"The Great Covid Job Churn" will come, predicts recruiter William Vanderbloemen, after months of stagnation in the job market, with workers looking to move closer to home or reassessing their career goals. Employers need to determine which workers they really want to keep and make sure the work environment and pay is appealing.

Companies want to keep their best talent as long as possible, but ineffective onboarding can make this difficult. Here are six suggestions to make onboarding as employee-friendly as possible.

President-elect Joe Biden says he will ask Congress to act swiftly to provide $1.9 trillion in immediate relief to help the economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The package includes aid to states and cities, additional unemployment benefits, larger direct payments to Americans and a minimum wage increase.

When employees are feeling "stuck, struggling or successful," leaders should be able to reframe stories to provide hope, encouragement and motivation, writes Mark Sanborn. "Sometimes people need to be resold on themselves; to hear the encouragement from someone they know and trust that they can do it," he writes.

Cuneiform tablets found in the ruins of Kanesh, in modern-day Turkey, from the 19th century B.C. show women were deeply involved in the textile trade business with Iraq, writing to their brothers and husbands about issues of profits and fraud. The letters are part of a book about the thriving business of the Assyrian traders who sold textiles and other luxury goods.

In observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the US, SmartBrief will not publish Monday. Publication will resume Tuesday.

I'm a girl from Maui -- with a weakness for chocolate, pinot noir and sports -- covering the latest news and trends in the workforce and K-20 education.

We should not disregard the value -- even the urgency -- of being a lifelong learner, of continually sharpening our professional skill set. Minnesota Timberwolves legend Kevin Garnett expressed this sentiment when he won the NBA's Most Valuable Player award in 2004.

"I can get better at every aspect of the game. I don't do anything perfect. I think the day that you start to say that you can't learn or you can't get better, I think, is the day that you start to tilt your hat to the crowd," Garnett said.

How can SmartBrief on Workforce help you keep learning and development at the top of your organization's priority list? What information do you need? More about learning tools? Research on what works? Stories about what other organizations are doing? Tell me! Drop a line and let me know how this brief can help you.