Hiring in a Tight Labor Market

I’ve had the opportunity to speak to dozens of CEO groups over the last year. Every one of them told me that their revenue numbers were doing well but their growth was limited by today’s talent shortage.

Here are some quick ideas I shared with these executives that you can use:

1.??????Before you hire another person in a “similar” position, consider whether you should instead take away the lowest value work from existing people and hire a more junior employee. Personally, I don’t want to pay people $50 an hour only to find them doing some $20 an hour work. I’d rather take all that $20 an hour work away from them and their peers and hand it to that new employee.

2.??????Understand current compensation trends. Employees are looking for a “fair day’s wage”. Once they feel they are earning that, money drops off as a primary motivator. The marketplace tells you what a fair day’s wage is. We can find ourselves in a trap when we hire a new employee for more than our existing employees and hope they don’t say anything. There will be considerable wage “compression” at both low wage and high wage levels. Employers are having a difficult time getting service workers as well as engineers, nurses, and lawyers. Bottom-line be prepared to pay at least 10-205 more for new employees…or more.

3.??????The most effective way to find a new employee is through a robust referral program. Companies may end up paying $20,000-$50,000 to hire a $100,000- year employee but have a referral system that only offers a $250 bonus when an employee does the same thing. You must put considerable “juice” into the system to get past their fear of referring somebody who may not work out. Those CEOs I spoke to who had the best programs put at least $3,000-$10,000 into the process. Some upfront, some in 3-6 months, and some at a year.

4.??????Don’t hire anyone out of desperation. If you’re desperate, put them on somebody else’s payroll. Instead, position yourself to be difficult to come to work for because your standards are so high. Like the Navy SEALS of hiring. We only hire the best and want to make sure you are a great fit for our team. Don’t be afraid of the fact it may eliminate some losers.

5.??????Most career web pages are difficult to find. Make sure yours is not. Some companies have been putting a “splash page” on top of their website in their search for employees.

6.??????Finally, there should be three videos on every hiring page. One from the CEO talking about the company, its history, culture, vision, etc. A second one should be a “day in the life” video that gives a good sense of what it’s like to work for the company and the third one should be testimonials from existing employees praising their work experience. These videos are easy to produce on an iPhone, transfer to Vimeo or YouTube, and then upload it to a WordPress plugin.

That’s enough for this article. Next week, I’m going to talk about how we can up our engagement game in these crazy times. Stay tuned and be well, Don.

Don Phin is a California attorney, executive coach, consultant, and speaker. You can learn more about him and download a ton of free tools at www.donphin.com He can be reached at [email protected]