The Great Resignation 2021

If you have made it through 2021, pat yourself on the back. 👏

The past few years due to COVID-19 have been the most challenging times in everyone’s lives. Now on top of that, companies are closing, employees are burnt out, lost their jobs, and now there’s something political about everything. In the HR world, we are facing the most challenging times with employment issues. We call this time in our HR lives as “The Great Resignation”.

For me personally, my life had been flipped upside down, ran over by a car, and everything in between. In June 2020, my position was eliminated due to COVID. I was devastated and unsure of the future or how to pay my bills, or even survive for the most part. This worry went on for MONTHS. Mind you, I have never lost my job before so panic kicked in immediately. My now fiancé and myself both had lost our jobs. We were in the process of making offers on houses to figuring out how we were going to pay our rent! As you can imagine, this put a lot of stress on us as a couple mentally, emotionally, and physically. I have personally been through the ringer with my career during this period, but I will say I defiantly came out stronger!

“The Great Resignation, 2021”; If you have heard this statement thus far, then you know what I am about to get into. I am sure all of us ask ourselves, how did this happen? Well, in hind sight thousands of people lost their jobs at the beginning of COVID, and now there is an influx of job openings. Job openings with no one to fill them.

According to a news article from CNBC, “Americans left their jobs — more than 4.4 million in September, the most recent month for which data is available. During that time, much of the narrative has focused on burned-out employees stomping out of their jobs — the “Big Quit” as some of have put it, in which workers are demanding higher wages, better working conditions and more mobility.” The numbers are generated from other factors as well. The amount of unemployment claims have remained relatively consistent.

Digging deeper into why this is happening has involved many factors. In my perspective, a lot of people are worried due to COVID related issues, wages, burn out from not enough staff, not receiving the support from their leadership, childcare issues, and companies not being flexible and taking care of their employees. These are just a few that I can list off of the top of my head.

Let’s talk about technology. Technology is at our fingertips, and with that many workers are looking for remote work or finding creative ways to make money online. Although, this is a small percentage, it is taken into consideration the amount of openings companies are facing.

What can we do to staff our companies & find the “Unicorn”? Well, there is not really a black and white answer. My only advice in this path is to be consistent, learn new ways of recruiting, utilize algorithms, and other social media platforms (ie. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) You will be amazing at the fact that companies are not utilizing this just yet, because I will tell you, this is where the future is headed. You no longer can post in a newspaper ad.

Keep strong, better days are coming & the great resignation will work itself out over time. 😃

as always, stay friendly ☮☮☮