管理者们该如何应对离职潮

Business

商业

Bartleby -- Managing the Great Resignation

巴托比专栏——应对离职潮

High staff churn is here to stay. Retention strategies require a rethink.

高员工流失将持续存在。留存策略需要被重新思考。

In the not-so-distant past, bosses did not have to worry as much about their workforces.

就在不久的过去，老板们还不必为员工的事如此发愁。

Newcomers could absorb the corporate culture osmotically.

新员工能够轻而易举地吸纳企业文化。

Workers’ families were invisible, not constantly interrupting Zoom calls.

员工们的家人是隐形的，不会经常出现打断Zoom电话。

Employees had a job, not a voice.

员工有工作，但没有发言权。

Now firms have to “be intentional” (management-speak for thinking) about everything from the point of the office to how staff communicate with each other.

现在，从办公到员工之间如何沟通的每一件事，公司都必须“有意识地”（管理用语，即考虑）对待。

Retention is the latest area to require attention.

留存率是最近需要关注的领域。

The spike in staff departures known as the Great Resignation is centred on America: a record 3% of the workforce there quit their jobs in September.

被称为“离职潮”的员工离职高峰主要发生在美国：9月份，创纪录地有3%的美国员工辞职。

But employees in other places are also footloose.

但其他地方的员工也开始走动起来。

Resignations explain why job-to-job moves in Britain reached a record high in the third quarter of this year.

这些离职使今年英国第三季度的跳槽率达到了历史新高。

Some of the churn is transitory.

有些流失是暂时的。

It was hard to act on pent-up job dissatisfaction while economies were in free fall, so there is a post-pandemic backlog of job switches to clear.

在经济状况持续下滑时，很难对压抑已久的工作上的不满采取行动，因此，疫情后，积压的工作变动得以清理。

And more quitting now is not the same as sustained job-hopping later.

而且，现在离职的人多并不等于他们以后也会不断跳槽。

As Melissa Swift of Mercer, a consultancy, notes, white-collar workers in search of higher purpose will choose a new employer carefully and stay longer.

正如美世咨询公司的梅丽莎·斯威夫特指出的那样，追求更高目标的白领会谨慎选择新雇主，并在公司留得更久一些。

But there is also reason to believe that higher rates of churn are here to stay.

但我们也有理由相信，高流失率将继续存在。

The prevalence of remote working means that more roles are plausible options for more jobseekers.

远程办公的盛行意味着，对于更多的求职者来说，可选择的职位似乎更多了。

And the pandemic has driven home the precariousness of life at the bottom of the income ladder.

疫情让人们清楚地意识到，处于收入阶梯底层的生活是不稳定的。

Resignation rates are highest in industries, like hospitality, that are full of low-wage workers who have lots of potentially risky face-to-face contact with colleagues and customers.

酒店业等行业的离职率最高，这些行业有着许多工资很低的员工，他们需要与同事和客户进行潜在风险很大的面对面接触。

One conventional solution—identifying a few star performers and bunging them extra money—is not a retention strategy if large chunks of the workforce are thinking differently about their jobs.

传统的解决方案——找出少数几个表现出色的员工，多塞给他们一些钱——在大部分员工都对他们的工作有不同想法的情况下，并不是一种能留住员工的策略。

What should managers be doing?

那管理者应该做些什么？

First, they should systematically gauge the retention risk that their firm faces.

首先，他们应该系统地评估公司面临的留存风险。

Working out what has driven people to quit is too late; rather than exit interviews, forward-thinking firms conduct “stay interviews” to find out what keeps employees.

找出促使人们辞职的原因为时已晚；有远见的公司不会进行离职面谈，而是会进行“留存面谈”，来找出员工留下的原因。

Focusing on teams cut back during the pandemic is another tactic: burnout rates are likely to be higher in departments that took lay-offs.

另一种策略是重点关注在疫情期间被削减的团队：在进行过裁员的部门，职业倦怠率可能更高。

Understanding a firm’s vulnerability to other employers is also key.

了解公司相对其他雇主的弱点也是关键。

When behemoths like Amazon or Walmart raise wages or add perks, the effects ripple beyond retailing.

当亚马逊或沃尔玛这样的巨头提高工资或增加福利时，它们的影响会波及到零售业以外的行业。

Second, managers need to pull different levers to retain different types of people.

其次，管理者需要使用不同的手段来留住不同类型的人。

Salaries matter to everyone but for lower-wage workers in particular, benefits like health care have also become central.

工资对每个人来说都很重要，但对工资较低的员工来说尤其如此，医保等福利也会变得至关重要。

A recent survey of young Americans by Jefferies, an investment bank, found that health concerns were the prime reason why people with only a high-school education had quit their jobs.

投资银行杰富瑞最近对美国年轻人进行的一项调查发现，对健康方面的担忧是只有高中学历的人辞职的主要原因。

It’s a similar story for flexible working.

弹性工作制的情况也是如此。

For white-collar types the split between office and home is what counts.

对于白领这类人群来说，办公室和家庭能够分开才是最重要的。

For blue-collar workers, single parents especially, scheduling matters—when their shifts start and end, and how much leeway they have to manage their time.

对于蓝领工人，尤其是单亲父母来说，时间安排很重要——何时开始和结束轮班，以及他们在时间分配方面有多大的回旋余地。

Firms also need to think harder about the career paths that entry-level employees can take.

公司还需要更加认真地考虑初级员工的职业道路。

In a recent survey of large firms conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity, a research outfit, a majority admitted they did not have adequate data about the skills of their workers, making it harder to spot talent.

在企业生产力研究所(一所研究机构)最近对大公司进行的一项调查中，大多数公司承认他们没有足够的关于员工技能的数据，这使得发现人才变得更加困难。

A quarter reckoned that LinkedIn knew more about their workforce’s capabilities than their own firms did.

四分之一的人认为领英比他们公司自己更了解他们员工的能力。

Third, managers should plan for how to find new workers.

第三，管理者应该为如何寻找新员工做好计划。

Remote working makes it easier to lose people but also to bring freelancers on board quickly.

远程工作使公司更容易失去员工，但这也能让自由职业者迅速加入进来。

Qualification demands can be relaxed.

资质要求可以放宽一些。

In recent years IBM has removed the requirement for undergraduate degrees from over half of its American job openings.

近年来，IBM在美国超过一半的招聘职位都取消了对本科学历的要求。

And there is no better time for firms to take aim at dim-witted regulation.

对于公司来说，现在是打破愚蠢的规章制度的最佳时机。

In response to a shortage of lorry drivers, Britain’s government has decided to combine separate tests for driving rigid and articulated lorries into one.

为了应对卡车司机短缺的问题，英国政府决定将驾驶刚性卡车和铰接式卡车的测试合二为一。

The Great Resignation should also prompt a question that rarely gets asked—exactly what level of churn is right?

离职潮还应该引发一个很少被问到的问题——到底多大程度的人员流失才是合理的？

It is more expensive to hire new employees than to keep current ones.

招聘新员工比留住现有员工更昂贵。

Yet by that logic, companies would never want anyone to quit.

但是，按照这种逻辑，公司永远不想让任何人辞职。

The mix of old and new is what matters.

新旧结合才是关键。

Existing hands provide cultural ballast; joiners bring fresh skills and perspectives.

现有的人手保住企业文化；新加入者带来新的技能和视角。

Keeping good employees happy is vital.

让优秀员工开心是至关重要的。

But people are like water: there is such a thing as too much retention.

但人就像水一样，储存得太多也不好。