The Great Eras & The Great Retention

I'm creating my legacy as The Culture Coach. I'm starting a movement around teaching organizations how to integrate retention as the primary focus. Most of the organizations that I aligned with throughout my career did not pay much attention to retention. Their culture and values were in place, however, their ability to hire and retain top talent was questionable, even at the largest global organizations. I am on a crusade to show organizations of any size and scope how to put their focus back on professional development of their employees, develop logical career paths for growth and promotion, applaud achievements, respect all people and their ideas, lead by example, and create a retention-based culture. 

Most of us don't remember The Great Depression in the US way back in the 1930's, following Black Monday's Stock Market crash in 1929, however, in 2009, we experienced our own version in the The Great Recession, with a record number of home foreclosures and a tanking stock market. 

The Great Resignation 

The Great Resignation that began in 2021, during the global pandemic of remote work, included employee dissatisfaction and a desire for better work-life balance. Among the most cited reasons for resigning included wage stagnation amid rising cost of living, limited opportunities for career advancement, hostile work environments, lack of benefits, inflexible remote-work policies, and long-lasting job dissatisfaction, according to Wikipedia. The Great Resignation started a people-first shift for organizations.

According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics, 47.8 million workers quit their jobs, an average of 4 million each month, meaning 2021 holds the highest average on record, topping the 2019 average of 3.5 million. Stimulus checks in the US during the global pandemic is thought to be a key motivator during that time.

The Great Restructuring 

Tech layoffs dominated the news cycles starting in late 2022. It began with Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk culling around 50% of the social media giant’s workforce, Mark Zuckerberg laying off around 11,000 staff at Meta, and Amazon cutting twenty thousand corporate jobs starting in mid-November of 2022 and continuing through 2023. In fact, on August of 2023, Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, declared a mandatory return to office (RTO) policy, even though Amazon predominantly hired remote employees for the previous three years, stating if you can't come back to an office, then this company is not for you. 

The Great Restructuring of 2023 was much bigger and more widespread than anything that has ever been seen before. It had both positive and negative impacts on organizations both large and small, and those affected needed to adapt to the challenge of building the right, robust organizational structure. On the positive side, organizations reduced overhead, mostly around compensation and benefit costs, saving millions of dollars. On the negative side, the market is now flooded with able and willing experts that did not expect or anticipate the massive layoffs that occurred. Organizations are experiencing a higher-than-normal volume of regretted attrition and losing a lot of knowledge as workers leave to find a better home for their services. The Great Restructuring was used by organizations as a motivator to reallocate critical functions into newly created positions, eliminating waste and redundancies.

The Great Reshuffle

The Great Reshuffle, beginning in late 2023, has seen professionals not only change jobs, but in many cases entirely reinvent their career directions, in order to achieve more peace of mind, happiness, flexibility, work-life balance in their personal lives, and eliminate past toxic work environments. We have endured a poor US economy in the recent years, resulting in many workers moving to a fractional mindset, where they offer their expertise, knowledge, and skills as consultants in their field. Most of this recent reduction in force activity was due to poor pandemic hiring practices, unsound leadership decisions, mandatory return to office policies, toxic organizational cultures, and over hiring throughout the global pandemic, known as the panic hiring method. 

The Great Retention 

That said, it's time for The Great Retention, a new era where people are valued, respected, appreciated, challenged, promoted based on accomplishments and contributions, and given opportunities to grow their skills and subject matter expertise. There are some brilliant people that have podcasts around this exact topic and it's time to take notice. Organizational rightsizing has made many companies lean and better situated for future economic headwinds, and now is the time to turn the spotlight on talent. Those that remain deserve better. It's time to start treating your employees and team members like they deserve to be treated. Stop the typical 'kick the can down the road' "manager speak" of false promises and zero follow through on spoken commitments. Start creating a culture of growth and opportunity. Continue building on your organizational values, mission, and vision. 

Change management is never easy, however, it's time to let go of antiquated thinking and start a new chapter of putting people first. Appreciate your team through specific actions that make people feel special and valued, bringing in a new era of open, honest, and timely feedback, communication and follow through. A new era of follow through on commitments, a passion for customer outcomes, and a focus on the long-term impact of investing in your people. 

Retention-based Culture Focus

Five Questions to Consider in The Great Retention Era:

1.     Will the potential outcome or consequences of this decision engage or disengage my team/employees?

2.     Will this program, project or event bring joy, excitement, fun, belonging, inclusion, and happiness to my team/employees?

3.     Does this path, decision, or direction enhance or detract from the organizational values, mission, and vision we have in place?

4.     Will this program reduce regretted attrition and retain our top talent?

5.     What changes or additions will help create a retention-based culture?

The Great Retention is about your most valuable and important asset, your people. Your people drive results, add value, and grow your organization. Your role is to provide a work environment and experience that challenges, engages, grows, and satisfies the people you employ. To encourage healthy risk, learn from each other and any mistakes, appreciate one another for your gifts and contributions, and celebrate the differences, work experiences, and uniqueness that each person offers. The Great Retention is providing career growth, a greater investment in learning strategies, the development of your leadership skills for the entire organization, continuous improvement measures, and raising the bar around performance, results, and a positive work environment and organizational culture. 

The Great Retention will focus on dramatically improving business culture and work environments, reducing regretted attrition, building internal professional development programs, creating career development opportunities with specific milestones to achieve, the achievement of professional goals, and providing a work/life balance that drives employee satisfaction. Also, the development of leadership awareness and skills, and the addition of driving higher business emotional intelligence among your people leaders will pay great dividends to your organizational leaders, your people, and your culture, that will enable the organization to retain its best people longer. 

Which organizations see The Great Retention as an opportunity to take your team to the next level? I would truly appreciate your comments. Contact me to discover the PMA Four Retention Realms and 24 Culture Zones needed to create a retention-based culture and let's all turn our focus and attention on retaining top talent, taking our culture to the next level, creating an engaging and inclusive work environment where people thrive, and appreciating, valuing, and respecting everyone on the team. 

Mark Krajnik, LSSGB, CPC, (The Culture Coach) is the CEO at Performance Mindset Associates (PMA). Mark is a tenured Talent Strategist, Executive Coach, and experienced people leader, and offers fractional chief people officer services. He is an Executive Talent Leader in recruitment operations, executive search, talent acquisition, L&D, culture coaching, human capital consulting, change management, and talent management. He is very passionate about people, building high-performance teams, creating retention-focused cultures, and career development. He brings a focus on performance, execution, creative problem solving, and goal achievement. Please go to performancemindset.co for more information or send an email to info@performancemindset.co.