The Impact On Promo The Great Resignation and the trends driving it are felt as readily in a marketplace as large and diverse as the promotional products industry as any other sector of the economy. “Employees knowwhat they want and need to be happy,” says Erika Ruehlman, vice president of talent and strategy at St. Louis-based PromoPlacement Recruiting. “Companies that are taking a modern approach to work-life balance, remote work, benefits and are being competitive with compensation are winning by attracting and retaining top talent. One hundred percent of the people I talk to love the industry with a passion I believe to be unrivaled. “Companies must step up their game to hire and retain the ‘A players,’ and those that do will come out on top.” Businesses large and small have registered key talent departures. In February, Jason Lucash stepped down fromhis position as chief development officer at Braintree, Massachusetts-based supplier HPG. He still serves on the company’s board in an advisory capacity and sees many of the Great Resignation’s trends at play in the industry. “During the pandemic the labor force shifted dramatically,” Lucash says. “Many people were out of jobs and receiving the high unemployment benefits associated with it, so they didn’t want to return to the labor force, and that hasn’t changed dramatically in the last two years. “The biggest impact these trends will have on the industry is for suppliers in the operations side of their business. Just as the airlines currently can’t handle the amount of bags passing through airports every day due to staffing shortages, the same is to be said about suppliers in the promo industry. When you layer on increased demand, with labor shortages to decorate and ship orders, it makes for the perfect storm. Also, as many more remote work opportunities opened up during the pandemic, the typical warehouse employee now had a much larger pool to select jobs fromwhich further exacerbates the staffing shortages.” No organization is immune to the effects of this unfamiliar economic paradigm. Even PPAI has been affected. It has registered a handful of veteran contributors parting ways with the Association in recent years as they move on to new chapters in their lives. High-profile departures within the organization include Director of Publications and Editor Tina Filipski, who stepped down at the end of 2021 after 26 years, and Executive Vice President BobMcLean, who left last month after a 14-year run to enter consulting work. In 2021, McLean led the Association in an interim capacity following the departure of Paul Bellantone fromhis post as president and CEO for an executive role at leading distributor HALO. Regardless of how long The Great Resignation and the trends behind it remain in play, it will likely have a lasting effect on promotional products companies’ recruiting and retention practices. “Human resource professionals are noting a delineation in resignations between companies that offered remote work opportunities versus those that enforced a return to the office,” says Jaci Badzin, a business futurist who has worked with Nike, Google and YouTube. “While some positions and teams strongly benefit from a return to the office, workfrom-home flexibility, even part time, proves to currently be one of the most important policies for retaining and attracting top talent and entry level talent. “The other big area is healthcare benefits. Increasing and publicizing stellar healthcare policies is one of the best ways companies can attract great talent. We even see employees sharing about their great benefits on social media. Benefits that stand out can include mental health support, holistic medicine benefits, and fertility and family planning.” The Job Market Following the pandemic rebound, employment growth has been rapid – in July, the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 3.5% and the country added 528,000 nonfarm jobs, in part fueled by a voluntary turnover rate up 25% frompre-pandemic levels. Additionally, there were 11.3 million open jobs Erika Ruehlman Jason Lucash Jaci Badzin 40% Almost half, 40%, of workers planning to leave their jobs within three to six months Cube29 / Shutterstock.com FEATURE | Great Resignation 70 | OCTOBER 2022 |
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