UK 
United States
With the 19 July ‘Freedom Day’, on which all workplaces were invited to again legally reopen by the Government, having now been and gone, many workplaces will be concerned that the next phase in the return to some semblance of normal may well trigger mass resignations, as workers either act on the intentions that they’ve delayed over the past year, or simply decide that this new phase of working life requires a personal new start.
And these concerns, oft labelled the ‘great resignation’, are indeed supported by stats. In fact, data from the Achievers Employee Engagement and Retention Report, which was released earlier this year, suggests that a whopping 52% of workers plan on looking for new jobs in 2021. This not only presents a potential skills crisis in a period of candidate-driven market growth, but also a severe cost to the business in retraining and hiring practices. According to Glassdoor data, the average cost of recruitment within the UK for a new employee is £3,000 – if even a small portion of your staff opt to leave within a similar timeframe, these costs can add up significantly.
But there may well be a simpler and more cost-effective solution. Whilst some may presume that an increase in wages was the top ambition of employees in this time, pay issues have never been the number one reason employees leave their jobs. And this reason for leaving a role dropped even further during the pandemic, and stood at 23% less than in 2018.
In fact, it seems that the number one factor that workers are seeking in this time is the opportunity to level up their skills. Employees that feel their company offers positive learning opportunities are 21% less likely to have left their organisation for a new role in the last three years. On top of this, nearly 60% of workers embarked upon their own skills training last year, highlighting an unfulfilled appetite in the workforce for greater knowledge.
