Take it from me, we haven’t seen a labor market like this in years (the most similar occurrence I’ve seen was post-Recession 2019).
So what’s going on here?
It seems like in the Summer of 2022, the pendulum is swinging again.
In a June 2021 issue of SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) Magazine, the tag line was the “Resignation Tsunami” predicted to hit this summer. The cause? Uncertainty in the market has caused normal attrition to drop to zero since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020.
Turnover generally occurs at a regular rate, even if you are a “world class” organization. No matter how awesome your team, mission, and culture is, inevitably, members of a team will find greener pastures elsewhere. However, normal attrition has not been happening.
On top of that, at the time industries were seeing a major shift due to the pandemic. Sectors experiencing mass layoffs (i.e. travel, hospitality, entertainment, etc) had a mass exodus of qualified talent that have since re-skilled in other industries. Those that were in the restaurant business may have re-trained as a customer services representative. An event planner may be working in logistics. The bleak outlook made many question the viability of their career path and jump to another.
These factors created a perfect storm for employers — a strained job market along with an increased risk of star players jumping ship.
In 2022, we’re looking at economic uncertainty – with a new series of challenges and opportunities. War, inflation, rounds of layoffs, the job market suddenly cooling. It seems as if a new attention grabbing headline increases our fears each day.
Are you leading a team or business and want to weather the latest climate? Here are some of my top suggestions:
Be willing to have hard conversations with your leadership team. So often, we don’t want to even broach the topic of turnover and economic uncertainty because we think that we employ loyal team members that would never consider another place of employment. Get uncomfortable— be willing to talk about the impact if members of your team choose to be employed elsewhere. While you certainly want to do everything in your power to keep them with you, their choice to leave may be beyond what you can control.
Have a clear succession plan. The reality is — any of your employees could win the lottery tomorrow and choose not to return to work. Do you have any key players that this scenario would “break” your organization? If so, you need to ensure you have a succession plan in place. Nobody wants to be replaceable, but in truth, we must be prepared to shift if needed.
Make sure to cross train your team. This means training in a skill or task that is part of another person’s normal job description. Cross training can be a positive opportunity to help build skills across the organization. An added bonus is that even if your team does not have to put their cross trained skills to use, they can have a better understanding of how their role impacts others.
Empower your team to weather challenging times. Uncertainty and ambiguity gives your team the ability to utilize their skills. Learning about interpersonal dynamics and problem solving style can help your team navigate difficult situations with greater awareness. We offer a course called “Problem Solving Made Personal” to get the conversation started. We’ve found that increasing awareness of problem solving style reduces team conflict while leveraging diversity of thought.
Want to learn how we partner with teams just like yours to help navigate uncertainty? Schedule a free discovery call today.
