Have you heard about ‘The Great Resignation‘? PRO Unlimited has. Its latest Spring 2022 U.S. Labor Market Report, reveals that while U.S. employers have significantly ramped up hiring efforts to counteract persisting talent shortages, many should rethink how they approach retention.
PRO Unlimited, an integrated Workforce Management (IWM) platform provider, claims that over 50% of the contingent workers who ended their assignments early last year did so within the first two months of engagement, up from 44% in 2020. One in three workers quit within the first month.
“Recruiting and retention are two sides of the same coin. While finding top talent is imperative, holding onto skilled people is essential for fighting the worker shortage,” said Dustin Burgess, GM and SVP, Total Talent Intelligence at PRO Unlimited.
“The market is tight, and it’s only getting harder to source the right candidates. Employers that emphasise retention initiatives, proactively redeploy talent to fill key roles, and create compelling worker experiences will gain a critical edge.”
A lot of quit rates
The study also revealed that in-demand roles hold greater flight risk. Quit rates are especially high among applications engineers, business systems analysts, software engineers, project managers and data engineers. Furthermore, recruiters’ voluntary termination rate jumped to nearly 30% in Q1 2022 compared to less than 5% in Q2 2020.
Now is the time to talk about redeployment. Fifty per cent of workers will roll off assignments within the next six months, with 10.4% in April and 12.3% in June. Given that 16.3% of all early voluntary terminations occur within eight weeks of the scheduled end date proactively identifying opportunities to move this talent into other internal roles is key for alleviating worker shortages.
Employer reputation matters Data shows the stronger a company’s reputation, as measured by its Glassdoor score, the more successful it is in attracting top talent. Workers are also more likely to stay on assignment for the full duration of their contract or transition to full-time employment.
Data can help
An inclusive workplace can also convince talents to join and, most importantly, stay. They are more aware of diversity and inclusion. Seventy per cent of workers chose to identify their gender and sexual orientation in diversity and inclusion (D&I) surveys in Q1 2020. Following efforts to promote DE&I, this figure jumped to 90% in Q4 2021.
Similarly, 32% declined to share whether they’re a person of colour in 2020, versus only 22% today. The fact that more workers are comfortable revealing this information indicates that improving communication around DE&I and building trust can drive higher levels of inclusiveness. Companies that want to retain talent should pay attention.
In this jungle, record-high inflation rates and job openings will complicate the talent landscape. “A data-based strategy that enables organisations to make fast, informed, and cost-effective workforce decisions is now more important than ever. The deep visibility that actionable intelligence delivers helps employers not only identify and engage the right workers but also understand their retention risk and where to focus to reduce attrition,” concluded Burgess.
Download the full report to learn more about the current state of the U.S. labour market.
