A Respectful, Open Letter to Employers: Stop Blaming the Great Resignation and Start Re-Investing in Your Talent

At this very moment, your most cherished employees are planning their exit strategy.?The entry-level candidate you celebrated upon her hire three years ago just updated her LinkedIn after skimming the “Jobs Where You’d Be a Top Applicant.”?Your trusted mid-career manager was just offered a job that was never posted, after casually inquiring with friends just weeks ago about potential openings in their departments.?And the colleague you thought would never leave YOU let alone your institution, just asked if you would serve as a reference for a promotional opportunity in another sector he and his family could simply not refuse if it comes through. ??

Over the past two years in my former Associate Vice President and now Senior Associate Dean roles with Franklin & Marshall College, I have had the privilege of advising and mentoring hundreds of students and graduates formally as part of my job, and many more friends and colleagues informally because of my career development expertise, about their career satisfaction and aspirations. The common thread among my many coaching conversations: in most instances, employee separation was preventable.?But for feeling undervalued, not seen or appreciated, my students, graduates, friends, and colleagues would never have thought to resign.

Yes, the Great Resignation is a real thing.?As is the clarity one experiences after living through pandemic-inspired furloughs, hiring freezes and job redesigns, and the corresponding disruptions to previously-stable childcare arrangements and vacation plans. ?But the Great Resignation does not excuse valuing talent any less, and being less efficacious leaders because of recent labor market trends. ?

Two years of absorbing, coaching, and empowering talent of varied seasons during the COVID-19 pandemic prompts this brief but respectful letter and the following advice to employers who truly care about talent retention:

1. Invest as much in retaining your talent as you did in attracting them.?

The pandemic has introduced significant stressors to nearly every area of life, personal and professional. Your talent is burnt out. They are over capacity, mentally, physically, and emotionally. ?Their spouses, parents, and children, whom they support on a daily basis, are also burnt out.?Yet your talent still shows up for you and your organization, often doing more than what is asked and staying later than what is expected.?

Before your organization unnecessarily hemorrhages even more talent to competitors or institutions thriving in other sectors, consider for a moment the effort that went into attracting your employees.?All the time and money that went into posting opportunities, screening employee referrals, interviewing, reference and on-boarding.?What if the same care that went into convincing someone to join your organization was repurposed to convincing them to stay??Perhaps you offer a “just because” employee appreciation lunch.?An overdue and well-deserved promotion for responsibilities the employee has been performing informally for years within “other tasks as assigned”? ?Or a simple, individualized email thanking someone for going out of their way to make a colleague or client feel valued.?Even that small of a gesture could be enough. ?

2.??????Be a leader who inspires confidence and trust in a time of uncertainty and instability.

A wise mentor once shared, that “talent leaves managers and supervisors, not organizations.”?Think about that. Your most loyal and effective employees may adore your organization: its mission, its values, and its offerings.?They may treat their colleagues like family, inviting them to weddings, vacations, and important hallmark life experiences.?But they will leave all of it if they do not feel seen and valued by their managers and supervisors.?

If you have the privilege of hiring, managing, and overseeing talent for your organization, do your employees trust that you have their back? Even as you execute your tasks in support of your role’s bottom-line and client-driven goals and priorities? Do your employees have confidence in your leadership? Do they trust your ability to lead them through the uncertainties, stressors, and challenges the pandemic seems to introduce on a daily basis??If you are a leader who inspires confidence and trust in this regard, your valued employees will not leave you…or the organization and their colleagues.

3.??????Intentionally inject and co-create joyful moments in the workplace.?

Experiencing joy at work engenders meaning and connection. It fosters recognition of place and contentment.?It re-energizes and fuels one’s will to be, produce, partner, and impact.?Yet intentionally creating and injecting joyful moments in the workplace is rarely a priority and often the afterthought.?

When was the last time you connected with employees on the impact of your organization’s mission and offerings? Or celebrated a collaborative achievement? Or supported an initiative that brings employees together from different divisions, geographies, and functions to co-create a positive social impact experience? A joyful employee experience and positive culture can extend employee tenure by miles.

While following these suggestions may not guarantee employee retention, it will stem some of those preventable departures and, frankly, the volume of advising and mentorship conversations I have in the coming months that would prompt a follow-up to this respectful letter.

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