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Winning the War
for Talent
Ingenuity, flexibility and creativity can be even more important than cash in finding and keeping great employees
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Business New Haven
2/8/1999
By: Lori Green
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Unless you're a biotech firm in need of prime laboratory space, finding the right location for your business isn't a major hurdle. And since the cost of talented office technology keeps heading south, employers can afford to upgrade to much faster machines that come in colors like blueberry and peach - some with an I.Q. high enough to correct many of their own operating glitches.
Human-resources talent, however, is increasingly difficult to find, hire and retain. It's hand-to-hand combat out there if you're a growing company looking for qualified workers.
Yes, the current vibrant economy is creating lots of jobs. But an even more challenging near-term picture is painted by labor force demographics.
By 2005, the median age of a U.S. worker will have risen to 41. The number of workers between 25 to 34 years of age will have declined by almost four million. Within the next ten years, workers age 45 and older will comprise nearly 40 percent of the total labor force.
Yet over the same period, small and mid-sized businesses across Connecticut and the country at large are expected to continue to grow faster than companies with more than 500 employees.
Last year alone the state gained just under 30,000 jobs in nearly every sector, bringing unemployment down in December 1998 to 3.1 percent - more than a point below the overall U.S. rate.
How can smaller companies fish the labor pool for the best candidates alongside the big guys with huge nets? And once caught, how can you hold on to top performers? Here are a few proven recruitment and retention strategies:
• Student Target Practice. Identifying capable employees before they enter the workforce helps to prevent labor shortages as your business expands. Contact high schools, community colleges and technical schools to find out about setting up school-to-work programs for their graduates.
Use direct mail, offer a signing bonus, and organize or sponsor a school event to promote your company as a desirable employer. Advertising on well-placed billboards or even skywriting are ways to get the attention of potential job-seekers. Once you have their attention, offer apprenticeships, internships and a vision of future advancement.
• Take the Online Express. According to a recent study by consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide, 85 percent of Generation Xers say that using the Internet to find a job is as natural and easy as dialing phone number.
Most companies already post job openings on their corporate Web sites, but dedicated job and résumé-posting sites are proliferating. Try www.monster.com, a megacollection of more than 50,000 job postings from the Fortune 100 to hundreds of small private companies. The site has been used successfully to hire employees by giants like Microsoft, Nike and MCI.
Because there are dozens of Web sites for those seeking and offering jobs cropping up each week, make regular use of search engines to locate new job posting boards both on the Web and in newsgroups.
• Older and Disabled Workers in Demand. Advances in health care are raising life expectancies. In addition, a greater portion of the population is finding out that Social Security, even if it survives, is hardly a living. More retail services, for example, are filling job vacancies with older employees who either want or need supplementary income.
Information technology (IT) workers, the rarest and most avidly hunted in the labor market jungle, are increasingly found among the ranks of the disabled.
Contact organizations that work with the physically handicapped. Consider working with groups that match employees with various types of disabilities to appropriate jobs.
• Peg Pay to Results and Volume. Avoid using the calendar as the main meter for dispensing rewards employees. If your business has a low volume seasonal cycle, use the lull to give or advance comp time to valued workers. When activity picks up, provide dollar incentives that include as many people as possible.
Projects or contracts can be managed with a pay bonus tacked on to ensure quality output and that deadlines are met.
• Share the Wealth. Higher sales can deliver fatter paychecks to a team, or to the whole company, rather than only to the sales force. Simple profit- or gainsharing plans work well and can be set up easily by small businesses.
• Equity Deals. Even start-ups are now keen on giving employees a stake as a way of buying loyalty, or at least some long-term commitment. No longer reserved for upper level execs, stock options are cited as the top rated preferred benefit by people 25 to 45 years old.
• Flexibility. Flextime has become a permanent fixture of the workplace, even in traditionally staid industries such as banking, insurance and finance. Offer some form of work-at-home arrangement, a compressed workweek, or other off-site work options that help employees juggle the demands of work and family responsibilities.
• Autonomy. Mentor, coach, give feedback - but don't over-manage. Talented job candidates at various levels skill - especially younger ones - want as much control as possible over their work.
Pride in developing one's own method and style of accomplishing goals is highly valued by new entrants to the workplace. Give elbow room as well as head room to grow.
• Perks and Fringes You Can Afford. Offer at least one or two special benefits, even if you can't afford big ones like comprehensive health care or fitness-center memberships. Parking, breakfast, home pet care, occasional tickets to sporting or entertainment events, Internet service, rail passes or cell phones with a monthly call allowance.
Companies can sometimes barter with customers or vendors so that perks can be offered to workers, even on a rotational basis.
• Be a Cool Company. People in their prime working years want to work for a venture with life force and a future. A collegial atmosphere that values affability, passion and openness is definitely cool. Let employee teams design their own procedures and contribute to some company-wide decision making. Also cool is a commitment from owners and managers to keep stress at a minimum and productivity high.
Favorite stress relievers include ergonomically designed equipment, taking short breaks outdoors, stretching in an unused part of the office and bringing an unobtrusive (but not virtual) pet to work. BNH
Lori Green's Best Practices in Recruitment and Retention, recently published by the Bureau of Business Practice, can be purchased by calling 1-800-243-0876, ext. 350.
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