You’ve heard about job pivots, and there are a lot of those going on right now during what is being referred to as the “Great Resignation.” It’s a strange time where not only are there unprecedented shortages in talent but also a high number of employees willing to leave their jobs to try something new. This is a bit of a crisis for employers who are struggling to keep their current employees from leaving. While you may have heard about this happening in IT, the “big quit” is impacting every industry right now.
What’s the answer during what is an admittedly tumultuous time for HR teams?
Why not focus on retaining your current employees by providing them with opportunities to pivot right here at home?
Do Your Employees See a Future in the Company?
Employers need to address what their workers may be feeling about their future in the organization. This leads us to a few questions:
- Do you know if your employees are happy enough to stay?
- When was the last time you asked them if they would like to learn a new skill?
- Do they still feel like they’re growing in your company?
If you can’t answer “yes” to all of these, or, even worse, if you simply don’t know, your retention strategy may not be effective or even fully formed. Employees that stick around are motivated, engaged, and challenged. If your workforce isn’t, they are vulnerable to the next recruiter that sends them a LinkedIn message.
We recommend a career roadmap for every valued employee in your organization. A career roadmap is a managerial process that parallels your evaluation process. But instead of looking at past performance, a career roadmap seeks to understand the needs, wants, and priorities of your skilled workforce for the future. Like a travel roadmap (if you’re old enough to remember what those are), this evaluative document shows the future points on an employee’s career path that can lead to their advancement in your organization.
The goal of a career roadmap should be a type of succession planning that promotes from within. You can work toward this kind of internal job growth, or pivot, for your employees in several ways:
- Assign your employee a mentor to help them pivot.
Once you’ve conducted a career road mapping process, you’ll understand what kinds of jobs interest the employee in the future. You can help them pivot toward these roles by assigning a mentor that is currently doing that job or perhaps working in that department. This will help give them the organizational knowledge they need to move toward the position they’re interested in. A mentor can provide the coaching that helps prevent rookie mistakes and sets the newly promoted team members up for success. - Provide the employee with projects that stretch their skills.
To help the employee remain engaged and challenged in their current position, we recommend working with their manager to assign them “stretch projects.” These responsibilities help the employee expand their skills in new areas. Think of it as a kind of cross-training that broadens the horizons of your current workforce. This could provide a critical building block for the employee’s later pivot in your company, as well as improve the chances that you will retain them for the long-term.
Blackstone Talent Group can help you meet your hiring goals. Talk with our team about the technical talent we have available right now to help you meet your hiring goals.