Employers are working to retain talent amid the 'great resignation' in pandemic aftershock

FOX 2 - There is a sudden spike in early retirements called the great resignation. Now employers are working to retain talent. HR expert  Carrie Schochet works to match employees with employers and says the great resignation is on.

Long-time employees are resigning at a fast clip. According to Oxford Economics, 2.5 million Americans have retired since Covid started. That’s twice as many people who retired in 2019.

"The reasons for leaving jobs, it could be I want to focus on my passions, I’m not passionate about the field I am working in," said Schochet, Purple Squirrel Advisors. "(They are saying) while I may be good at it, I have other interests I want to pursue. Many are unfortunately, we are hearing of a lot of working moms saying I don’t want the pressures of coming back into the office, I want to be able to stay at home."

For many employees, sitting at home gave them time to reflect on their priorities, the things that make them feel alive.

"There are people who want to travel, retire early, maybe they have their nest egg built and I have decided I just don’t need to work, I don’t want to continue to hustle the way I’ve been hustling, so I think there’s a lot of reasons," she said.

For employers, the great resignation is serving up a major challenge. How to make coming back to work - actually work - for both sides.

"What is the right approach for returning to the office, should we do a hybrid, do we need all this office space come out what’s right for some employees might not be for others," she said. "So I think there’s a lot of flexibility, there’s a lot of leadership challenges, but I think it comes down to communication."

And while workers were thinking hard about their futures and how to shape them, so were companies.

"In some cases they are using it as an opportunity to change the role, I think about their organizational structures, think about what we really need, we have a CFO search, or two or three of those happening right now where the employees have been there 20-plus years," Schochet said. "So it’s a chance for the company to really think about their future."