How to Manage Great Resignation and How to Drive Hiring in India?

During the pandemic, the global rate of voluntary turnover reached an all-time high of 3% across industries and regions as a study conducted by World Economic Forum. In India, specifically, 82% of employees are considering changing jobs in 2022, and according to Amazon, 51% are looking for opportunities in sectors where they have little to no prior experience. Correspondingly, the country’s IT sector witnessed an estimated 22–23% attrition rate, nearly 1 in 4 IT workers.

To understand the implications of the Great Resignation, one must first trace the root cause of this phenomenon. Specific sectors have always seen above-average attrition, such as customer service and sales. Others like education or healthcare typically see longer tenures, with employees rarely changing career direction. So, what’s changed in 2021?

What’s even more interesting is the employee demographic impacted by this phenomenon. Employees between ages 30 and 45 years witnessed the highest increase in resignation numbers. In addition, turnover in this group jumped by over 20% between 2020 and 2021. However, the increase was only marginal between the 20–25 age group.

It leads to two inferences:

● There is greater market demand for skilled and experienced labour. As a result, there are more opportunities for those who have been in the workforce for 7+ years, and they can command higher salaries.

● Much of the Great Resignation is attributable to the Great Reshuffle, a trend explained by the BBC as an overarching reconfiguration of our work-life looks in another industry. Those with desk jobs are eager to explore more rewarding (if high-risk) terrain, while frontline workers in retail, health & fitness, and healthcare may switch to desk-based jobs for security.

In other words, the average employee — with the right mix of skills, talent, and experience — now knows what they want and isn’t afraid to pursue it.

What Does This Mean for Recruiters?

For recruiters, there is both a challenge and an opportunity. It is difficult to hold onto top talent in such a volatile labour market, and candidate conversion rates will likely dip unless you have an extremely truncated time-to-hire. But, on the other hand, the hiring quality is expected to go up as candidates now have more open job opportunities than ever and will zero in only on the most meaningful ones.

Some of the trends that recruiters can expect amid the Great Resignation include:

● Borderless hiring — Candidates will expect the flexibility of remote work and will consequently apply to jobs outside their residential towns and cities. It provides recruiters with a much larger candidate pool.

● Transferable skill sets — The number of candidates applying to a job with zero industry experience will increase. However, it doesn’t mean that they are ill-suited to the role — instead, recruiters have to look for transferable skills that could apply across industries and job verticals as an objective measure of talent.

● Faster time to hire — Candidates have more job opportunities. Thus, recruiters with the quickest time to hire will be able to close the top talent. In 2022, it is unlikely that an experienced candidate will be open to waiting for weeks for a response from a prospective employer.

● Employer branding — Amid the Great Resignation, many professionals will join companies outside their city or the immediate network companies they are unfamiliar with and have very little understanding of the company’s brand. Therefore, recruiters must stand in for the employer brand and culture to engage and convert these candidates.

Another critical area that requires urgent attention is employee stress and burnout. While physical fatigue levels may be less when WFH, mental health is an entirely different story, even our 2022 budget has recognised the challenge. According to a Forbes survey, 1 in 3 Indian employees feels burnout due to prolonged remote work. To alleviate this, organisations must:

● Realign workloads so that they do not exceed pre-pandemic levels

● Use mental wellbeing tools like Headspace and MindShift

● Leverage online collaboration to stay connected amid isolation

There will be a greater reliance on HR technology to bridge the gap left in the absence of physical interviews and in-person candidate interactions throughout all of this.

Anticipating and Addressing 2022’s Recruitment Problem

Despite a promising labour market, recruiters can expect a couple of problems in 2022. To begin with, candidates will still be in the process of finding their feet after multiple waves of COVID-19, economic turmoil, and career ups and downs. As a result, it makes it challenging to engage candidates in a meaningful way and ensure retention in the long term.

Second, bulk graduate hiring may regain momentum in 2022. Simultaneously, there is a need to effectively replace any mid-career (30–45 years old) business executives who might have left during this period. It translates into a hectic recruitment calendar and possibly greater demand than supply.

To address these, here are my recommendations for 2022:

● Focus on culture and employee engagement — It is best if attrition-related recruitment needs are kept to a minimum, as experienced employees are always more costly to acquire than retain. Here, recruiters must work closely with other stakeholders involved in the employee experience.

● Ramp up investment in HR tech — The hiring and onboarding process will continue to be digital, for the most part. However, recruits from other locations will need careful hand-holding through a well-articulated candidate engagement blueprint.

● Reconfigure job descriptions — One of the most highly recommended ways to hire talent in a targeted manner is to use Success Profiles. Instead of describing what the company or the manager is looking for, it lists the behaviours, strengths, abilities, experience, and technical skills needed to succeed at a particular job.

In addition to 2022, employees must be supported in areas around OH&S through organisational initiatives. The first step is to provide safe working environments where:

● Health and hygiene measures are adhered to, and there is support in COVID-related needs like workplace testing, vaccination in the workplace, and isolation with pay.

● Employees feel comfortable speaking to supervisors and managers about workplace issues — i.e., psychological safety.

● There are measures for compensation equity and guarantee to cushion the challenges of any economic downturn.

Next, the blue-collar segment must be formalised wherever possible through worker benefits and assurances that enable a more predictable quality of life.

With this in mind, HR will play a crucial role in business success in 2022, helping to connect dynamic organisations with the brightest minds out there. Watch this space for my next article on this topic, exploring the need for career pathing technology.