Across the country and around the world right now, there have been issues with staffing in businesses across all sectors of industries struggling to attract and retain talent.

The Great Resignation, a term first coined in 2019 by Texas A&M’s Anthony Klotz to predict a mass, voluntary exodus from the workforce, is here, and it’s quite real.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, during the months of April, May, and June 2021 alone, a total of 11.5 million workers quit their jobs. Recent studies indicate that it’s likely not over. A survey of over 30,000 workers conducted by Microsoft found that 41 percent of workers are considering quitting; that number jumps to 54 percent when Gen-Z is considered alone. Gallup found that 48 percent of employees are actively searching for new opportunities. And Persio reported that 38 percent of those they surveyed planned to make a change in the next six months.

The issues driving the Great Resignation, while having multiple reasons, are mostly variations on a theme. According to a survey conducted by LinkedIn, 74 percent of those surveyed indicated that the time they have been spending at home — either during shut-downs or working remotely — during the pandemic, had caused them to rethink their current work situation. A great many — over half in several surveys — cite stress and burnout in their current position as a reason for looking elsewhere. Others point to dissatisfaction, and even fear, caused by knee-jerk cost-cutting actions by their current employer in response to Covid-19-related business slowdowns as a reason for bolting, with many finding fundamental unfairness in holds on promotions, frozen merit increases, and indiscriminate layoffs which impacted poor performers and stars equally, particularly as they watched executive leadership refuse to participate in the pain.

On the other hand, Aptude, a leader in digital transformation and app modernization has been successful in employee retention across all of our offices, and are growing staff while other companies are losing them. Aptude has increased staffing by 25% in 2022 alone, leading us to ask the speculative question: “What great resignation?”

In the US alone, in 2021 Aptude brought in over 75 hires to our company to help facilitate digital transformation and application modernization initiatives for a growing number of clients that needed highly qualified data scientists, full-stack developers, and IT technicians. And just in the first quarter of 2022 alone, we have brought on more than 15 new hires. Internationally, in Mexico for example, in 2021 we had 68 new hires to service company requirements there, and in 2022, we have already hired 11 new employees with 2 in the process of completing their hiring process. And in India, there were 70 additional hires, with numbers still coming in for 2022.

Overall, in the tech sector, in the second half of 2021, voluntary employee attrition was up 50% at technology companies year over year.^[1] In the second half of 2021, HR leadership at tech companies reported voluntary employee attrition was up nearly 50% year over year, from an annualized ~13% in 2H 2020 to ~20% in 2H 2021.^[2] This would suggest that the “Great Resignation” did impact technology companies to a larger degree than other business sectors.

But the reasons behind why Aptude is growing staff while others are losing them lies in our staffing efficiencies that works in the best interest of our employees and their lives, all to provide our customers with reliable, dependable, highly-trained IT and technology professionals.

With offices locally and around the world, we have agile teams to help you materialize your development and support your initiatives. Getting more done with less, working locally whenever possible while containing cost, that’s what we do. Let’s keep moving forward.

^[1] https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*RLfS4Qqxy9dYAa3KPt7pkw.png

^[2] https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*RLfS4Qqxy9dYAa3KPt7pkw.png