Organizations today are facing never-before-seen difficulty in acquiring and retaining talent. “The Great Resignation,” also commonly referred to as “The Great Reshuffle,” has drastically disrupted organizations around the world. Over the course of 2021, over 47 million Americans quit their jobs, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This trend continued for quite a while, with April 2022 being the eleventh consecutive month in which over 4 million people in the United States resigned.
Additionally, 83 percent of HR professionals are reporting recruiting problems, and 73 percent of Fortune 1000 company CEOs anticipate the work shortage brought on by the Great Resignation will disrupt their businesses over the next 12 months. 57 percent of these CEOs believe attracting talent is among the biggest challenges for their organization, and 35 percent have already expanded benefits to bolster employee retention.
Even before the Great Resignation, employee acquisition and retention have been a costly challenge for businesses and other organizations.
- According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), employee turnover can be as much as 50 percent in the first 18 months of employment.
- SHRM estimates that it will cost a company six to nine months of an employee’s salary to identify and onboard a replacement.
What Employees Want: Learning and Development Opportunities
Organizations who want to hire and effectively retain talent should take note of what it is that workers are looking for in their jobs: opportunities for learning and development. 57 percent of U.S. workers want to update their skills, and 48 percent would consider switching jobs to do it. In addition, 71 percent of workers say job training and development increase their job satisfaction, and 61 percent say upskilling opportunities are an important reason to stay at their job. On top of all this, studies show that 94 percent of workers would stay at their company if their company invested in their careers.
Gen Z and Millennials in particular find learning and development to be a crucial reason to stay with a company. A 2022 Deloitte survey found that these younger workers are more likely to stay with an employer who offers opportunities for personal and professional growth, with 29 percent of respondents from each generation saying that learning and development opportunities were the top reason why they chose to work for their current organization. And 66 percent of workers between 18 and 24 years of age ranked upskilling and reskilling as the third-most important benefit when assessing new job opportunities, behind health insurance and disability benefits.
A structured and comprehensive learning and development program for employee training, upskilling, and reskilling can help organizations tremendously in attracting, engaging, and retaining talent.
Upskilling and Reskilling for the Future
The future of work will require a vast number of workers to undergo upskilling and reskilling in order to succeed and thrive in the workplace. Statistics show just how important upskilling and reskilling will be for the future:
- Business leaders surveyed for the most recent Future of Jobs report said that around 40 percent of their workforce will require reskilling in the near future.
- According to research and advisory firm Gartner, the number of skills required for a single job increases 10 percent annually.
- One-third of the skills that appeared in an average job posting in 2017 are no longer needed in 2021.
- A 2018 study by Dell Technologies predicted that 85 percent of jobs in 2030 don’t yet exist.
- The World Economic Forum estimates that over half of all employees (54 percent) will require ‘significant’ reskilling by 2022.
A Clear Opportunity for Organizations
In order to both retain employees and prepare for the future of work, organizations can and should offer employees opportunities for upskilling and reskilling through structured, strategic, and comprehensive training programs. Training programs provide opportunities for employee learning and development, thereby increasing employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention, while also preparing an organization for the fast-approaching future.
Training programs can take many forms, including live, virtual instructor-led training and e-learning videos and courses. Live, virtual instructor-led training allows for the same level of face-to-face interaction and collaboration as in-person training sessions but can be delivered effectively and efficiently to a global workforce. Comprehensive, interactive, and expertly designed training videos provide workers with a valuable, accessible, and thorough method of e-learning that can be accessed from anywhere, at any time. Both of these approaches are extremely valuable for businesses and organizations looking to retain, upskill, and reskill workers with remote and hybrid work arrangements.
To go one step further, organizations can have custom training video content developed, in order to deliver a more specified and personalized training experience to employees, with these videos focusing on the exact information and training workers will need based on their specific jobs and day-to-day processes and procedures.
