2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Anthony Klotz, Associate Professor of Management at the Texas A&M University May Business School, coined the term “The Great Resignation.” It is the informal name for the widespread trend of a significant number of workers leaving their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers are leaving for a variety of reasons, such as retirement or higher wages. This is actually a trend that has been going on for over a decade and continues even after COVID-19 has been largely mitigated. Many potential causes have been proposed for the Great Resignation and many believe this trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. This phenomenon has important ramifications for continuing professional development for three important reasons. The first is that more rapid employee turnover means organizations need to do more training. The second is that many of the replacement employees have less knowledge and experience than the workers they are replacing. This is one of the effects of the tight labor market where organizations are finding it increasingly difficult to find qualified workers and are often forced to hire less qualified workers. A third factor is that most organizations do not do a good job of capturing the knowledge of employees who are leaving. This is particularly important when replacing engineering positions which are often highly technical and generally take longer to bring new hires up to full productivity. These three factors mean trainers often need to train less qualified new employees faster than ever, sometimes without all of the needed job information. Some potential solutions for this situation including improved training for leaders, more inclusivity for training employees, more automation, extended reality simulations, and automated self-service virtual training programs. This paper will discuss the causes and effects of the Great Resignation and will present some possible solutions to this training challenge.