DS Cohen & Associates
Over the course of the last month, I spoke at both the SHRM Talent and SHRM Convention and Expo, both in Las Vegas. After 20 plus months of not being able to interact in person, speaking at the SHRM convention was a rewarding and exhilarating experience. I appreciate the opportunities to conduct webinars, but there is nothing like an in-person presentation and connecting with people, even if it is from behind a mask.
The focus of this year’s SHRM conference focused on four timely concerns: the great resignation, the return to the office, employee wellness, and corporate culture.
What struck me as most interesting was that the presentations on “the great resignation” seemed to focus on working conditions not related to today’s reality. Before the pandemic, it was relevant to say, in general, that “people leave managers, not companies.” But we now find that blanket statement is out of touch with today’s reality. Yet, the majority of presentations focused on that now-dated mantra.
I was having dinner with someone who runs a regional engineering office, and he expressed his deep concerns about managing employee retention. This is a person who has built his professional reputation by focusing on treating his employees with empathy. He has seen 12 employees leave within just the last six months, and almost all of them expressly told him they knew they were not leaving to join a better workplace culture. His long-term and the right-hand person stated he knew he was going to a firm with a culture he does not fit. Then why did he, like so many others, leave to knowingly join a worse cultural fit? It’s simple – his new employer increased his base pay by 50%. When presented with a matched offer, the employee indicated a secondary reason for leaving – reducing his commute from an hour to 20 minutes.
Another fascinating perspective is that the number of job openings currently exceeds the number of people quitting. The US Department of Labour noted 6.9 million resignations in June but listed over 10 million open positions. The question we need to consider is this THE great resignation, or is this the great migration to new and higher-paying positions?
The cause for the pay jump is an interesting one to consider. As the need for talent becomes more urgent, employers are willing to shell out more money for currently underpaid positions. As one person put it in England, the national health system had to mass hire employees to track the virus. In doing this, they necessarily had to increase salaries. Some 750,000 people left the urban centre of London for the countryside. Companies that could not compete for this talent, when the talent was in London, now could offer them more money than others with similar roles had because the cost of living in the countryside reduced their need for significantly higher salaries. All the momentum is in driving up the wages for highly sought-after workers.
The wage increases are similarly also occurring in the US and Canada. Competition for employees is no longer geographically confined. People who have moved and enjoy the new locations know that other options exist for working with companies that embrace remote workers. Companies who demand a total return to the physical office are finding people are saying, “no, that’s not for me.”
Then there is the person at a shipbuilding yard who asked for advice on how to retain a person who is a crucial member of the design team, a long-term employee with hard-to-place knowledge. When asked why he resigned, the reply caused a smile; he left to build a mushroom farm. It was something he had dreamt about for years, and the pandemic has caused people to re-evaluate their priorities. Among the rethinking process is the importance of our values. As people live through this traumatic change due to COVID, they are taking hard and honest accountability for their priorities in life and finding their priorities have changed in line as their values have changed or evolved.
While some people are leaving, no doubt, because of bad managers, most are not seeking employment elsewhere for this reason. Focusing on improving benefits, working hours, and accommodating remote work are all nice. Still, they will not be effective when the employee now has an offer for over 20% of their previous salary. Years ago, the Conference Board of America studied the issue related to retention and turnover. One of the conclusions was that happy employees would leave when offered a 20% or more significant pay increase. Now that people are getting offers exceeding that amount, even the best managers in the world won’t be able to keep a person from moving onto a new company.
Yes, this great resignation is happening across countries and different industries. Your employees are leaving not because your managers are driving them away; instead, they receive offers they can’t refuse. The attrition rates are up because the pandemic has them realizing cutting or eliminating commuting time is something they desire. Having more meaningful time with one’s significant other or children is essential; having more time with loved ones is more important than anything else. People find their values have changed, and the loss of life and impact of COVID has shown them to do what they always wanted – to follow their dreams. People are leaving with or without a job to replace their current source of income because the last 20 months have given them perspective and courage. Please, stop thinking people are leaving only because of bad managers. The most excellent managers in the world can’t stop a person with a dream, a person who wants less communizing time, or a person who sees a way of making significantly more money.
One externality of the pandemic we are now is that people are currently actually working in jobs they like, or at least jobs that pay them an honest wage for the work they are doing.
Another clear thing at SHRM21 was focusing less on work-life balance; everyone knows it has become an empty phrase. People who are valued by the organization and are leaving. The impact of the pandemic on people’s mindset is not intangible; it has caused a revolution of priorities and possibilities.
Stop saying that people leave because of bad managers. In the current employment conditions, your best managers will be losing good people. Let them go once they have considered (or accepted) an offer because they have already mentally checked out from you and your company. Counteroffers likely only delay their departure and cost you time, energy, and frustration.
Four suggestions to help are:
1. Train Managers on Wellness
Start taking the time to train your managers to understand the signs of and deal with employee emotional health. This training is not a web-based independent learning moment. Live virtual training will help make this training more impactful. Focus on how to create a meaningful connection between managers and their direct reports. From the C-Suite to the frontline supervisor, the manager must gain awareness of the signs of anxiety and stress, the questions to ask, and the resources available to help them help the individual. I don’t know of many workplaces that invest in the emotional development of frontline supervisors through to the C-Suite. Suppose you have a Work from Anywhere or Hybrid arrangement. In that case, it is essential to enhance the capability of those who manage others to identify a stressed-out employee and then actually implement the tools to help alleviate the stress. Building the human connection beyond good management 101 skills and behaviours is rare despite this capability becoming more valuable.
2. Ensure You Live Your Authentic Values
Begin to build workplaces with an employee experience focused on living your company values and what your employees need while providing autonomy and the tools and support for their job. Walk the walk.
3. Train Managers on Proper Interviewing Techniques
Invest in training your hiring managers on how to conduct a structured behavioural interview properly. Ensure the interview questions cover the alignment of the individual to the values and the values to behaviours themselves. If the behavioural alignment to the values is missing, don’t hire the person regardless of the candidate’s depth of skills and knowledge. If you don’t have the hiring manager conducting the interview, the hiring manager has no reason to focus on retention. As a result, you may continue to perpetuate the blaming of the recruiters for your bad hires.
4. Provide Honest Realistic Job Previews
Finally, create an honest, realistic job preview. Don’t speak about the company until the end of the interview. Giving context before the start of the job provides the candidate with information on how to answer the questions. Wait until the close. At that time, share stories about how the company, leadership, and individuals live the company values with the candidate. People love stories; your examples of living the values under challenging times enable you to educate the person on the desired behaviours for success unique to your company. The realistic preview also needs to include the reality of working in your company in the job. What are the low points of the job? What will they encounter that cause concerns or are challenges they will face? Understanding these factors and giving them in advance helps the person self-select to take the job. As a result, the potential hire will be mentally prepared and will be no surprises. Sharing this information also reflects your honesty and integrity about the working conditions.
People will not leave because of bad managers or lack of fit to the company culture. You cannot stop the great migration. However, you can certainly help build the retention of your new hires to ensure a more stable and consistent workforce.
By David S. Cohen
