You Can’t Buy Good Employees

The Great Resignation is upon us. Workers have taken the past year to ponder what is important to them and what they want from their careers—and their lives—they have been leaving their jobs in droves looking for greener pastures. This might mean they want a more engaging, challenging position. They also might want a better work-life balance or a bigger paycheck. And as help-wanted signs go up in windows across the country, one thing is clear. If someone wants a job, they can have one. It’s up to the employer to convince potential employees that their job is worth having. The immediate response is to simply offer more money. That will surely keep employees happy and attract candidates to fill empty seats, right? The answer is more complicated than that. Once pay and benefits are fair—not industry-leading, mind you, just reasonable—how you treat people becomes a determining factor in how successful your talent acquisition efforts will be. Remember, you can’t buy good employees. You must earn them.