Keep All Your Options Open to Fight Against The Great Resignation

The Great Resignation. Quiet Quitting. Inflation. The issues related to hiring and retaining employees in the United States has never been more meme-worthy. Or difficult. Attracting candidates has never been a difficult task for contact centers across the United States. Until now. For months, companies have lamented the number of applicants who fail to show for job interviews, the number of new hires who fail to show for their first day of work, and the number of new hires who don’t show up for their second day of work. The dynamic of power has shifted to employees and away from employers, and made it incredibly hard for employers to find and keep people in their offices. This, on top of the dynamic of trying to bring employees back to the office after two years of mainly remote work during the pandemic has made it even more difficult for employers.

Making matters even worse for employers is a historic drop in productivity during the past six months. Labor productivity fell 6% during the first six months of the year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This marks the largest two-quarter decline in more than 75 years. On top of reduced output, overall engagement among employees is also lower than it was before the pandemic struck.

To rise above the fray and try to avoid issues related to finding and retaining employees in their call centers, companies need to keep an open mind and not be afraid of thinking outside of the box when it comes to where their employees are found, and from where they work. Whether this includes using novel or creative ways to find employees or whether other ideas — like using business-process outsourcing firms — are entertained and put into practice, companies need to keep all their options on the table. The cost associated with hiring and re-training new staff are too great, especially at a time when margins are thinner than ever.

At the very least, companies should not rule anything out, and should evaluate all the different options available to them, because you never know from where a good idea can come. Ideas that may have seen uneconomical or ill-suited in the past may now make more sense.