...how can you meet the needs of your employees in order to maintain or increase census?
A new generation of workers has redefined organizational priorities for the kinds of benefits and opportunities they utilize to help ensure retention. Much as there is a buyer’s and seller’s market, right now, the employer is bending to meet the employee.
Between October 2008 and April 2009, an average of 700,000 American workers lost their jobs every month, resulting in an unemployment rate of 8.9 percent (that’s 13.7 million people), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). As of June 2023, the U.S. has a 3.6 percent unemployment rate. That’s a triumphant climb back from the recession that had the most substantial decline in employment we had seen since the Great Depression.
While employment rates rose over the course of the last fifteen years, the COVID-19 pandemic that caused our nation to shut down in 2020 resulted in millions of people transitioning to remote work, relying on unemployment, or, for frontline workers, simply praying.
These two historic tragedies reshaped the way U.S. workers approach employment. Many employees quite literally risked their lives in the last four years, and it’s no surprise that the result is a shift in priorities.
So, what are these priorities, and how can you meet the needs of your employees to maintain or increase retention?
Flexibility
Whether it’s on location or remote, the standard 8am-5pm, Monday through Friday work week is shifting for white-collar workers. For some, the four-day workweek has been an asset, for others, allowing employees to choose their hours of work has been their transition. Either way, giving non-front-line employees autonomy over their schedule instills a sense of ownership in their time and energy, and buy-in to the organization.
A mentality of “It doesn’t matter when you get the work done, as long as it gets done,” along with accountability structures allows individuals to work when they are most productive and removes barriers to taking care of their responsibilities outside of work. Flexible work schedules have not only become important, but necessary for many job seekers.
Compensation
Compensation can be a challenging topic for many non-profit organizations with limited funding. While inflation has decreased over the past 3 years, Ensuring that the needs of employees are met is becoming an increasing challenge, so here are some considerations for increasing pay for employees while also balancing annual operating expenses. When employees are taken care of financially, stress is removed, performance increases, and their dedication to the organization is maintained or improved.
Culture
The culture of your organization can be a huge asset or breaking point for employee retention. When we talk about culture, what we really mean is – what does it feel like and mean to work for your organization? How are your organizational values operationalized in your employee’s day-to-day work? To explore this idea more, we recommend reading that dives into the 2023 Arbinger Institute and Ascend2 study that explores the role company culture has in the overall success of an organization.
Trust
Trust is the foundation upon which the relationship between your organization and its employees either thrives or falters. Trust lies beneath every priority we’ve listed so far that supports an empowered workforce. You can open the door to a flexible schedule, but managers must trust employees to manage their time and employees must trust their managers to communicate effectively in new ways. If there is no mutual trust, there’s no success in this model. You can offer remote work options, incremental raises, and efforts to strengthen company culture, but more than anything mutual trust is at the core of any successful change. Trusting employees empowers them, and empowered employees have ownership in the organizations they serve. That ownership harbors purpose, growth, and leadership that can only be attained by a foundation of trust from top to bottom.
Articles cited:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/cost-of-living-index-by-state
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state
https://www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/salary-increases-best-practices-for-leaders