Don’t Lay Off, Level Up: Why Upskilling is the Ultimate Employee Retention Strategy

A new week, a new comic and a long rant on recruiting. I am anxious to hear your thoughts on it. But before I get to that, a quick word from my sponsor.

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Don’t Lay Off, Level Up: Why Upskilling is the Ultimate Employee Retention Strategy

These are interesting times for CEOs managing the USA workforce. Consider this quote from Bloomberg…

US chief executives are most concerned about a lack of workers with the necessary skills, said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, adding that most of them are cautiously optimistic amid several external risks.

The main worry she hears from CEOs is “workforce, workforce, workforce,” Raimondo said in an interview Thursday in Bloomberg’s Washington bureau. “We can’t hire enough, we can’t hire fast enough, we can’t hire people with the skills we need.”

So why is that? A few reasons, chief among them is that there are more jobs than unemployed people.

If you were to survey consumer confidence and ask if it was hard to find a job now, most would say that it was easy based on the number of jobs available. At least, according to “The Conference Board.”

But even with this data, I think it comes down to who you ask and what industry they are in. Workers in the tech industry might be more pessimistic. And to be clear, I am not speaking of software engineers and the like. An analysis by Revelio Labs found that 79% of laid-off software engineers got a new job within 90 days. Similarly, the Wall Street Journal reported that about 79% of workers recently hired after a tech-company layoff or termination landed their new job within three months of starting their search. Who I am speaking of are other people, non-techie people, who happen to work in the tech industry.

Interviewing.io performed a fascinating bit of research and analysis where they looked at layoffs in tech companies and how hard each department was hit. To quote…

All departments don’t have the same headcount. For instance, according to LinkedIn data, engineers make up about 20% of a company’s total headcount on average, whereas recruiters only make up 2%, about 10X less. In other words, if each department were to be hit equally, we’d expect engineers to be laid off about 10X more often than recruiters. That’s clearly not what’s going on.

To get the full picture, we need to correct for department size and see how hard each department was actually hit, which you can see in the graph below.

Ouch! This is precisely why a Senior Technical Recruiter role can get 726 applicants in less than 24 hours. Hat tip to Hannah Rogers.

So, what’s really going on? As I see it, tech companies are defaulting to layoffs due to the economic downturn, but they are underestimating the long-term negative impact of this knee-jerk response. Let me count the ways.

  1. Loss of valuable talent and experience: When companies lay off employees, they often lose valuable talent and experience that may be difficult to replace in the future.
  2. Damage to the company’s reputation: Layoffs can also damage a company’s reputation, making it less attractive to prospective employees, customers, and investors.
  3. Reduced productivity: Layoffs can lead to a decrease in productivity, as remaining employees may struggle to keep up with increased workloads and the loss of key team members.
  4. Decreased customer satisfaction: As remaining employees struggle to cope with increased workloads and stress, customer service and satisfaction may suffer.
  5. Increased training and recruitment costs: When companies lay off employees, they may have to incur additional costs to recruit and train new employees to fill the gaps. (In other words, its cheaper to keep her.)
  6. Loss of institutional knowledge: When employees are laid off, they take with them valuable institutional knowledge and expertise, which can be difficult to replace.
  7. Decrease in innovation and creativity: Layoffs can stifle innovation and creativity, as remaining employees may be hesitant to take risks or suggest new ideas.
  8. Legal and regulatory issues: Companies that do not follow proper legal procedures when laying off employees may face legal and regulatory issues.
  9. Negative impact on the broader economy: Layoffs can have a negative impact on the broader economy, as unemployed workers may struggle to find new jobs and support their families, which can lead to decreased consumer spending and economic activity.

Before considering massive layoffs, consider how some companies have chosen to upskill their employees instead. According to Business Insider…

  • Verizon announced a $44 million upskilling program
  •  Bank of America announced a $1 billion commitment to help combat racial injustice, which included a program to upskill and reskill thousands of Americans.
  • PwC announced a $3 billion commitment to upskill all 275,000 of its employees.
  • Amazon announced a $700 million investment to retrain one third of its US workforce.
  • Accenture said it would be spending nearly $1 billion each year to retrain its workers.
  • JPMorgan announced a $350 million upskilling initiative.
  • AT&T invested $1 billion to retrain nearly half of its workforce.

And you can find more examples here and here.

If you are in management and feel inspired by this, and I hope you are, consult with HR on how you can reskill your workers and help them transition to other departments in your organization. For the sake of this example, let’s imagine that the recruiting department was in your crosshairs. Here is an alternate route you could take.

  1. Conduct a skills assessment: Start by assessing the skills and competencies of your recruiters. Identify transferable skills that can be applied in other departments, such as communication skills, problem-solving, data analysis, and project management.
  2. Identify areas of need: Identify departments or areas within your organization that have a skills shortage or need additional resources. Look for opportunities where recruiters can use their skills to add value.
  3. Develop a reskilling plan: Once you have identified areas of need, develop a reskilling plan for your recruiters. This could involve providing training and development opportunities, cross-functional projects, job shadowing, or mentoring.
  4. Provide support: Support your recruiters throughout the reskilling process by providing resources and tools to help them develop new skills. This could include access to online training programs, coaching, and mentoring.
  5. Encourage collaboration: Encourage collaboration between departments and create opportunities for recruiters to work with employees in other departments. This will help them build relationships and develop new skills.
  6. Recognize and reward progress: Recognize and reward progress and achievements made by recruiters as they reskill and transition to new departments. This could involve promotion opportunities, bonuses, or public recognition.
  7. Monitor progress: Monitor progress regularly and adjust the reskilling plan as needed. Provide regular feedback to recruiters and make sure they have the support they need to be successful in their new roles.

And to spark your imagination even further, here are some ideas on what jobs you could reskill your recruiters for:

  • Human resources specialist: Recruiters are well-versed in hiring, interviewing, and candidate selection, which makes them a good fit for human resources roles. They can work in areas such as compensation and benefits, employee relations, training and development, and talent management.
  • Sales representative: Recruiters possess strong communication and negotiation skills, which can be applied to sales roles. They can work in areas such as inside sales, account management, business development, or customer service.
  • Marketing specialist: Recruiters are skilled in identifying and attracting top talent, which makes them well-suited for marketing roles. They can work in areas such as digital marketing, content creation, event planning, or market research.
  • Project manager: Recruiters have experience managing multiple projects and working with stakeholders, making them a good fit for project management roles.
  • Training and development specialist: Recruiters are skilled in identifying talent gaps and creating training programs to address them, which makes them a good fit for training and development roles. They can work in areas such as corporate training, instructional design, or e-learning.
  • Executive assistant: Recruiters possess strong organizational and communication skills, which makes them well-suited for executive assistant roles. They can work in areas such as scheduling, travel arrangements, event planning, and project coordination.
  • Operations manager: Recruiters have experience managing complex projects, which makes them well-suited for operations management roles where they can manage people and processes to achieve organizational goals.
  • Customer success manager: Recruiters have experience building relationships and managing client expectations, which makes them a good fit for customer success roles where they can help clients achieve their goals and maximize the value they receive from a product or service.
  • Social media manager: Recruiters have experience building and managing relationships, which makes them well-suited for social media manager roles where they can engage with customers and prospects on social media platforms.

By taking into account the ideas above, you can reskill your recruiters and help them transition to new roles within your organization. This will not only help you retain your staff longer but it also provides your organization a skilled and flexible workforce that can adapt to changing needs. Of course, that’s just my two cents. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

LinkedIn Should Give More Options


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