Joining the “Great Return”? Here’s How to Get Back to Full Speed 

You may have heard the term “Great Resignation” used recently to describe people leaving their jobs in high numbers since the start of the pandemic. The desire for higher pay, better benefits, and a more flexible work schedule led many to quit their jobs and look for other opportunities.

However, a significant number of those people who left their jobs – more than a quarter – are now hoping to return to the industries they worked in originally, and sometimes even to the jobs they originally held. Whether it was due to a more difficult than anticipated job hunt, or unmet expectations, people are hoping to go back to their jobs, and we are now experiencing a “Great Return.”

Below we’ll discuss some of the ways employees and employers can take advantage of the “Great Return.”

Many people decided to leave their jobs because they felt like where they worked currently didn’t offer the benefits or flexibility they desired. However, many companies have made changes to their company structure and expectations around flexibility and remote work. So just because your company didn’t offer what you were looking for before, doesn’t mean they still aren’t now.

Employers can keep this in mind going forward as well. Find out what it is your prospective employees are hoping to find in a job, and see what you can do to make that part of what you offer.

You may have left your job, hoping to find something new to try. If that didn’t work out the way you were hoping it would, you may find yourself coming back to what is familiar. There are a lot of benefits to jumping back into a job you know well – the training process may not be as extensive, and you won’t have to deal with the uncertainty and learning curve that comes with starting a brand new job.

Employers can embrace this sense of familiarity by rehiring previous employees. When you hire an employee who has previously completed training and onboarding with your company, you save time and money that you would otherwise have to spend on an employee that is brand new to your company. A previous employee will also be more easily able to jump right into the company culture, since they will likely already know many of their coworkers.

If we’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that things are always changing, and our ability to adapt to change is what can keep us going in the long run. This isn’t the end of ebbs and flows in the job market, and both employees and employers will benefit from increasing their ability to change with it.