The pandemic fundamentally scared companies. For the first time in a number of years, companies were scrambling to hold onto staff and watching a growing wave of vacancies erode any capacity for production, even after forced separation was no longer required. Some corporations even went so far as to continue to pay employees during their time off in order to prevent them from becoming available on the market and getting hired by a competitor.
For years, compensation was the most reliable and easiest motivation to hold onto valued employees. However, as new generations, such as millennials and even younger, started joining the workforce, much more than compensation started to be considered in order to retain valuable skilled employees.
Understand What Employees Value
Looking at the landscape now, especially after the pandemic scare, the big categories of employee discontent are both still predictable and unexpected. In a world where companies have been challenged with a lack of candidates available for many roles, employees in 2021 pegged three reasons for being willing to jump:
- Unjustified compensation
- A lack of career mapping and career growth opportunities by employers
- Imposter syndrome and a lack of appreciation at work
Compensation is an area where companies can implement immediate change if they’re willing to and are in the right financial situation; however, that approach has repeatedly proven to be a poor long-term solution for retention. Personal values, family and work/life balance, and career achievement have gained much higher worth for employees, enough to drive them away or snatch them from employers that don’t respond accordingly. So how can employers tap into their employees’ values and keep them around longer?
Women traditionally have been sensitive to family care and work/life balance. However, in recent years, especially with the self-evaluation that occurred while working away from the office, that issue has become genderless, with folks of all identification types questioning what’s really important, and the answer isn’t as simple as the biggest paycheck possible.
Benefits of Investing in Your Team
Value, however, is easily translatable in personal growth, and that can be delivered by employers through upskilling. Why? There’s an inherent assumption that constantly developing additional skills makes employees more valuable to a company and their team. This may also eventually translate into better benefits. In many cases, it’s the reason people may go back to school, develop creative hobbies like graphic design, or join career development groups to further opportunities for themselves.
With the right plan and toolkit, your organization can easily implement upskilling. While companies might have the talent in-house, in most cases, simply hiring a third-party trainer is more convenient, effective, and efficient. Many platforms exist in the distance learning format, which can be implemented online, and in-person skill training is possible through contractors, partnerships with training services, and even local community colleges. For example, Xevant has a tuition reimbursement program to help employees seeking additional schooling.
All provide viable, effective skill training and, more importantly, a sense or proof of improvement that can be marketable for employees. The upskilling becomes tangible and essentially free, provided by the employer. It only costs employees their time. Above all, employees want it; at Xevant, we have found that younger professionals are extremely eager to learn more regularly. This process of continued professional development is invaluable for employees who may be just starting out; ongoing training and learning can boost confidence and reduce imposter syndrome among team members who may often question their value in a large company.
The Snowball Effect of Upskilling
It’s also important to understand that upskilling is far more than just cross-training—that happens naturally as people transition from entry-level staff to leadership positions. On the other hand, upskilling provides practical, real training in areas employees don’t have the previous education or capacity to perform. Whether that involves operating robotics or learning how to build and develop teams, upskilling has two advantages: It gives employees a new ability and causes them to invest more in the company that provided the upskilling personally. Here’s where greater retention is truly fostered. For example, we at Xevant are building our career development platform to allow employees to see and grow into specific competencies necessary for upleveling in their roles. We see this as the advanced phase of upskilling, creating a specialization track that adds even more value to both employee and employer and providing employees with a clear career map to their desired role.
The response is simple for those who argue that upskilling is a lost expense with no direct payback. Consider the cost to recruit and fill a vacancy: Many times, the cost difference is 10 to 100 times more in time and money. More importantly, however, employees feel a sense of obligation, belonging, and trust with an employer that wants to see them do better. That fosters loyalty, a key element of long-term retention, the gold standard of labor resource stability.
Megan Foster is Director of People Operations at Xevant.