In recent years, extensive business research and reports, on both economic and workplace trends, have begun to analyze and factualize the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on the ongoing labor crisis and the Great Resignation Era.
Researchers and academics have gone about analyzing these issues depending on what their overall objectives are for their study or report.
Karen Natzel, an HR-oriented business therapist who helps employers create vibrant and high-performing organizations, published in October 2021 a New Orleans CityBusiness analysis of the Great Resignation Era and employee retention strategies. She goes into great depth about what employees are currently looking for in a job or career and gives employer readers a step-by-step guide of what strategies they should implement in order to make sure they attract, as well as keep, new employees for their company.
The analysis
Natzel starts off by clarifying how the Great Resignation Era has caused much anxiety for employers, since “this past spring, we witnessed job openings at an unprecedented 9.3 million. In August, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that ‘4.3 million Americans, or 2.9 percent of the entire workforce, quit their jobs,’ according to National Public Radio” (Natzel 2021).
As I have discussed in my prior blog ‘How the Great Resignation Era Has Affected Business… and How to Keep Going,’ there are over 5 million more open jobs than there are unemployed people unwilling to fill them. Natzel commented how the UC Berkeley economist Ulrike Malmendier wrote that the pandemic and rise of remote work has altered how people view their lives and priorities, especially when it comes to work. “This kind of revolutionary soul searching demands our [employers’] attention and shapes our choices” (Natzel 2021).
Image ‘Changed Priorities Ahead sign’ by R/DV/RS CC BY 2.0 Flickr.
This means that employers are reassessing what matters most to keep their business going, which many have found to be improving on the wants and needs of their workers:
Recently a client shared that the business nearly lost a good employee who felt underpaid and burned-out. The employee sought relief via a new career path elsewhere, and one that the HR director knew was not a good fit. After extended conversations with the team member, the HR director was able to retain the employee by addressing compensation and revising the role to meet both the individual’s needs and the organization’s needs. She approached the issue with what was first and foremost in the best interest of the employee.
Natzel then directly tells employer readers what retention strategies and considerations they should make, stating how “rather than grasping, handwringing or lamenting, consider this workforce shift a necessary disruption to building a stronger, healthier culture. Think of it as an opportunity to deepen your understanding of team members and your connection to them.”
She provides the following considerations:
- Nurture a “work community.”
- Whether our work is a means to an end or a cultivated identity, it can be made richer if the relationships are authentic, supportive and trusted. Relationships are nurtured with real conversations about what really matters, by investing time and energy to get to know each other, by respecting our differences, and by keeping our agreements. Healthy team dynamics shape a sense of community that feeds the human need for connection. An investment in people’s abilities to communicate, connect and grow is an investment in a work community.
- Build in flexibility.
- Working from home has unearthed the possibilities of prioritizing our nonwork life. Taking care of ourselves, our families, our friends and community has emerged as essential to our well-being. Having flexibility in how we structure our days, how we contribute to a project, or how we deliver on our accountabilities has become an alluring approach to employee happiness…As organizations build flexibility into their DNA, they may also gain the added benefits of being nimble and creative in their work product.
- Invite engagement for your team’s sake, not the bottom line.
- Yes, you are in business to serve your mission and make money. If, however, you understand what team members value and where they find meaning, you are making space for the whole person. And that whole person is more likely to feel inspired to show up in an engaged manner. As you deepen your understanding of what makes your team tick, you are better positioned to build on their strengths and invoke their best selves.
Image ‘Conditions for Employee Engagement’ by Get Everwise CC BY-SA 2.0 Flickr.
What it means for readers
Natzel’s analysis on employee retention strategies, and considerations for employers to make, shows the importance of having happy and connected workers by acknowledging their voice in the company and devotion to their own personal lives.
She notes how Derek Thompson of The Atlantic wrote that the Great Resignation Era is ushering in “a centrifugal moment in American economic history.” He gives the opinion that it’s needed; “Gimme an economy with more quits, more migration, and more entrepreneurship. It will be better for workers, for families, for productivity, and for technological development and innovation” (Thompson 2021).
For the employers, Natzel’s analysis also shows that employers determine the course of their own business for better or for worse. Employers have the power of adjusting their businesses as they see fit, yet if they embrace the shifting landscape of the workplace and needs of its people, then their struggle for employee retention will shift fundamentally. The invitation that Natzel makes is to think differently than before, and to think in terms “of what will make life better.
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Business Wellness 