WHIO Reports: The Great Resignation

DAYTON — Millions of Americans have quit their jobs and many industries are facing a worker shortage — people are calling it “The Great Resignation”.

A report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that 4.3 million people quit in December.

That’s slightly less than the record high of 4.5 million in November.

The University of Dayton is hosting an event aimed at finding solutions to one of the economic offshoots of the pandemic.

“The number one issue we’re tracking right now is business leaders are really struggling to attract, retain the best talent,” Bruce Tulgan, chief executive officer of Rainmaker Thinking and a guru on employee-employer relations.

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Tulgan will be the guest speaker at an executive development program at UD later this month.

He said the pandemic only worsened the recruitment and retention problem for businesses.

“What happened during the pandemic is that these long-term trends accelerated about 20 years in the course of 20 months,” Tulgan told News Center 7′s John Bedell.

There are all kinds of factors leading to a smaller workforce according to Tulgan.

Like baby boomers deciding to push up retirement a few years during the pandemic, people’s family care changing and people just rethinking their working lives, careers and future.

Tulgan said companies have to do more than offer better pay to attract people back to the workforce.

People want to have control over their own schedules and location Tulgan said.

He also said workers want supportive leadership, learning opportunities and the choice of what kind of projects they get to work on.

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University of Dayton’s Center for Leadership is hosting the event.

The event is for Human Resources and hiring professionals, managers and anyone who has a hand in the hiring and retention process.

Brent Kondritz, executive director of UD Center for Leadership, said what the center has done for more than 20 years is asses and ask regional organizational leaders what the burning issues are.

Kondritz said when trying to find someone who had knowledge about employee-employer relations they thought about Tulgan, who has spoken at UD before.

UD will be hosting the event on Feb. 22. at Daniel J. Curran Place located at 1700 S Patterson Boulevard in Dayton.

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