2023: a year of open doors
A blank canvas. A clean slate. A fresh start. These are the clichés we always hear when we find ourselves at the outset of a brand new year, but there’s actually some truth to them.
Sure, we might just be flipping the calendar over to another January. No, not much has changed over the past week or two. All the same, it’s an important landmark to reach because it allows us all to stop and spend a few moments looking ahead.
As employers, managers, and workers ourselves, we’ve learned the hard way over the past few years that we can’t control everything that happens in the world of work we inhabit. Life tends to get in the way of even our best-laid plans. That said, we can still make resolutions. We can still hold high hopes. We can still go forward into this new year with lessons learned and a shift in mindset to match.
Right now, this year can be whatever we want it to be. It doesn’t have to be another year of record turnover, lagging engagement, hiring troubles, skills gaps, layoffs, and the like. We have the power to make 2023 something far better: a year of open doors.
Many of these challenges our organizations have faced in the recent past have come about due to doors that have long been closed. They’ve been limiting our range of possibilities and solutions.
Take, for instance, the problem that might be the most pressing of all: turnover. People are leaving their companies at record rates. There are plenty of factors that go into the decision to quit, but a huge motivator for many employees is lack of opportunity.
No one likes feeling stuck in a job, and everyone wants the chance to forge their own career path. That could mean moving up the ladder, over to a different team or role, or even just learning new skills. When employees look for those opportunities and find the doors are closed, they can and will leave to find them elsewhere. We can open those doors by embracing talent mobility and providing people with the support and freedom they need to blaze their own trails. When that happens, they won’t just be more invested and engaged - they’ll be more likely to stay.
That very same talent mobility can open doors for employers and their recruiters, too. Those internal employees could very well fill open roles and shore up areas of need, they just need to be considered and tapped into.
There’s also no need to despair at skills gaps any longer when the ability is there to grow those skills in current employees. It’s the skills we’re lacking, not the people. We just need to be willing to see upskilling and reskilling as the solutions they can be.
Speaking of solutions, there’s another one for employers staring down layoffs right now. These companies are bound to have roles in other areas that need to be filled. Why not open the door to potentially redeploying about-to-be-laid-off workers instead of resigning ourselves to cutting them loose? Layoffs are damaging to the brand, and they cost time, money, and people. It can’t hurt to start considering all the options available to us.
In that spirit, there’s one more door we should think about leaving propped open in 2023: the door that former employees walked out of. Some goodbyes don’t have to be forever, and as long as these people left on good terms, there’s no reason to overlook them as a talent pool and rule out a potential reunion. At some point now or in the future they could become re-hired alumni (aka boomerang employees) and bring value back to the organization.
That’s what making 2023 a year of open doors is really all about: keeping an open mind and not shutting ourselves off from potential solutions. Talent mobility, upskilling and reskilling, workforce redeployment, bringing back alumni - they’re all ways we can explore every possibility and make this the year we bring the problems of past years to an end.