What Makes Good Workers Leave?
Almost a third of GenZ and millennials chose not to attend college or university, according to this Deloitte Report. For some, it is a financial concern, and for others, the payoff no longer seems worth it. According to one source, only one-third of recent graduates believe their education was worth the cost. All of this occurs while entry-level roles not only demand college degrees but also years of experience and 58% of Gen Z graduates were still looking for full-time work as of last July (up from 25% from previous years). Whether it is competing for entry level jobs with AI agents, or using automations to auto-fill job applications which are auto-rejected by a company’s AI automation, what is an entire generation of new workers supposed to do with the landscape of the workplace rapidly changing underneath their feet?
If we are to take another lesson from bees, the solution is simple: move on. We need to differentiate between the regular migrations of bees and what is called “absconding”. During a migration, bees receive advanced notice and prep for moves based on changes in the amount of available resources. Some bees, like Apis dorsata (the rock bee from South Asia) and Apis laboriosa (the Himalayan giant honey bee), might migrate twice a year. Others, like the humble bumblebee (Bombus latreille) do more than just migrate: they change their behavior, life cycle, and even biology in order to adapt to climate change. What sorts of significant adaptations will companies have to make in order to make use of this new, large work force?
Embrace the Apprenticeship as a Retention Program. Companies need to once again start investing, and “train up” the skills they are searching for, instead of hoping some other company will bear this burden. Expecting someone else to invest in an employee creates a shell game where GenZ and Millennial employees stay under-skilled and underpaid, and the hiring funnel disappears. If a company only views an employee’s upskilling as an individual effort, there is a danger that employees will begin to think of themselves that way too. Investment builds loyalty. But treat an employee like a mercenary and notice how quickly that loyalty can shift.
Reduce Applicant Volume to Trade Breadth for Depth Companies pay to post on job boards that then require them to pay to use Automated Tracking Systems (ATS) or Recruitment Management Systems (RMS) to manage the excessive amount of applications, leading to an inadvertent filtering out of unorthodox candidates. As filters hone in on skillsets and keywords (admittedly created by the humans running the software), they may leave nuanced reading of resumes out. IF ATS/RMS systems must be used, use “affirmative” filters (to tease out positive skills) rather than “negative” filters that exclude (sometimes based on misinterpretation). Companies should consider making fewer postings, with job descriptions that were rewritten within the past six months based on what the previous position holder did, rather than what skills would be nice to have. (Entering into a cycle of annual job duty review can also create ladders as employees take on more work, or create clear parameters for performance reviews.) As for hiring, less may be more: Read 50 resumes well, rather than worrying that your ATS/RMS missed the diamond in the rough within 1,500 applications.
Onboard Like You Expect Them to Stay. 20% of employee turnover happens in the first 45 days. GenZ and Millennial workers will quickly make decisions based on the presence (or absence) of value alignment within their workplace. According to the Harvard Business Review, onboarding needs to be both practical, technical and social: ID cards and norms, accountabilities and time-based goals, and building rapport with the team through formal and informal conversations. Mentorship, whether formal or informal, improves employee retention. Discussions about the type of climate that an employee will be coming into—macro and micro context that will help them understand where their role fits in the goals of the company—help an employee to adapt into the kind of employee that the company needs.
A company might be able to, like a beehive, prep a complete product or service shift based on changing industry conditions, but can be caught flat-footed by sudden, external shocks. New environmental conditions require different workforce philosophies, which in some cases may be a reversion back to fundamentals. Still, in an ever-changing climate, it is helpful to show your employees that you are willing to structure change. Certainly, GenZ and Millennial workers are looking at their company’s administration, and connecting the dots between their actions and what they value.
To learn more about the intersection of bees and business, follow us on LinkedIn:
Free Range Beehives on LinkedIn
To learn more about creating rich and sustainability-conscious environments for your
workers and the services that Free Range Beehive offers, visit
http://www.freerangebeehives.com/ or give us a call at (720) 320-5517