Overcoming Hiring Hurdles in Widespread Resignations: Key Tips

Understanding the “Great Resignation”

This phrase refers to the nearly 40 million Americans who have quit their jobs – at near-record highs – since the spring of 2021. This employment trend is expected to continue through 2022 with as many as 40% of workers still considering changing jobs or quitting.(source)  

Here’s why:

• People are reevaluating their priorities and how their careers align with their values and interests.
• Many people simply don’t want to go back to an office after seeing the benefits of working remotely during the COVID pandemic.
• There is a clear relationship between the stress of the pandemic and employee burnout, which often leads to higher turnover.(source)

All of these contributing factors are motivating employees to consider new job opportunities.

Which is why it’s important to note that what’s really happening isn’t a great resignation - it’s a great reshuffle. People aren’t resigning their jobs to sit at home and do nothing; they’re resigning and looking for something new.

How Resignation Trends Directly Impact Businesses

Whether your company has tens, hundreds, or thousands of employees, the quit rate can have a large impact on your business. On average, it costs employers six to nine months of an employee's salary to replace him or her. If the employee makes $60,000 per year, for example, it would cost approximately $30,000 - $45,000 to recruit and train a new hire.(source)

There are other hidden costs too:

• You may lose operational knowledge that brought value to your business.
• If customer satisfaction starts declining, you may lose important relationships that impact your business’s revenue.
• Other employees may have to pick up the slack until you find a new hire. This impacts productivity beyond just the unfilled position.
• Filling that position may cost you a higher salary and/or better benefits, given the high demand in the labor market for workers and the upper-hand most prospective candidates have when negotiating.

The bottom line: companies need to make sure as they fill all their open positions, they are hiring the right candidates and moving quickly in doing so. A consumer reporting agency (CRA) can help by conducting a background check on a candidate before you hire and reducing your time to hire.

Why Background Checks Are Critical

Employers are expected to exercise due diligence and take all reasonable precautions to prevent harm or legal liability in the workplace. A background check is the single best way to fulfill your legal safety and compliance obligations – to employees, customers, and the public. Depending on the state and specific industry, a background check can do a number of things:

• Confirm a candidate’s qualifications or alert you if they are lacking proper education and training
• Alert you to criminal charges
• Identify prior reasons for termination
• Reveal discrepancies in a candidate’s work history
• Minimize risk of employee fraud and theft
• Reduce your rate of unwanted turnover

Confirming a candidate’s qualifications and background history can improve your chances of making the right hire. Navigating the often complicated laws and regulations around background checks can be tricky, so having a knowledgeable partner in these areas is key to making sure your business gets a higher return on its investment.

Reducing your time to hire

Employers are facing fierce competition for talent. Once you identify the right candidate, it’s critical to be able to move quickly in making an offer, completing a background check, and completing any required tests.

In the industry, it’s known as “time to hire” and measures how long it takes a prospective candidate to accept a job offer and complete all pre-employment screening. Employers that can’t move quickly enough risk losing high quality candidates.

Overcome Hiring Hurdles During the Great Resignation With Vault Health

Whether you’re hiring for new positions or backfilling previous ones, take into consideration what the prospective candidates really value out of their job. Once you’ve identified a candidate that checks all of the initial interview boxes, make sure that they also check off all of the background check and verification boxes too.

Vault Workforce Screening is a PBSA-accredited consumer reporting agency with over 30 years of experience. We provide quick, compliant, and accurate screening solutions that help streamline the onboarding process and reduce your business risk, through customizable full-service offerings that improve the new-hire screening process for HR professionals, hiring managers, and candidates, including:

• Remote Form I-9
• eConsent Forms
• Real-time turnaround time reporting by county
• Virtual specimen collections conducted via video with your employee or candidates
• In-house Medical Review Officer services
• All-in-one scheduling platforms for vaccinations and physical examinations

Vault’s quick, compliant, and accurate screening solutions are designed to help reduce time to hire. And in today’s employment landscape, where talent acquisition is so central to the business's success, agility and efficient hiring practices are critical.

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