COMP NEWS – As the ‘Great Resignation’ looms heavy on the mind of many HR professionals, some are arguing that the current labor market may not be as treacherous as expected. While it is true that many employees are looking to switch careers, this does not always mean that they are looking to move to a different company.

It’s not exactly the “great resignation,” but more like the “great reorganization”: Millions of Americans want to quit their jobs, but many of them would happily stay at their companies in different positions.

 

What’s happening: 1 in 3 candidates who sought out a new job in the past year searched internally within their organization first, according to a new report from the consulting firm Gartner.

This means that rather than searching externally for new talent, companies should not rule out that many current employees could be viable for an internal job change.

That’s good news for stressed-out human resources departments navigating the post-pandemic avalanche of quitting. It means they might be able to fill some of those mounting job openings with applicants who’ve already gone through on-boarding and are familiar with the firm.

 

Yes, but: “Historically, that’s been very hard to do,” says Brian Kropp, chief of research for Gartner’s HR practice. “Employees find it really hard to navigate an internal labor market, and most companies sadly have such little knowledge about the skills and capabilities of their existing workforce.”

Encouraging internal hires and making job openings more accessible to current employees could serve to remedy some of the labor force pressure caused by the great resignation.

What to watch: To retain some of those “great resignation” workers who might want to stay on in new roles, companies will have to rethink their hiring practices and biases.

To read more about HR’s silver lining in the Great Resignation, click here.

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