The Great Reshuffle: A Survival Guide
Learning what to do from those who are thriving
My biggest frustration reading any analysis of The Great Resignation is that so many pieces feel like fear-mongering clickbait. Many offer little actionable advice other than “try paying more and being nicer.” And yea, I get it - The Great Resignation is a new, big, scary, and complex topic with real effects on everyone - solutions aren’t easy to come by.
Thankfully we’re seeing actual data come out to help us understand how the best companies are retaining and attracting employees. And this post will look at one of those studies so you can better understand how those winning The Great Resignation are doing it.
What the best have in common
According to research performed by Hired, a job search marketplace, the companies that can retain and attract talent all have three things in common. Let’s take a look at them.
They are able to attract more underrepresented talent. But how?
The companies best at retaining and attracting talent extend more interviews requests and job offers to underrepresented candidates.
Now, it’s tempting to assign this success to diversity quotas or better hiring networks, but I seriously doubt that is happening here.
I’ve written about this issue quite a few times, and, in my view, you can’t have sustained success recruiting underrepresented candidates without doing the work of making your culture genuinely inclusive. For example, look at the NFL and its current litigation with Brian Flores. The Rooney Rule has gotten them nowhere (and now they’re backsliding).
As crazy as it sounds, workers want to feel valued and included. Companies thriving during the Great Resignation do so because they authentically desire an inclusive workplace and are intentional about creating one. Extending interviews and offers to a more significant percentage of underrepresented candidates is the output of that work, not the cause.
They’re quick to extend offers
A common theme around here is that “Hiring is Sales now,” and there’s no better way to kill any deal than to prolong the buying process. It’s no surprise that companies avoiding The Great Resignation complete their hiring process four days, or about 10%, faster than the average (36 vs. 40 days).
Speed matters, and it’s an advantage that I’ve used to great effect when hiring my team. What better way to make a candidate feel wanted than to extend an offer faster than your competition?
It’s also a great way to sell against a competitor, i.e., “oh, they’re asking you to do more interviews? It sounds like they don’t know what they want and can’t commit. Or maybe it’s just cause they’re more bureaucratic than we are…”
They have narrower salary bands
Like the attraction of underrepresented talent, I believe this is a lagging indicator rather than a leading one. From the study:
“We’re also seeing that the top companies are being very consistent in the salary they offer people at similar levels; the companies that have a tighter salary variation are faring better,” says Brenner [Hired.com’s CEO]. “The deviation (in pay) is around 11% for a given role for the top companies, versus a deviation of around 16% for non-top companies. So basically, the highest performing companies are more transparent, and keep consistent salary offers for people with the same position.”
I don’t necessarily agree with Brenner’s conclusion that these companies are more transparent. Maybe they are, and if so, good for them. But this lack of variation could also mean that they have a more robust understanding of what they need from each role.
Like any process, the more you understand the inputs that influence the outcomes, the more you reduce variance.
About Time
I can’t articulate how frustrated I’ve been with the overwrought “everyone is quitting” trope that has dominated the past eight months of labor market coverage. Not only is it wrong (these “quitters” are finding new, better jobs), but there’s little offered in the way of solutions.
That said, we’re turning a corner. I hope that a growing chorus of writers and thought leaders will begin advocating for a fresh approach that is ultimately more efficient, thoughtful, inclusive, and frankly humane. This study from Hired.com is a good start.