This is the first in a series of how VAW services can manage and maneuver the Great Resignation - the widespread wave of workers leaving their jobs post-COVID 19.
Throughout history the word “Great” has been used to indicate something remarkable in magnitude or degree. Significant historic events like the “Great Depression” or the “Great Recession”, are now making way for the newest of “Greats” - The “Great Resignation”, sometimes referred to as the “Big Quit”.
The “Great Resignation” is a term used to describe the widespread wave of workers leaving their jobs during COVID-19.
Some experts are saying that while COVID may have triggered record numbers of employees to voluntarily quit their jobs. in reality, the pandemic is not the cause, but the tipping point.
Whatever the roots of the Great Resignation, we can see that COVID-19 has had a definite impact in the lives of workers and organizations, far beyond infection and vaccine rates.
The fall-out of the pandemic has changed perceptions about what workers want for their work lives. People in all sectors have been reconsidering the way and the “why” of their work. Workers are dissatisfied with their working conditions and have been using COVID as a time to reassess their careers and lifestyles. Some have decided that if they cannot work remotely or at least in a hybrid work environment, the best alternative is to quit…changing jobs, changing career paths, starting their own businesses or practices and finding new ways to work, that work for them.
“The Great Resignation is making it clear that companies no longer have the same level of control over workers that they once did. Burned out by everything they’ve endured over the past year and a half, workers are prioritizing their mental and physical health.” Zoe Harte, Forbes, August 11, 2021
The “Great Resignation” has resulted in uncertainty around how work is done and management is having to take a good look at how employees are hired, managed and retained.
So, how can the non-profit, VAW sector organizations and agencies who have limited budgets and funding, manage to build an amazing team of people and keep them happy post-COVID, so they’ll want to stay?
Finding the Right Candidates is the first step.
Finding the right candidates is where it all begins and is one of the most important and hardest things you will need to do to ensure success for the future of your organization.
The last thing you need on your plate while you are trying to keep everyone’s heads above water during this pandemic, is to go through a lengthy and time-consuming hiring process. With so much going on in the balancing act of your day-to-day work, the resignation of one of your team members may send you running to your computer to place a job posting on Linkedin or Indeed.
Stop the presses! Before you do anything else. Take a breath and use this time as an opportunity to not just fill a void on your team but to design and create a team that will help lead your organization to a successful future.
Consider the strengths and weaknesses your team possesses. What are the gaps and what skills and talents are needed to best meet your team needs? Review the mission, goals, vision and purpose for your organization. Given what you are working towards, determine what a new hire would need to bring to make the team complete.
Maybe there’s some reconfiguring that needs to happen before you bring in a new team member. Looking closer, you might see some untapped talent within your existing team that hasn’t been recognized or has been underdeveloped. Maybe adjusting some responsibilities or giving a promotion from within will strengthen your team and give you a new perspective of what the team actually needs.
Once you’ve got clarity about what you need, it’s time to create your job posting.
You might think that the vetting of resumes and interviewing candidates are the most important part of the hiring process but a well-thought out job posting can remove so many headaches and work involved in finding the right candidate.
If your organization has been impacted by the Great Resignation, here are four ways to help you re-group or re-structure your team:
Know who you are looking for.
Create an avatar of the person you want as part of your team. For example, search your organization (past and present) to find the best __________________ (the position you want to fill) you’ve ever hired or had in that position. Make a list of what they did that made them different, best, better than the rest. What did their day-to-day activities look like? How did they approach challenges or problems? What skills or talents did they use to do the job? What experience did they bring and use? What did they do better than any others?
Reverse engineer the job qualifications, characteristics, skills etc. as though you were creating a picture of that person.
Pan for gold.
Recruitment specialists will tell you that the real work of hiring is not finding the right person, but in eliminating as many unsuitable applicants as possible.
It’s like panning for gold. You dip your pan into the stream, bringing up with it twigs, pebbles and sand. It’s not until after the sifting process that you find the good stuff that remains. The gold.
To sift out and reduce the number of unsuitable applicants don’t ask for a resume, ask them to complete a short challenge instead. Ask them to submit an example of something you’d want them to create - a communication to a potential funder, or ask them to describe how they’d handle a specific situation - something that’s related to a specific task or responsibility for the position you are seeking to fill. You could even ask for a combination of tasks.
Inviting them to participate in such a challenge will likely attract those who really want to work for your organization and will allow you to judge their actual abilities, skills, creativity and competence levels (or whatever you are looking for) and not what they “say” they possess.
Give them context.
“Wanted: A person who can do anything”…said no hiring manager ever!
When you are creating your job postings be sure to give context around the qualifications you are seeking from your candidates.
Saying that you require someone with “creative problem solving skills” is generic and can apply to many different types of jobs, industries and sectors. How does it apply to this specific job and your sector? What does it even mean? What do creative problem solving skills look like for someone working in the VAW sector? Let them know what you mean by giving context to everything beyond the obvious like what your work hours are. Tether everything to tasks, technologies, deliverables or outcomes. If you need them to know a specific software or computer program tell them what programs they’re going to use, how they’ll use them and what you expect from them using those programs.
Instead of: Proficiency in Microsoft Word & Graphic Design Software
Try: Must use Microsoft Word and Canva to prepare creative, clear and concise, correspondence and monthly newsletters to educate current and potential funders.
Instead of: Perform quality work within deadlines
Try: Complete weekly, accurate and descriptive case conference reports using _______________ (software program).
Give them what they want.
Employers or recruiters give about thirty seconds to a resume to determine if the applicant is worth their time and resources. Likewise, most applicants take about forty-five seconds to decide if they want to give energy to reading the rest of the job posting. The Great Resignation that many VAW organizations are experiencing, has shown that people want (and expect) work that works for their lives. So they are being much more selective about where they apply and want to spend their work lives.
To get and keep their attention, you need to put what they can expect as a potential employee, “above the fold”…in the top quarter of the job post.
When they first look at your posting they are looking for the job title, expected salary, career path, benefits, where and how they are expected to work (IE; remote, hybrid etc.). In that first forty-five seconds they are not interested in learning about your mission and vision and purpose.
If you are looking for the best - you need to grab their attention and engage them long enough for them to see that you are exactly the type of organization they are looking to work for.
Finding the right candidates for your VAW organization, is just the beginning of building a winning team. There are other considerations to keep top-of-mind like Successful Onboarding, Managing and Retaining Great Employees and conducting Stay Interviews, which will be covered in future articles in this series.
If your organization or agency has been affected by the Great Resignation and you are looking to rebuild or re-energize your team we can bring you articles and resources that can help.
Let us know in the Comment Section below what has worked to help you or what you’d like more of that could help you through the parts of COVID (like the Great Resignation) that no one saw coming.