How To Fight The Great Resignation: Improving Employee Retention

In the most recent data as released by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, more than 20 million people quit their jobs in 2021 between May and September. This number equates to 3% of the total number of employed personnel. The number of people quitting their jobs in September alone exceeded 4.4 million. This number of people who quit their job is a new record and has never been higher. This era is termed the ‘Great Resignation’. This phase known as the Great Resignation does not end here and has a lot more in store for us.

The situation is not about employees simply quitting their positions in the organization. When researched thoroughly, their concerns came to light and it was seen that there were various factors responsible for the ‘Big Quit’. One of the most major concerns that the research showed was the poor work culture in various organizations. The COVID-19 Pandemic did play an important role in the Great Resignation Era, but the pandemic was not the only reason for the movement. It came to light that the employees demanded better working conditions, higher wages, healthcare facilities, and the organizations failed terribly at delivering the same.

To fight the great resignation and improve employee retention, the organizations took several steps. Reports from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics show that in September, companies in the United States have hired more than 6 million people. This number surpasses the number of people who quit their jobs by 2 million and the number has been growing since then. In order to fight the Great Resignation, or the Big Quit as some people call it, companies need to know their employees and fulfill their demands. The use of software-based e-learning tools such as LearnUpon should be able to help companies deliver proper employee training and help the employees learn about the perks that the companies come up with in their favor.

Here are a few ways in which fighting the Great Resignation and employee retention can be made possible:

• Offering opportunities to upskill

There are thousands and millions of employees who prefer to work where they are working for the sake of learning and progressing. If the position that they hold has more to offer, more to learn, the employees tend to stay where they are unless they have peaked the learning process for that particular position. If the organization is too small to implement major changes or bring in more employees, the best way to retain the existing employees is to offer them more to learn and upgrade their skills by implementing a low-investment strategy such as using a learning management system. Learning management systems such as LearnUpon has done wonders for organizations and their employees throughout the world. They have been used in various ways to deliver employee training, customer training, compliance training, and a lot more. Offering courses or opportunities to employees to upgrade their skills using these methods is a splendid way to keep the employees working. This makes them think that their current job has more to offer than they think and they tend to stay.

• Increase Compensation and Incentives

Every company in the world makes a load of money because of all the hard work that their employees do but most of them fail to recognize their efforts. They do not pay their employees enough compensation and incentives for the work they do and for the profit that the companies make because of them. This is one of the basic reasons why employees all over the world are unhappy and upset with their jobs, and in the worst-case scenario, consider quitting their jobs. To make the employees stay, companies should consider a revision of their compensation policies and enhance the incentives that they offer to the employees. If there is a growth in the salary or any kind of monetary benefit, employee retention will become much easier than it seems to be.

• Recognition for the efforts

There are many employees who have been working with all they have to offer despite the low salaries. The reason can be varying, but the most common is that such employees have been working for the same organization for a long time and have grown attached to it. Whatever the reason may be, anyone can get frustrated if there is nothing that they get in return from the organization apart from their salary. As a result, even the most loyal and faithful employees will quit their position in a job if their efforts are not recognized. In order to retain such employees, organizations should organize events when such employees are recognized for the efforts that they have given to the organization and reward them accordingly. This will boost up the morale of not only the old, long-time employees but also the new blood that has recently been recruited.

• Transparency must be maintained

When an organization hires a new employee, the HR and the managers need to make sure that they are delivering a good understanding of the responsibilities and duties that the new employee will have to take upon. If the new employees have a definite understanding of what work they are about to do, what responsibilities they are about to take on, and what duties they need to perform, they are more likely to stay for a long period of time and offer their services.

Conclusion: Expecting everything and delivering nothing is not a good idea. Things work both ways when it comes to employee retention. An employee will always be ready to give their best to the organization they are working for if the organization takes care of the needs and demands of its employees. Proper recognition for the efforts they put in and good compensation and benefits, job transparency, a safe and secure working environment are some of the things that an organization should provide to its employees in order to make them stay. Any employee would love to work for an organization that sees value in the skills of the employees. If someone is not valued despite the stretches that they make for the organization, it will only lead to the resignation of the employee and lead to movements such as the Great Resignation Era.