 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. 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
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:
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:
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.
0 Comments
You read that right. For the first time in decades there are more jobs available than the actual number of people that are on unemployment. As of July 2018 there are 6.3 million people in the US on unemployed, the equivalent of 3.9%. Axios, an online media company, shared yesterday we’ve officially crossed the barrier of more jobs available than people suitable or ready to fill them. Our economy also continues to boom as we’re in the longest job growth period on record, now 94 straight months.  How can this be? If the economy is doing so well and there are so many jobs available why is it we still have so many people unemployed and why aren’t those which are unemployed taking the available jobs? ANSWER: The American workforce is changing, changing in TWO BIG WAYS: 1. Sedentary Lifestyle: we’ve become a society of professional sitters. The average person now sits, yes – sits on their keister, upwards of 51 hours and 44 minutes a week. It’s such a dramatic change in our society and workforce that some are now calling ‘sitting’ the new cigarettes. We’ll leave the health aspect of sitting to another article. For younger generations this lifestyle is their only perspective on working and it’s beginning to have a significant impact on our economy as it’s changing the jobs they’re taking, or willing to consider. Jobs which are considered physically or mentally demanding aren’t at the top of the pecking order and those industries are having an incredibly difficult time getting new blood to join the ranks. (construction; farming; trucking; skilled trades like plumbers, electricians, mechanics; emergency services; law enforcement, etc.) The change to a seated society tells us something else. As a society we are moving away from a ‘do-it-yourself hands on’ society where we’re focused on production to a society of ‘creative typists’. The new skilled trade is programming, not plumbing. Today’s emerging workforce wants to be close to technology and feel good movements while being free of work which may be construed as physically or mentally taxing. Getting your hands dirty on the job is out, sitting inside with the AC and nap-pods is in! 2. The Skill-less Unemployable: No one likes to think that there are people out there which don’t have skills or aren’t employable, it’s un-American. Yet it is becoming an increasingly frightening reality. The second reason our workforce is changing is there are a growing number of unemployed workers that are finding themselves unable to take advantage of the volume of job opportunities on the market due to their skills or abilities becoming out dated. Out of date just like the baloney sandwich my mom used to make for my lunch in grade school. No one eats baloney sandwiches anymore, so if you didn’t adjust your skills with the growing times, moving to turkey or tofu, you got left behind. And left behind without even realizing it, holding a moldy, crappy sandwich (your skills) in the process. Those who are unemployed at present are largely in part just not employable. Of course, there is always the exception to this rule however the growing majority of people who are unemployed just don’t have current day marketable skills to function in an environment which increasingly demands technology proficiencies. With national unemployment rates under 4% it tells us that those who can work are working and those who can’t – well they’ll continue to experience hardships trying to find jobs in a marketplace that is increasingly unforgiving and more expecting of people’s capabilities. As a result, the gap continues to widen whereas those who have been unemployed for some time trying to find work will continue to experience much of the same. The stigma attached to unemployment, the longer you’ve been out of work the more likely it is you will remain out of work, is a harsh reality for those unemployed. With so much opportunity to be had in the marketplace people who are unemployed for longer than a month or so find themselves having to develop colorful explanations as to why they weren’t working to hopefully appease prospective employers. About the AuthorTravis Smith is the founder and managing director of Square-1 Engineering, a life sciences consulting firm, providing end to end technical project services to companies which design, develop and or manufacture products in Southern California. He successfully served the life sciences marketplace in SoCal for over 15 years specializing in engineering services, consulting, project outsourcing and leadership development. In 2019 he was recognized as a ‘40 Under 40’ honoree by the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce as a top leader in Orange County, CA. Archives
August 2022
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
Visit Square-1's
|
|
