For employers this is a tough labor market. Everybody is working! Virtually anybody in the Seattle area with good background and skills has a job. Meanwhile, employers need more people to facilitate growth. The most common complaint I am hearing from business owners is they can’t find good people to hire.
How did we get here? The first factor is, and as I’ve noted before, we’re living in a boomtown. The national economy is good and the Puget Sound area is better. Second, employers deferred hiring because the memory of the Great Recession is still pretty fresh. But now, existing staff just can’t handle the growth. Time for new hires. Finally, most business owners will tell you that their people make the difference in their business. Quality employees are the competitive edge in most cases.
About two years ago, my software clients began having trouble finding staff. Amazon’s and Microsoft’s cloud computing initiatives were sucking up every person with a tech background. It’s hard to compete with those companies. More recently, clients have been looking for accounting and sales people. In this case it isn’t two big companies, it’s the fact that we are currently in a full-employment situation.
What can you do about this situation? My thoughts are below.
Pay More
Yeah, I know, this should be obvious. But it isn’t to a lot of people. During a period of full-employment, you’re going to have to go poach people from other companies and that means you’ll probably have to pay them more. If they’re really the right people, step up and pay them more. And then expect more from them.
Offer Better Benefits
Benefits are a big deal, especially medical plans. Give your people more than your competitors. This will often mean more to employees than higher pay.
Improve Your Culture
Most employees don’t like their job. If you can make your company a better place to work, you’ll become an employer of choice and have people coming to you. I’m not talking about foosball tables in the office. I’m talking about giving people guidance, making expectations clear and then helping people be the best that they can be. It sounds trite, but empower people and then get out of their way. Be the Pete Carroll of your business.
Give HR a New Job
Sorry Human Resource professionals reading this, but I’ve never met an HR person who was focused on much more than compliance. That is, keeping the company out of trouble. Since HR is about people, shouldn’t the first area of focus be hiring, training and retaining great people who will really make a difference in your business? If a CFO’s first concern was tax compliance, you’ve got the wrong CFO. I think HR should operate the same way.
Close the Back Door
Once you hire and train great people, create a reason for them to stay. Give them a chance to advance and improve themselves. Don’t let other employers poach your staff; take care of them and pay them what you would have to pay their replacement. You’ve got a big investment in your employees; retraining new hires is expensive.
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