ATLANTA, Nov. 30, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In July, four million Americans quit their jobs. In August & September, an aggregate of more than another eight million quit.

From manufacturing to the tech sector, workers are paradoxically quitting positions that leadership assumed offered satisfactory pay and benefits. The "Big Quit" is upon us.

Regardless, it's not over. According to Gallup research, 48 percent of employees are actively looking for another job opportunity.

It's clear now that HR leaders need to focus on solutions and therefore retention is the name of the game for employers. However, not every employee is leaving, and it's crucial to help employees that are staying remain engaged.

A crucial solution to this growing problem is focusing on employee soft skills learning and development.

A study by Harvard, MIT, and other schools found that soft skills training in areas like problem solving and communication increased productivity and retention by 12 percent, with a 250 percent ROI in under a year.

According to McKinsey & Company, the most important factor for employees post-Great Resignation is that they feel valued by the organization. Over 93% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their skills training, according to LinkedIn's 2018 Workplace Learning Report.

In the last few months, leaders at The Hershey Company have rolled out a list of well-being initiatives, including resources, scheduled focus time, and educating employees on how to have conversations.

While some organizations are trying to address their employee engagement and retention problem by offering self-paced, pre-recorded learning programs to employees, in reality the outcome is that it further disconnects already isolated employees.

"We've spoken with leaders in human resources and directly to team leaders in several sectors," says Winning Feathers founder Apurva Ghelani, "and their employees are all saying the same thing: they're isolated, and this isolation is a major blow to their resolve and their productivity."

Online teaching opportunities ballooned during the pandemic, but many learners found they were deeply dissatisfied by pre-recorded lectures and asynchronous interaction with instructors.

Soft skills institute Winning Feathers is focused on helping companies drive and keep employee retention rates up in a unique way: by offering live and interactive soft skills workshops that make learning necessary core skills engaging and fun.

"Adding live, interactive workshops as a benefit for our employees not only improved retention rates," says Pramod Sajja, CEO of Paramount Software Solutions, "but improved the productivity of employees in the workplace."

These workshops drive employees to cultivate lifelong, and develop core skills in areas like presentation skills, assertive communication, stress management, interpersonal communication skills and conducting effective meetings.

"For a long time, business leaders have thought of soft skills as the 'nice-to-have,'" says Ghelani "but now we're finding more and more companies willing to invest in soft skills as an employee benefit. They realize that soft skills training is part of the bigger picture - it isn't just an investment in the individual but the whole organization's productivity and culture."

https://www.winningfeathers.com

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SOURCE Winning Feathers