Want to keep employees around? Here’s what companies should (and shouldn’t) be doing.

Many organizations continue to struggle with finding and retaining skilled employees in today’s challenging talent environment. While some companies are doing better than others at solving the “Great Resignation,” virtually no business is fully immune from the impacts.

As the MIT Sloan Management Review article below points out, these are the five main drivers of attrition right now: toxic corporate culture, job insecurity and reorganization, long hours and burnout associated with cutting edge work, failure to recognize employee performance and a poor response to COVID-19.

Beyond the last item, all of these should be pretty familiar to organizations in recent decades. They’ve always been issues that lead to turnover, but they’re even more impactful in the current talent market.

But companies aren’t powerless in this battle. The article I linked to above notes some common themes shared by organizations that are weathering the Great Resignation storm better than their peers. And the article below notes these four things as the top steps businesses can take right away to improve retention:

• provide opportunities for lateral job moves
• offer remote work options
• sponsor corporate social events
• make schedules more predictable for front-line employees

Focusing on the top two items from the list, it’s clear that mobility teams can help really move the needle. As MIT SMR points out, employees aren’t always looking for a promotion. Sometimes, a simple change of pace is needed. And if that change of pace involves a relocation and potentially a remote work opportunity, even better! It could be exactly what someone needs to still feel energized about their place within an organization.

As I’ve said before, it’s critical that mobility leaders have a “seat at the table” when it comes to big business decisions. The retention strategies above prove that point — if mobility leaders have their seat at the table, they can make it clear that relocations and assignments can go a long way toward meeting talent goals and moving the business forward.