The Great Resignation Shifts to The Great Reskilling

The COVID-19 Pandemic and ensuing lockdowns had far reaching economic effects in the United States, such as skyrocketing inflation and another phenomenon known as The Great Resignation. Starting in 2000, the US Department of Labor began tracking voluntary separations, or quits by industry and presents an average across all sectors. Customer facing industries saw seismic shifts in labor as  reduced or slowing operations and changes in consumer behavior added more pressure to an already stressed out labor pool. The quit rate bottomed at 1.6% in April of 2020 as workers held on to their positions in the face of economic uncertainty during the lockdows. Voluntary separations rocketed to 3.4% in August, 2021 and then hit that mark exactly one year later. The spike can be attributed a number of factors:

  • Stagnating or low wages versus higher costs of living
  • Job dissatisfaction from higher employer expectations in the face of shrinking resources
  • Falling US unemployment rates in 2021 and 2022 increased vacancies and opportunities for job seekers
  • Anthony Klotz, a professor from Texas A&M who coined the term ‘The Great Resignation’, suggested that workers who wanted to quit delayed their resignations during the pandemic, causing spikes when lockdowns ended

After dipping to 3.4 in April, 2023, the US unemployment rate continues to creep upwards, approaching 4% and conversely, quit rates have returned to the pre-pandemic levels, falling just below 2% as recently as last April. This sets businesses up for an excellent opportunity to develop frontline staff with new and refreshed skills, driving revenue and growth.

Reskilling Maximizes Existing Human Assets

The labor pool has become tough to navigate in the post-pandemic world, creating a more expensive and time consuming hiring process for frontline and customer facing employees. The term ‘reskilling’ has become popular in training circles as businesses realize filling entry level vacancies is much more difficult. Reskilling can deliver 2 major benefits to business. By increasing capabilities of individual staff, leadership  can drive efficiency and productivity forward. Reskilling also provides much needed employee engagement that can improve morale and motivation, reducing costly turnover and increasing retention. With economic uncertainty still on the horizon, businesses are needing more productivity from current staff levels and the slowly increasing unemployment rate in the US reinforces the suggestion that managers must work with the assets they have. Reskilling is the most efficient way to increase productivity while covering the development needs of the individual.

The Top 3 Areas for Reskilling

Reskilling can be applied to industry and business specific needs but can also cover general work habits that can positively or negatively impact productivity and costs. Frontline staff and customer facing teams encounter various challenges in their day to day workload and improving on basic work habits can translate to increases in job satisfaction and business productivity:

  1. Organizational Skills – Expecting more production and efficiencies from an individual takes organization on their part. Examining daily routines can reveal ways to improve organization and can help the individual do a better, more accurate job faster.
  2. Tonality Skills – Most frontline positions have some kind of customer interaction as part of the daily job and improving the individual’s use of tone, whether in person or on the phone, can positively impact the customer experience while potentially driving business and transactions
  3. Focusing on Accuracy – Reskilling existing operational processes and procedures, such as inventory receiving or customer cash outs, can help improve and maintain accuracy and control costs associated with errors..

Delivering the Goods

The labor market is experiencing seismic shifts and managers are having to produce more with less resources as businesses shift to ‘leaner and meaner’ mode. Frontline staff development is critical for maintaining productivity and efficiently especially if these teams generate revenue. Reskilling offers ways to quickly increase capabilities and little to no cost. Focusing on singular skills that could be improved upon will reduce training time and can be delivered informally and within the working environment. Deploying concepts quickly and during working hours can have a greater impact as the individual has a chance to apply new techniques immediately. On shift reskilling can also give leadership a detailed view of the ‘trenches’ while engaging and interacting with frontline team members.

The Bottom Line

Recent stats would suggest that the wave of voluntary separations that happened in the US in 2021 and 2022 may largely be over. Dicey economic footing combined with increasing unemployment has lowered the US quit rate to 1.9% from a peak of 3.4%. The resulting reduction in turnover sets up customer facing businesses for excellent upskilling and development opportunities within their frontline teams. Sharpening existing and learning new skills contribute to individual development, which lack thereof, was a major complaint during The Great Resignation era. Technology can deliver new skills cost effectively and lead to higher productivity, in addition to reductions and controls in staff turnover and hiring costs.