By: Jim Weischedel, Director of Consulting, Samaritan Business Consulting
Recruiting and hiring is a huge topic today. With near record unemployment numbers and a shortage of skilled talent, organizations’ operations and bottom lines are being impacted by the lack of labor. The unemployment rate in the US is 3.9% as of April 2018, and some Pennsylvania counties (including in South Central PA) are below this number. According to the US Department of Labor, for the first time in at least 20 years, there are currently more job openings in the US than there are unemployed workers.
In addition to finding workers, it is important to make the right hires. The cost of turnover can be very high, even tens of thousands of dollars depending on the position. In addition to hiring replacement costs, there are costs for training the new employee, productivity inefficiencies until they get up to speed, errors, lost opportunities, and other costs.
We are starting the first of three sessions of Human Resource Management Academy that focus on hiring. The next session focusing on recruiting and hiring, followed by behavioral-based interviewing, followed by employment assessments.
First, you need the candidates, so let’s start with recruiting. Where do you find these candidates? Don’t forget to look within your own organization. Can you grow some of your current employees to fill more highly skilled or leadership roles? This is a longer term solution, as employers must put a robust training and development program in place to make this happen. What level do you hire? Can you hire lesser skilled apprentices and provide a training program rather than hiring skilled workers directly? In our next session in the series, we’ll explore a wide variety of recruiting strategies and sources.
It is important to develop your employment brand. What is it like to work at your company and how can you communicate what is attractive to potential candidates? You need to be authentic with this because some candidates may talk with your current employees to find out the real scoop. And, if working there is different than the image you portrayed in the hiring process, the newly hired employees may soon leave anyway and you are worse off. So, it’s more important than ever for employers to work on improving employee engagement and the work culture.
Once you find candidates, you need a good process to select the right one or ones. What are the critical characteristics or competencies that you should evaluate and what can you just teach someone? The employee needs to be a cultural fit, so some employers are establishing interviewing processes to line up candidates with the employee culture and company values. Assessments can be very helpful here. We will discuss these topics in sessions 5 and 6 of the series.
Given the current shortage of talent, I would argue that the organizations that hire and retain their key talent will have a huge competitive advantage.
Human Resources Management Academy – The Series
Entire course approved for 22 credit hours towards PHR, SPHR and GPHR professional re-certification.
Each session approved for 1.84 credit hours.
- April 18, 2018: Human Resources Strategic, Operational, and Administrative Roles
- May 16, 2018: Employment Laws, Compliance, and Minimizing Risk
- June 20, 2018: Job Descriptions, H/R Recordkeeping and Reporting
- July 18, 2018: Effective Recruiting & Hiring
- August 15, 2018: Behavioral-based Interviewing
- September 19, 2018: Employment Assessments
- October 17, 2018: Coaching Employees and Performance Feedback and Appraisal
- November 21, 2018: Conducting Investigations, Disciplining, and Terminating Employees
- December 19, 2018: Employee Relations and Engagement
- January 16, 2019: Employee Orientation, Training, and Development
- February 20, 2019: Pay, Benefits, and Other Rewards
- March 20, 2019: Safety, Security, Health, and Leaves of Absence Management
