Upskilling your workforce in 2022 might be the solution you need to retain and attract.
“The Great Resignation” is more than just a hashtag. According to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, an employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate of monthly staff resignations has consistently remained well above 4 million people since September 2021.
By the end of February 2022, there were approximately 11.3 million job openings, 4.4 million resignations, and 6.7 million hires.
Compared to previous years, these numbers are staggering, pushing many employers to explore new strategies to retain and enrich their existing talent. Beyond reassessing your workplace environment or embracing a long-term work-from-home culture, it’s also important to consider what employees value the most regarding growth trajectory and opportunities to enhance or diversify their skills.
The cost of upskilling your workforce in 2022 will likely be less than the resources and hours your company will invest in attracting new talent to fill a vacant position. A recent Gallup poll estimated that the cost of replacing an individual employee could range from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary. For a company of 100 people, employee turnover could cost anywhere from $700,000 to $3 million per year.
In this paradigm of significant resignations, employers must recognize that recruiting quality candidates will also take considerably longer.
Make investments in your frontline workforce.
Junior to mid-level candidates, typically Millennials and Gen-Zers, comprise the bulk of resignations and are eager to work at organizations that offer robust career paths and professional development opportunities. This population of workers can be defined as a company’s frontline workforce – the teams and people responsible for essential day-to-day business operations.
While often comprising a vast majority of a company’s human capital, many companies fail to provide this group with career development and internal advancement opportunities. This will reinforce the all-too-common-sentiments that an employer only considers its workforce as vacancy-fillers or replaceable assets. Investing in education programs to combat the great resignation is a solution that builds loyalty amongst your workforce. When you invest in future-proofing their careers and showing them direct paths to career advancement, they invest in your company.
How Pathstream can help you invest in education programs to combat the great resignation
Pathstream has built training and certificate programs that are scalable, interactive, and flexible for all levels of experience. At the core of Pathstream’s enrichment programs is the belief that hands-on learning will always supersede passive video consumption. This is why our completion rates are typically 75%, roughly 33 percentage points higher than the industry average, even though the professionals we serve often have a less traditional education history than most training programs.
Program components typically include:
- Project-based courses instead of standardized tests or assessments
- Alignment of all projects with real-life employer expectations
- Opportunities to speak directly with people in the employee’s target role or title
- Certificates that are accepted more broadly across an industry
Certificate programs are also available for various sectors and high-value skill sets. These programs are backed by some of the country’s best collegiate institutions and university educators. The most popular courses include data analytics, Salesforce administration, digital marketing, and project management, on top of a growing portfolio of certificate programs.
Don’t sit back and allow your valued employees to become disheartened by a lack of opportunities for advancement. Investments in upskilling your workforce will boost retention and morale and save your company considerable recruitment costs when hiring new talent is more competitive than ever.
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