following formula:

  • Number of Separations per Year ÷ Average Total Number of Employees = Turnover Rate

You can also use similar formulas to help you figure out how much of your turnover is due to voluntary resignations, compared to layoffs or firings. This can help you see exactly where your retention problem is coming from. 

Next, you will want to see how much of your turnover is directly impacting key business metrics. When employees leave, the remaining teams usually find themselves without key skill sets or resources, which negatively impact their quality of work, time to completion, and bottom-line revenue. Tracking how your turnover affects these factors will give you the bigger picture. 

Figure out the root causes. 

Once you clearly see the scope of your retention issues, it will be time to think about what is really causing your staff to leave. What factors could be driving up resignation rates? Explore metrics like compensation, the time between promotions, the size of pay increases, tenure, performance, and training opportunities to visualize the trends and blind spots in your organization.

You may also find it helpful to segment your employees into categories like location, function or other demographics to help you better understand how the work experience and retention rates differ across employee populations. 

Analyzing these things will help you identify not only which employees are at the highest risk of resigning, but which employees can be retained using targeted interventions. 

Create specific retention programs. 

Once you have identified the root causes of turnover at your company, you can start to create and implement customized retention programs aimed at correcting the issues that your workplace is struggling with. 

For example, if your findings show that more people of color are leaving compared to their white peers, then you might want to think about taking a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) approach. Or, if you see that the time in between promotions has a strong correlation with higher resignation rates, then you might need to rethink your advancement policies. 

Most importantly, you might start to see that through this process you have a lack of data infrastructure which can keep you from making these types of data-driven decisions. You might need to make a high-level intervention before you begin a retention targeted campaign, that is to make some investments into an organized system to track and analyze metrics which will help your retention efforts.

Level Up Your Team With 1Huddle

1Huddle can help you and your team stay ahead of the learning curve. We offer cloud-based employee gamification software. You can customize your content for a seamless experience and all of your employees will be able to access their training anywhere, anytime and at the push of a button. You can use our game platform to measure their performance and make key decisions on where you should take your gamification strategy next. 

Do you want to learn more about how 1Huddle can help you level up your own workforce? Talk to us today.

Sam Caucci, Founder & CEO at 1Huddle

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