The future of employee retention - learning from retention strategies in 2022

Experts and researchers learned a great deal about employee retention strategies in 2022. Dubbed “The Great Resignation” these past few years have been marked by increased turnover, and according to Gartner and Harvard Business Review, employers in 2022 and after can expect at 50-70% increase in turnover over the next few years when compared to previous turnover rates. All of this means that having a strategy to retain your employees is more important than ever, so much so that it’s worth reviewing what we learned in 2022, and start considering the future, through 2023 and beyond.

3 Key Themes from 2022 Employee Retention Strategies

When reviewing employee retention strategies covered in 2022, there are three big themes that emerge: reinvention, progression, and potential recognition. Together, these concepts can help to build holistic employee retention techniques to help keep the talent you have, re-energize them within the organization, and allow the organization and your people to grow in unison. Of course, this is easier said than done. Let’s get into it. 

1. Embrace Reinvention.

   Organizations are finding themselves reinventing in many ways over the past few years, and it seems that the pandemic catalyzed a sea change of sorts. From flexible hours, to hybrid roles, to increased globalization of the workforce, organizations were changed by the pandemic and now employees often expect these options from their workplace. But this reinvention is also an incredible opportunity, an opportunity to change with the tides, help keep your employees happy, and also become a nimbler, more cohesive organization that is on the same page. Thinking ahead, reinvention should also create a corporate culture that allows employees to reinvent themselves, either with pre-existing skills, growing into new expertise, or “squiggling” into roles that capitalize on both what they are passionate about and what your organization needs. But don’t worry, reinvention is a cooperative process, where neither the employer nor the employee go at it alone, and instead help each other, communicate, and grow together. This level of transparency and flexibility is aligned with so much of 2022 employee retention strategies research that showed us that as organizations are being required to change, their employees want to grow with them. 
   
   Hiring and growth practices of years past fit a very narrow understanding of career trajectory. First, it was less common for individuals to make a career change, and second, if they did it was generally the expectation that they would be required to look for another job elsewhere, outside of their current employer. But today’s market shows us that it does not have to be this way and, actually, modern employees are embracing more flexibility and reinvention when thinking about their career paths - whether that be pivoting mid-career, or building a career plan that allows for them to run their own race, rather than stay in a previously prescribed corporate lane. Studies show that over 50% of employees who quit their jobs in 2022 did so because they were seeking a career change. As your organization changes and optimizes for the economy and market demands, reconsider your current workforce, and how they might be interested and capable of pivoting their current skills, and learning new skills to accommodate what your organization needs. Doing this will breed increased employee loyalty because you invested in them while investing in the organization’s needs and also provide you with a highly-relevant pool of candidates who already know the in’s and out’s of your culture, have a strong social community at work, and can be fully optimized for their new role, sooner.
   
   

2. Progression is on Par with Promotion.

   When organizations and workers follow a linear career path, the goal is promotion. Hierarchical organizations often have small steps on a set career path, each with bumps in pay and increased responsibilities to go along. But this process is no longer aligned with modern work-life in all instances. While there are certainly some employees who really identify and want to continue with the same job role long-term, many people yearn for progression, and that can even trump promotion. For nearly half of millennials, the largest generational group currently in the workforce, learning and development is paramount and was found to be their most important consideration when selecting an organization. Furthermore, working millennials reported that less than half of their employers were providing learning and development opportunities.
   
   From an employee retention strategy, this tells us that it’s not that employees want to necessarily leave their employers, it’s that sometimes they outgrow them. This corresponds with 2022 employee retention data that found that while employees want to work, their current workplace, role, or organizational structure was simply too rigid for what they hoped to learn and do in the future. Since 63% of employees who left their jobs reported a lack of access to internal opportunities at their former employer, being able to reframe, help aid progression, and reimagine your current talent pool is an incredible strategy for employee retention. The barrier to this type of thinking lies in the promotion mindset, since moving talent from one department to another, or helping to train talent to stretch into new expertise often does not make sense with a traditional promotion strategy. But, luckily for you, this is not that important, as data for both millennials and Gen Z point to a modern career outlook that values progress over promotion, and places great importance on learning new skills long-term.
   
   

3. Recognize latent potential and pair with passion.

   The most important step in  reinventing and seeking progression as employee retention strategies is for your organization to get, well, organized. Recognizing talent, along with passion and interest, requires leaders and administrators to have a strong idea of what their current employee population knows, what they hope to learn, and where they have been putting in efforts to expand their skills. This means knowing when your people are ready (and hungry) for a change, and what it will take to get them there, and to simultaneously stay with you to do so. Another important element of this is making sure your own people are aware of their skills as well, and that all the information is on the table, easy-to-access, and transparent. Doing so empowers your people and gives them the agency and confidence they need to apply to a role outside their department or on the fringe of their current role. Additionally, it allows them to see their skills gaps, and it helps your organization to identify skills gaps early-on, and proactively train, optimize, and prepare for future growth.

   If understanding the skills and growth areas for your workplace and people is so important, why is it so difficult to achieve? Because it requires a central hub, or a one-brain approach to talent management. Think about how most organizations hire - the director of the department (who often offloads this chore to the senior manager of his or her department) digs up a previous job description for hires of this role in the past. But this job description might not be current, and certainly does not represent all the skills a candidate or current employee may have in their arsenal.

   Consider this example:

Your financial technology organization is looking for a senior software engineer and searches inside and outside of the organization for someone with at least five years of experience in a software engineering role. You find someone that’s perfect for the job, and that might mean that the case is closed on ever looking at the other skills that hire may already bring to the table. For instance, say that hire had ten years in finance before moving to software engineering? Suddenly he or she might be the perfect fit for the data analyst or data scientist role you are hoping to fill three years later, and you may pass them by, or they might not even feel confident applying. This would be a shame if they have 85% of what they need to hit the ground running and could easily fill their skills in very little time. Not to mention they are already onboarded with employee benefits, have organization equipment, and have relationships within the organization. Getting organized means recognizing latent potential and unearthing skill sets to help ignite engagement with your people and move your organization forward. While this type of organization might be painful in the beginning, it truly leads to a nimbler and more holistically talented organization, where employees can play important cross-functional roles, provide immediate value, and attain the growth and learning opportunities they crave.

What We Learned From Retention Strategies in 2022

So what does a fully integrated employee strategy look like holistically and what can we learn from employee retention strategies discussed in 2022? If organizations really want to avoid “The Great Resignation” it all comes down to an interview candidate through a tenured employee perspective. That is, the talent retention pipeline begins when the candidate first applies for the job and involves integrating who they are as a whole person with varied skill sets into the process. This may seem premature, but consider the benefits: a candidate might not be the perfect match for a vacancy in one department, but have the skills needed to fill a much-needed role in an adjacent department. It is worth at least asking that candidate if they would consider interviewing for another role, or finding out where their long-term passions lie. This prevents talent slipping through the organization’s metaphorical fingers from the beginning, shows commitment to the candidates, and immediately introduces a culture of flexibility, progress, and reinvention. 

Or perhaps someone has been thriving within the same role for several years but there isn’t an opportunity for them to progress further in that department or to a more senior position in that role. This is when tenured employees start to get bored, disengage, and look elsewhere with their talents. Rather than offer them a role that doesn’t exist or increase their salary for a job that they are already too proficient (read: bored) at, this is the perfect time to re-examine their skills, find out how they are interested in growing, and what learning and education resources are already available to them — and then, start nudging them to personalized and meaningful opportunities. Many organizations already offer tuition reimbursement, which not only helps to up-skill your people but also retains them longer, but we have also seen the rise of additional education options that are incredibly cost-efficient such as Coursera, Treehouse, Code Academy, and Google Certificates. All of these options (as well as many more) provide easy and affordable means to help your people learn what they need to learn, progress in their careers, and challenge themselves in a way that is much more likely to keep them engaged and bringing their best to work each day.

Steps You Can Take to Build a Workforce Retention Strategy For The Future

Reimagining your employee talent pipeline can feel overwhelming, but there are concrete next steps you can take, and the process can be tackled in bite-size pieces.

1. The first step is to conduct an internal audit of the information you already have.

   Do you have access to all the skills, interests, roles, learnings and possible pathways for your people? The likely answer is ‘a little bit’ but not accessible or all in one spot. Workforce intelligence platforms like Reejig can help to unearth all the data you have about your workforce and create a central nervous system or central hub for all talent decisions — removing the manual burden we all dread. Through extracting skills from all your existing data sources — from your ATS, CRM, LSM and HRIS to public profiles on LinkedIn as well — you can build a complete skills ontology for your organization as well as access automated skills profiles for every individual including insights about current skills, likely skills, readiness for change, and brand engagement. Couple this with the ability to create a central Opportunity Marketplace containing all your role-based opportunities from your ATS alongside non-role based opportunities (projects, gigs, etc.), you can begin matching talent to opportunities based on skills and creating meaningful opportunities for your people. A critical driver in employee retention.
   
   

2. Second is, of course, to communicate to employees why you are doing this.

   If you just show up one day and ask them all to update their CV’s, there will undoubtedly be widespread panic. Consult with your head of Human Resources or Internal Communication expert to develop proactive and transparent information on why it is helpful and valuable to know what all of the talented people at your organization are capable of. From there, make incremental changes, look out for those that immediately show an interest in this initiative, and incorporate a mindset and leadership culture of flexibility, change as a positive, and innovation.
   
   

3. Finally, get to action and start being proactive.

   With rich insights about who your people are, what interests they have, what their potential is, and how you can best connect them with opportunities — you are now in a position to proactively engage them with meaningful career opportunities. How? Reejig’s Workforce Intelligence uses Ethical AI to predict critical moments in a person’s career and inform you ‘when’ and ‘what’ to nudge to drive change. For example, you can spot at-risk talent who are likely to resign and proactively nudge them to learning or career opportunities to re-engage them with your organization. You can also identify patterns of attrition across skillsets, teams, departments, and functions early so you can put retention actions in place.

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