Harvard Business School just released an article in which a few of their top faculty members share their 7 Trends in Business to Watch in 2022. Not surprisingly 2 out of these 7 trends are human resources/workforce/employer-employee related issues.
Of these 2 top workforce related trends, "Businesses face a changed workforce" stands out as a key train of though for employers to consider when it comes to the changing structure and attitudes of their employees.
Within this idea base lies a deeper component to which most human resources/people and culture managers are quite familiar with. Employee retention and it's effect on the productivity and overall success of a business.
On that topic the article offers up the following viewpoint;
"In lower wage industries, most companies assume that a 50 to even 200 percent annual turnover rate for employees is “normal.” As a result, they fail to invest in programs that will dramatically improve their employee retention rate. The winning formula for 2022 and going forward will be based on minimizing turnover, not minimizing the next periods wage expense.
For firms with a highly skilled, white-collar workforce, COVID has caused many workers to reconsider the role of work in their lives. Firms dependent on such talent would be best served to consider how they can best retain talent. Most companies have viewed the ructions caused by COVID as an anomaly. They aren’t. COVID accelerated a number of trends that were latent in the labor market before the onset of the pandemic. Companies will now have to account for them in their human resource strategy. The disruption is far beyond what most imagine.
It clear to see that from Harvard's point of view employee turnover in the workforce will be a huge issue going forward. Big enough in fact to be one of the top 7 factors that needs addressing in 2022. Big enough to be mentioned in the same breath as climate change and NFT's. Hopefully thats big enough to get employers to also rank it in their own top 7 issues to be addressed in 2022.