Essential HR Practices in the Era of The Great Resignation | #hrmanagement #hrexecutive

Employees are too-often quitting for reasons that are solvable problems. The so-called “Big Quit” has affected companies across the United States. Workers resigned, switched, or retired from jobs in record numbers in 2021. And while the reasons people quit are unique to each individual, you can be sure both upper management and those responsible for HR and the so-called ‘employee lifecycle’ of recruiting, hiring, training, and firing were huge parts of any employee’s decision about leaving a company. Companies that have a quality team managing their HR department and HR strategy are much less likely to suffer from excessive employee turnover and any new employees hired during this recent seismic time of change will be much more likely to stay on board, and perhaps even assist in finding other high-quality candidates.

 There are job openings all across the United States right now. There are jobs in Chicago, jobs in Houston, jobs in New York City, and, of course, jobs in more rural areas as well. Filling all these positions in all these locations is a challenge and competition for the best workers will intensify throughout 2022. The winners will be companies with quality HR. When this department does its job well, it becomes less of a challenge to convince new people to jump aboard, and reaffirms to current employees that a company is worth staying at as well. 

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

HR should support employees in 6 important ways. 

 Companies that offer training programs in IT – or any other relevant field for that matter – or perhaps pay portions of tuition, are companies that signal to employees that they care about their long-term interests. Even if an employee who receives some sort of educational stipend or training program eventually leaves your company, they will leave with a story of how they learned and grew, making the existing employee a positive testimonial for the policies of your company.

2. Wellness and health

 It sounds simple but it’s sometimes forgotten that employees are human beings… with all the frailty that comes with that. Keeping abreast of workers’ physical, mental, and financial health isn’t easy, but it’s a core mission for HR. Make sure your HR team clearly explains to employees how they can help and what resources the company can bring to bear in the event of some crisis or difficulty. 

Guidance for those who will guide is essential. To keep teams functional, the head of that team must themselves be functional. It’s shocking to note how many people said they decided to quit their job in 2021 due to the simple reason of not getting along with their supervisor. HR can offer training, but should also be aware enough to sometimes understand that replacing a problem manager is the solution. Some people are not suited to certain positions. Which makes more sense: Lose 10 employees because of one bad manager, or replace the manager? –It’s a no-brainer. 

4. HR can assist employees with career growth. 

Explaining to an employee how they can have a long future with the company and how their career path will unfold can help many employees make a long-term commitment.

5. Keep employees informed of their benefits

For example, let’s say an employee has a bonus in their contract in exchange for some performance metric being met. It can be easy for an employee to forget or do not realize how close they are to achieving that goal. A simple email informing the employee that they only have so much more to go before they reach that bonus could be all a person needs to recommit to the job and become reinvigorated and motivated. 

6. Disciplinary actions

Let’s say someone is constantly late. And most companies, first there would be a series of warnings that grow ever sterner, followed by a final notice and then perhaps termination. But how many people in HR consider asking why the employee is constantly late? Perhaps they have a childcare issue, or perhaps they have a transportation problem. It’s not HR’s job to solve every life problem of every employee, but when the opportunity arises to assist an employee, HR should grab it. Not only because it’s the right thing to do and could help the person become a better employee, but it helps the bottom line as well.

Anyone in the industry knows how extremely expensive turnover is – recruitment and training are huge drains on company resources. If you were to discover that a person has a transportation issue that makes them frequently late, and then help them solve it by perhaps carpooling to work with another employee that lives nearby, you could save the employee… and save the company a considerable sum. That is of course a hypothetical situation that was hypothetically solved quite easily. In the real world, most problems cannot be solved so easily. But the point is that it’s worth giving problem-solving a shot.