The Great Resignation – simply not true!

If you have a good people strategy, you shouldn’t need to brace yourself for mass resignations, says Portfolio People Director Conal Scholes, as he offers ten tips for recruiting and retaining the right staff for your business.

Like most people who read newspapers and blogs, I like to find a short explanation what’s going on in the world. But I find it problematic when the media starts using throw-away terms to describe important issues.Currently, we are all suffering from recruitment issues in the UK. At People Puzzles we see the pain around recruitment every day with our clients. But are we suffering from the much-discussed ‘Great Resignation’ – people leaving the workplace to set up as self-sufficient carrot growers in North Wales?
Well no, actually. In the same way that ‘millennials are job hoppers’, it is not entirely true. Data shows that millennials do indeed move jobs rapidly – but that’s because they are often in zero-hour contracts or starter jobs that have no progression, so they move when a better opportunity comes along. If you asked them if they would like a long-term job within a company, most would say ‘yes please’.

Anyway, back to the Great Resignation, which was coined from surveys done by the likes of Microsoft at the height of the global lockdowns. Many of those surveyed said that they wanted to look at alternatives to the corporate life they’d had before lockdown and spend more time with their family. Which really, is about as surprising as finding out that rugby players drink beer.
While the media was talking about the Great Resignation, I was working with a client who had almost no labour turnover. They had always had problems recruiting, yet despite the media claims they had more people in core roles than at any time in their history!

It IS possible to find and keep great people, People Puzzles helps businesses all over the UK make it happen by doing some or all of the following (plus others to suit their sector/location):
1) Make jobs worth doing – and have a strong vision and values that inspire and motivate your team.
2) Listen to your people. Do they have the right environment and are they given enough support to do their job properly?
3) Offer flexibility in terms of hours or type of work, etc.
4) Pay people the right way. It’s not always about the total amount; often people are looking for a mix of money, benefits and flexibility. Beware if your top talent are money motivated; they will inevitably move when others offer them more.
5) Ensure your premises are a pleasant place to work in.
6) Give feedback about how the business is doing, in terms of sales, profit etc, and emphasise how it’s becoming a better place to work, with job growth potential and job security now and in the future.
7) Recruit people with the right values, not just the right skills, and ensuring those who manage people are aligned to company values and treat people right.
8) Use a mix of methods to recruit – online, word of mouth, agencies, recruiters, internal talent teams, introduction bonuses, standing outside stations will billboards etc.
9) Getting the first day, week and month right and listening and acting when onboarding new staff.
10) Supporting your commercial and sales people to have difficult conversations with customers who do not pay, so you are getting cost recovery for your labour and overheads.
If you think you can’t afford to do the above, then try bearing the cost of not having the right people in the right place at the right time. Right now, there are more options for employees to trade up in their roles than ever, plus a rising minimum wage which is raising the bar for most employers. If you don’t work on removing the reasons why people leave, they will leave.

Our team of world class HR Directors at People Puzzles are here to help you work on retention issues and get your people strategy in the right shape, not just for this year but the next five. Call us on 020 3633 6830 to find out how – or take our quick online Health Check to see how your business is doing from a people perspective.

 

Conal Scholes, People Director