What to do, when candidates are few

The other day I heard about a recruiter who is working for Uber to find prospects. He hangs out in parts of town with his target workers (bio-technology in this case) and waits for a fare. He then strikes up a conversation, and BAM, he’s got a prospect.

Now THAT is a tight job market.

Every technology company that I know is looking for good people. But there are very few qualified people who are unemployed. Most often, the good people are working somewhere else, and you need to go-a-poachin’. Poaching is hunting on someone else’s land, and it is a common practice when the job market is hot.
The cost of hiring a new person is commonly quoted as 1.5x the fully loaded salary of that person. But, when the job market is tight, this may go up to 2x to 2.5x or more. Imagine you just lose 2 people per year, quarter, or month. So often we just think, “Oh darn, we have to rehire.” But those 2 people with salaries of $190,000 each at 2x their salary to replace them are now costing the company $760,000!

If you had a sale of $760,000 there would be rejoicing. The loss of the same amount should be devastating. Not to mention the fact that your work is delayed because you planned on having two productive team members for 12 months and what you have now is nobody for 6 months (hiring), drain on the team while they interview, then 6 months of getting the person up to speed on the project and technology they will be working with (more drain on the team).

Do the math for yourself this time:

Salary                                     a.____________________
# quits/time period             b.____________________/time period
Cost to replace                      c.________________x2__
Total                            (a*b*c) ___________________/time period (from b)

That is real money that your company didn’t have to spend. It is much harder to hire good people than it is to keep the people you already have.

Three barbed wire fences

When poaching is a problem, you need to erect three barbwire fences to keep the poachers out and your good employees in:

1. Compelling mission
2. Inspiring leaders/managers
3. Great culture

These are the three pillars to retaining the great employees you have.

Compelling mission

People say that millennials really need to believe in the mission of their work. But this isn’t a millennial thing. Today, everyone wants to be engaged in the mission of the work that they do. If you are selling widgets just to make a buck, you are easy pickins for the poachers. You may be able to hire people, but you will find that their tenure with your organization is short. Why? Because they are using you to have a paycheck while they keep looking for the work they really want to do, the work with a mission.

You can’t just make up a mission either. A compelling mission takes deep thinking and needs to become integral to everything you do. People want to be a part of something big, something important, something that is going to make a difference in the world. Steve Jobs wanted to “Put a Ding in the Universe”, Tom’s shoes is about “improving lives, one for one,” Nike’s mission is to “Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” “if you have a body, you are an athlete.” My mission is, “To bring Hope and Joy to people in their work.” These are much more missional than, “to be the top widget producer and increase shareholder value.” I have specific powerful exercises I use with my best clients to help them define and refine their compelling mission. Finding your mission can take a few hours to a couple of days, depending on the organization’s size and complexity.

Inspiring leaders/managers

There are two people who are the most important to an employee:

1. Their manager
2. The top management (CEO, President)

The manager’s role cannot be overstated. The most successful organizations invest in leadership training for line management, not just manager training. This person takes the mission of the organization (see above) and makes it personal. The best managers embody the mission of the organization. If a person does not embody the mission, it should be a deal breaker for their promotion to management.

The best leaders are supportive leaders. They are in the business of doing whatever it takes to make their reports successful, while they also create opportunities for empowerment in them. Opportunities for empowerment give the employee autonomy and the ability to make key decisions about the work, for themselves.

Great leaders set the vision for the organization and define the boundaries with which they may operate and still be on target with the mission. Beyond that, leaders encourage and provide resources to let others bring the mission to life. This is the job of the leader to make other people successful.

Creating great leaders is not a matter of training. In this article, I discuss a three part model for creating and maintaining inspiring leaders across an organization. 

Great Culture 

Culture is our collective beliefs about how to respond to a given situation in a given context. For example, it is culturally acceptable to shout at the top of your lungs and pump your fist in the air during a sporting event when your team scores the winning point. It is not culturally acceptable to do the same thing in a movie theater, except if it is during the Rocky Horror Picture Show, again a cultural experience.

Business is just another context where we have shared beliefs about appropriate responses to events. What is the appropriate response to missing a deadline in your organization? Is it different in other organizations? You bet it is. Every organization has their own nuanced way of responding. In this one simple example, the response may vary from anger and shouting to passive aggressive placating, to impassioned discussion of the facts. It all depends on the culture.
I think the most important thing to understand about organizational culture, is that your organization will have one. You will either have an intentional culture, or an unintentional culture. The best organizations are intentional about their culture design. The good news is if your culture is not what you want, intentional or unintentional, you can change it. It takes hard work to change culture, but it can be done. See my article on Culture Change here.

Your culture is great if it connects with the people who are there. It does not have to connect with everyone. No one can deny the strength of the culture in the Marine Corps, but it isn’t for everyone. For those that are a fit, there is no stronger bond but family. To those for whom it isn’t a fit, it is mind boggling. Your culture will not be a fit for everyone, so be sure you hire for culture fit.
With these defenses (compelling mission, inspiring leaders, and a great culture), your people won’t want to leave, and the poachers will be left out in the cold. The best trick to hire awesome people is keeping the good people you have!

Think 

Take mental stock of your organization. What is your mission? Do you know it by heart? Do your leaders embody the mission? Are they creating opportunities for empowerment for their reports? What about your culture? Is it awesome? Does your culture draw people? 

Act

The best and most successful organizations I know focus on one thing at a time. So do that. Pick one of these pillars and focus on it. Assess where you are now, determine where you would like that pillar be in 6 months, and take specific steps in that direction, now! Don’t know how to do this? Shoot me an email; it is what I live for ([email protected]).

Share

Like this article? Then “Like” the article. Share the article on LinkedIn, in your company, with your peers, with your managers, and your executives. The more people understand the real cost of poaching and the simple, no-cost or low-cost things you can do today to fix it, the sooner you can stop the hemorrhaging.