The Great Retention Is the Big Challenge for Business Today

Retention NOT Recession!

It’s not the fear of a recession that’s the buzz in business today; but it’s retention, specifically, employee retention, which poses the biggest challenge to businesses and nonprofits today.

The news feeds all over the internet are abuzz with companies such as Amazon and Walmart offering special bonuses and incentives to employees just to work the hours that they are scheduled to work.

There are over 10 million jobs that are waiting to be filled nationwide. Probably more than that. And those filling those openings are going to be people that are currently not working, and those working for other companies. Many companies today are not only looking to fill their openings, but they are terrified that they will not be able to retain those who are already working for them. The take-away factor is very real and looming over every human resource department. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The increase was driven by industries such as professional and business services, retail and the accommodation and food services, as pandemic restrictions continued to ease that month and consumers were more willing to dine out and travel.”

Economists recognize that getting these workers “off the bench” is even more challenging due to the unemployment benefits that have been handed out by the federal government, as well as having to pay higher wages to those already working for them to keep pace with this inflationary economy.

Overall, wages have increased by 10% since the start of the pandemic. The Indeed job platform stated that urgent job postings increased by 2.3% in June from January.

Because of the generous government payouts to low-wage earners, there is no sense of urgency to move back into the job market, especially with the panic-riddled headlines forecasting the tsunami of the Delta strain of COVID upon the entire population.

There are stories all over the Internet about how a majority of Walmart’s 190 warehouse workers are being offered weekly bonuses or pay increases.

In some cases these workers are being offered $1,000 payout over the four-week period if they don’t skip any schedule shifts during the second half of the summer. Walmart management is doing everything they can to ensure they have those warehouses fully-staffed as they enter into the peak seasons.