How Your Competition is Hiring Great Employees in Todays Tough Labor Market

We’ve heard it a thousand times - the labor market is tight and only getting worse.  Unemployment for professionals is close to an all-time low while demand continues to skyrocket.  Frankly, this is nothing new, nor should this be news to most of us.
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What is rather striking are the number of companies who seem to have little plan in place for how they’re going to continue to hire new employees amidst one of the most competitive and challenging employment times in our nations’ history.  Where plans lack, so do results.  Long gone are the days where we can post a job online and get a slew of great applicants, especially in the technology sector.  Why?  Because everyone is working, which means those who aren’t, well there might be a reason for that. 

What this also tells us is in large part the people we all want to hire are gainfully employed elsewhere, to get their attention to come work for you you’ll need to have a plan in place to do so.  Before we can build a hiring plan we first need to understand what we’re up against.

Local Marketplace Dynamics – Orange County, CA:
·       Wages in OC are on average 17.3% higher than the national average and 21% higher than neighboring counties

• OC unemployment in September 2021 was 5%, for professional workers it’s estimated to be under 2% (meaning more than 98% of professionals are gainfully employed right now)
• Many industries are experiencing record growth including IOT, app developers, banking, services and healthcare
• Supply vs. Demand - there are more than 3x the number of job opportunities available as there are people in professional roles to fill them; the supply and demand disparity is even worse in the technical sectors
• Hiring for light industrial/ manufacturing personnel is incredibly challenging due to sheer demand coupled with the supply of personnel still artificially minimized due to geopolitical reasons

 
If your organization is hiring now or in the near future, especially for technologists, I strongly recommend you consider the following hiring and company operational best practices as these will set up both your organization to attract and retain the best people.

Remember, the ‘art of hiring’ isn’t a guessing game or round of blindfolded pin the tail on the doneky.  People work where they feel appreciated, respected, and compensated appropriately so your organization needs to be able to demonstrate that and then operate accordingly.
 
Hiring & Company Operations Best Practices:

• Attraction – two of the best ways to get more eyeballs on your company organically is through your existing employees and social media.  If your existing employees like where they work they’ll tell others, simple as that.  Good people attract other good people.  Some companies offer referral bonuses to their employees for helping to fill key roles.  Secondarily, social media continues to reign supreme when it comes to getting the word out to a large audience.  The trick is to determine which platforms are the best then ensure your messaging is consistent and resonates with your audience.

 

• Sell Your Story – process by which companies build out their sales pitch to attract better talent by using a story to describe the company’s ‘WHY’; it’s a marketing strategy based around the company’s vision and mission – your reason for existing as a company.  This approach is especially powerful with younger generations.

 

• Fringe Benefits & Perks – this isn’t just for Silicon Valley companies any longer, if you aren’t offering some of these you’re automatically in 2nd or 3rd place as an employer:
  • Retirement plans with match
  • Additional compensation via bonuses
  • Work from home programs
  • Vacation for new employees starting at 3 weeks, a 2 week offering is becoming a thing of the past
  • Employee recognition programs
  • Sign on bonuses for new hires
  • Onsite barista/ drink and or snack stations
  • Medical/ dental/ vision plans 100% paid for by employer
  • Employee referral compensation programs
  • Free lunch for employees, or onsite cafeterias with subsidized meals
  • Company ownership incentives
  • Education reimbursement
  • Paid paternal leave for parents (including fathers) beyond FMLA offerings
  • Wellness programs
  • ‘Quiet Room’ spaces which allow employees to decompress
  • Commuter assistance
  • Childcare assistance
  • Car cleaning services

I’ll admit some of the above items seem a bit over the top yet in the same breath I must also admit many of these things are becoming common place.  It’s not to say you need to do them all, but to not offer any of these perks to current and or prospective employees means you may likely find yourself losing current employees to other companies who do have them, or not being able to hire at all.  SHRM estimates the cost to backfill an existing employee is 6-9 months of their annualized salary.  This offers a good moment of reflection – should you invest upfront (perks) or pay in the rears as you look to backfill and replace employees?

Additional Best Practices:

• Employee Onboarding Program - new employees who experienced a well-structured onboarding orientation program were 69% more likely to remain at a company three plus years.  Learn more about onboarding programs at http://www.sqr1services.com/white-papers/why-your-new-employee-wants-to-quit-part-3-finale

 

• Incentives to Stay - Hiring a new employee in today’s market is challenging, ensuring they’ll stay employed with you after the fact is another consideration altogether. Consider implementing or refreshing your programs in areas like on-the-job training, career growth development, mentoring and employee appreciation programs.  These programs showcase an employers’ desire to invest in their employees both for the present and future.

 

• Shorten Your Hiring Process – long gone are the days of half a dozen interviews, followed by panel discussions and presentations.  The employers today who are scooping up the best employees on the market are doing so largely because they’re acting quickly.  In some cases I’ve heard of offer letters presented to prospective hires after just one interview.  Every time a candidate takes another job while they were in the middle of your hiring process that’s time you’ve spent you can’t get back.  Act quick and be decisive.

 

• Use a Hiring Service – most of us are in the business to be good at our chosen professions, which for most doesn’t include acting in the role of HR/ recruiter.  If you can afford the extra cost it’s advisable to partner with someone who does candidate sourcing and hiring on a daily basis as their profession.  Recruiters and personnel in HR typically understand the market and hiring conditions for their local areas well and know how to target people who are gainfully employed – a tactic called ‘direct sourcing’.  In today’s employment market if your strategy is to post and coast (put a job up on an online job board and pray for good candidates) you’re already starting off at a deficit you’ll likely never climb out of.  All hiring strategies must include a direct sourcing component to be successful.

 

• Get Active – not everyone can afford the cost associated with working with recruiters, which for professional hiring, especially in the technology sector commonly comes with a fee of 25% the candidates annual salary.  If you can’t afford a recruiter you’ll need to get active yourself, start by jumping on LinkedIn and reaching out to candidates directly using the messaging service.  Another good practice is to attend industry or trade events with the hopes of meeting good people who could be prospective future employees.  Remember, these approaches typically don’t produce results quickly so you’ll need to invest time and remain consistent at it.

 
To attract the best of the best we need to constantly review and optimize our strategies to ensure they are both keeping up with the current marketplace while producing the results we need.  Remember, continuing to do the same thing over and over again yet expecting different results isn’t a good recipe for hiring success, it’s corporate insanity.