recruiting strategies for today's staffing trends

RECRUITING STRATEGIES FOR TODAY’S STAFFING TRENDS

Ronald M. Katz

Ronald M. Katz is a human resources consultant specializing in the areas of staffing, selection, performance management, and diversity. He is an adjunct instructor at the Cornell University New York State School of Industrial and tabor Relations, New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies, and Mercy College Graduate Program in Human Resource Management. He has spoken nationally on human resources topics, including speaking at the Society for Human Resource Management conferences, and his motivational style has earned distinction and recognition from senior HR professionals as well as those newer to the field. He may be contacted via E-mail at: ronhrkatz Qao1.com.

hen you look at the state of the staffing function today, you’d have to imagine that the position of recruiter has W got to be one of the hardest jobs to fill. In a 4.3 percent

unemployment sellers’ market, why would anyone want to be a recruiter? Why be in a position in which even when you do your best there is always another requisition in the mail as soon as the revolving door in technology or sales starts spinning again? Who needs the headache of line managers imploring you, candidates ignoring you, and employees abhorring you? Yet if we understand the trends and currents in staffing in today’s market we can weather these storms, actually stay ahead of the curve, and restore our positions as partners with the line and assets to our organizations.

Change is inevitable, but the rate of change today is unprec- edented, affecting every aspect of work life, as well as life beyond work. Corporations are flattening, downsizing, rightsizing, shrink- ing, and stretching. As soon as we think we recognize an organization, it changes, merges, acquires, reorganizes, or somehow transforms itself so that employees don’t know from one week to the next for whom they work!

As the workplace reinvents itself, we need to teach our workers to reinvent their jobs, to create careers within their jobs. We need to make our opportunities and challenges interesting enough to keep them from bolting for the next start-up claiming to be more “state of the art.”

Who are the people on our staff anyway? Does anyone have ”lifers” anymore? There was a Silicon Valley shop that gave gold watches (small digital ones) to anyone who was still there after 25 months. The symbolism was clear: Anyone who lasted two years was a ”long-term employee,” someone who might

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Ronald M. Katz

Corporations no longer need to spend enormous sums of money to maintain a major cosmopolitan presence, for which the cost of everything from rent to office services to personnel is higher.

actually be around for the long haul (perhaps five years). We need to modify our expectations and take into account our employees’ expectations if we’re going to successfully retain our talent. We also need to recognize that not all the people who will work for us will be our employees. Contract staff, consult- ants, and leased employees are all people who can do yeoman’s service for our organization and then happily, nomadically, move on.

MOVING FROM MAIN STREET TO THE WORLD One hundred years ago, the Industrial Revolution changed the

workplace forever with the creation of lots of jobs in a concen- trated location. Suddenly factories, sweatshops, and office build- ings sprang up all clustered together in what has come to be known as the Rust Belt. There was a huge need for lots of workers all in one place, and personnel and staffing became a business function. Now, we no longer need anything more than an Internet address and a spare room to set up shop. It is no longer necessary to have a presence on Main Street.

As an example, a New York City company lists its ”World Headquarters’’ as having a Fifth Avenue address. This looks great on the letterhead and is equally impressive in conversation. In reality, however, the product is made overseas, it is assembled in the Midwest, and the majority of the sales and corporate functions are in an office complex in suburban New Jersey. The “New York office’’ is merely some leased space on a floor in a nondescript office building in Manhattan. Corporations no longer need to spend enormous sums of money to maintain a major cosmopolitan presence, for which the cost of everything from rent to office services to personnel is higher.

But you can’t just move your company about unless all the factors are considered. For example, a company had a large customer-service unit on the eastern seaboard in an expensive downtown location. Management figured that it would be wise to move to a less costly location. Relocation managers, technology managers, and facilities managers were involved in finding a more cost-effective site for their customer service unit. After months of study, the managers found a perfect site on the outskirts of a small midwestern city. The land was cheap and construction costs were reasonable. Because they were able to buy a large plot, they could build a four-story building rather than an eight-story building, and it was cheaper to build out than up. Technology assured management that this would be a state-of-the-art facility. Relocation managers indicated that average salaries in this region were lower than in the organization’s current locations and the

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Recruiting Strategies for Today’s Staffing Trends

The company had to pay a premium to recruit staff from as far as 75 miles away to come and take these jobs, yet it was still unable to fully staff the facility.

cost of personnel would below. Everything was approved and the structure went up.

The only group that had not been involved in the decision was human resources staffing professionals, who were now expected to fill this building with eager, low-paid workers. The only problem was, they didn’t exist. No one had looked at the human side of the equation. The small city had a limited employment base and a 3.2 percent unemployment rate. There were few universities in the vicinity, and college students had been a traditional recruitment source for these positions. The company found itself paying relocation incentives for low-paid staff, not simply the management team that they had budgeted to move. The company had to pay a premium to recruit staff from as far as 75 miles away to come and take these jobs, yet it was still unable to fully staff the facility. The company never realized the savings envisioned because it was unable to close the east coast facility. Although it is conceivable today to locate an organization anywhere, HR must be involved in the decision from day one to insure that the people side of the equation is considered up-front. HR professionals must be knowledgeable about current staffing trends so as to properly partner with management in these decisions.

THE HR FACTOR Employees today are people first and employees second, if

that high. Most people today, not just Generation X, do not want to leave their beliefs at the door. They want to work for an organization that they can believe in and of which they can be proud. People no longer feel that they have to hide who or what they are. The best organizations support their people and allow and encourage them to express their beliefs and values. They provide company space for their networking groups, whatever their common denominator may be. These are the tools that make retention easier and therefore make staffing less onerous. We have to be in touch not only with the economy, but also with the people who will staff our organizations into the next century. We need to understand the values of the people that we want and need to recruit. More than ever we need to know what is important to potential employees, because usually it is not our organizations that are their priority.

What do people want from an employer? Well, there is the obvious good pay, benefits, respect, fair treatment; the opportunity to grow with the organization and develop skills; and, if possible, equity in the company. When people come to work for you, they are not just looking for employment. However, it is also

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Ronald M. Katz

Reputable training programs have proven to be one of the best tools for attracting and retaining talen fed staff.

important to recognize that not every candidate is loolung for a long-term commitment.

So the challenge becomes, once you hire the candidates you want, how do you retain them? Usually, the same features that attracted them will help to retain them, but plenty of communica- tion should be added to the mix. Employees need to know why they should stick around. Share your plans, goals, and business strategies; these are not secrets and the employees are not the enemy. We need to make employees allies if we want them to ally themselves with us. Give people the training they desire, so that they understand that while working for you they will remain not only employed but employable. Reputable training programs have proven to be one of the best tools for attracting and retaining talented staff.

We have many hats to wear in human resources. As Dave Ulrich puts it, we need to be change agents, employee advocates, administrative experts, and, more than ever before, strategic partners. In order for human resources to be a profit center rather than a cost center, it must make a real and measurable contribution to the bottom line. To do this, we need to shift our focus from our function to the market, developing strategies that will be good for business, will make the company more competitive, and will increase the profit margin through effective, innovative human resources practices. Such practices are described below in the context of recruiting and retaining new employees.

STRATEGIES FOR FINDING CANDIDATES Four factors govern your search when you try to fill company

positions: time, resources (funds), quality needed (experience versus potential), and the sources from which to recruit. (A fifth overriding consideration is, of course, legal compliance.) These factors are interrelated. For example, the less time you have to fill a position, the greater the financial resources you’ll probably need to attract the right candidates. If you have a lot of time available to recruit, you have the luxury of controlling costs by waiting for candidates to find you. When resources or funds are short, it may take more time to find and attract candidates. We may need to get managers to compromise on the skill levels of their candidates. They may want experienced office managers but may not be able to attract them or afford their salary demands. As an alternative, we may decide to recruit someone who has been an assistant office manager, that we’ll need to train on the job. In this case, we need to determine which is less costly-the experienced manager or the expense of training.



Sources: Internal vs. External When we start to strategize about filling positions, perhaps the

first question that should be addressed is, ”What are the available sources to use to fill these jobs?” Will we look internally or expand our search externally? What is going on in our business today and where will we be tomorrow? In a downsizing environment, there is an incentive to search internally first, in an attempt to redeploy our current staff. If we can successfully place ”at-risk employees, then we can save on severance costs and possibly prevent legal action against our companies. Of course, in an expanding organization, the need may exist to immediately start our search externally so that we can maintain and support our company’s growth.

When trying to evaluate the internal/external aspect of our recruiting strategy, it is important to understand the benefits and drawbacks of each (see Exhibit 1) and be able to articulate our staffing strategies to management. Clearly, there is no one solution. In today’s market, we can ill afford to ignore any source of qualified candidates-to do so would risk the continued growth of our organizations.

Exhibit I

Comparing Internal and External Sources

INTE Pros

Low cost

Builds morale

Builds loyalty

Motivates current staff

Candidates know culture

Candidates know company structure

Frequently faster

~~

.NAL Cons

Those not chosen often leave

Robs Peter to pay Paul

Political, perceived favoritism

Restrictive

“Dead wood” floats

Small pool of candidates

Bureaucracy slows process

EXTEI Pros

Fresh blood

New ideas

Build company reputation

Get exactly what you’re seeking

Energizes current staff

Lots of choices

Control of recruiting budget

~ A L Cons

Orientation costs

Learning curve

May be perceived as high turnover

Hurts morale

Creates tensions with current staff

Overwhelming number of choices

High cost

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Ronald M. Katz

Classified newspaper ads

Agencies

When the decision is made to look externally for candidates, you can look in all of the obvious places and some not-so-obvious places. Exhibit 2 lists some of the external sources used in looking for candidates.

Colleges and universities

Executive search firms

Lose the Stereotypes If we are to fill jobs, we have to broaden our expectations about

what an employee looks like. An example that is often used to illustrate this point describes the situation of a forestry products company in the Pacific Northwest that was having a terrible time filling lumberjack positions. At one point, close to 30 percent of the company’s lumberjack positions were vacant. The problem did not stem from a lack of qualified candidates, but rather from an outdated view of the skills lumberjacks should possess and what they should look like.

The company recruiters were looking for candidates that fit the traditional lumberjack figure: a big, brawny man in a flannel shirt carrying the tools of his trade: a trusty ax and chainsaw. However, the two most commonly used tools by lumberjacks today are laptop computers and bulldozers. With literally thou- sands of acres of forest to grow and harvest, workers out in the field need to stay in constant contact with the main office to know how much and which forest to cut, based on how many orders

Exhibit 2

Sampling of External Sources

Outplacement firms I Downsizing companies

The Internet Former employees (retirees) ~.

-

Your competition Your clients

Your customers

Community or / open houses

Churches, synagogues, mosques Military

Your vendors

Unemployment offices Advocacy groups (for welfare recipients, people with disabilities, etc.)

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T h e index is a personal assessment tool that helps employers determine how applicants or employees will operate in certain situations.

Recruiting Strategies for Today’s Staffing Trends __


are pending back at the mill. Via laptops and satellite links, today’s lumberjacks are able to plot exactly where and when to cut so that they are cutting the oldest growth. The bulldozers are used to constantly cut the new roads through the forest to those acres that are to be cut and ensure that there is an efficient route from the forest to the mill.

As soon as the company reassessed its needs and stopped recruiting for yesterday’s openings, it was able to see that the growing population of Asian immigrants was an untapped source for their recruiting needs. There was a ready supply of workers to fill all their lumberjack positions. The company’s underemploy- ment problems evaporated, it was able to regain its competitive position as a profitable, well-run organization. This was accom- plished by approaching recruiting problems with an open mind and really understanding the needs of the positions that had to be filled. Other lessons to this story are: (1) stop trying to solve tomorrow’s problems with yesterday’s solutions, (2) value diversity-don’t complain about it, and (3) be an agent for change and champion of diversity in your organizations.

Others are also trying to find different ways to both diversify the workforce and find the right people to best staff organizations. Kathy Kolbe, the founder and chief executive of the Kolbe Corpo- ration of Phoenix, Arizona, developed the Kolbe Index for this purpose. The index is a personal assessment tool that helps employers determine how applicants or employees will operate in certain situations. Broadly, people fall into one of four action modes: (1) fact-finders who have the instinct to probe and excel at evaluating and deliberating; (2) follow-throughs who show the instinct to pattern and thrive when coordinating, planning, and scheduling; (3) quick- starts who have the instinct to innovate and flourish when they originate, experiment, and improvise; and (4) implementers who show the instinct to demonstrate by construct- ing, repairing, and crafting.

Once we understand employees’ instincts for taking action, we can best use them and their skills to benefit the company. In addition, they will be placed in positions in which they are happier and most likely to succeed. If they are successful, they are more likely to stay with an organization, especially one that invests in their employees and shows the courage and concern to ensure that their employees’ skills and abilities are most appro- priately utilized.

Be Creative Sometimes we have to look a little farther than anticipated to

find the right sources of candidates. Many employers have found

Ronald M. Kafz

I t has been demonstrated in banks, department stores, and restaurants that satisfied loyal employees translate into a satisfied loyal customer base.

this to be the case and have had to apply greater degrees of creativity to fill their vacancies, as illustrated by the following cases.

Importing Employees from Other Communities The owner of two fast-food restaurants in a very upscale

suburb of New York City was finding it impossible to adequately staff his restaurants. The employees he had hired to operate the restaurants were overworked and this was creating even more vacancies. Morale was lower than the bottom of the fryer. Why couldn’t the manager find employees of the type who usually work in fast food restaurants? Because the only teenagers he ever saw were going through the drive-through in their parents’ expensive cars. Other groups in these neighborhoods were fi- nancially well-situated and were not a source of candidates for this employer.

The owner, in a stroke of creative genius, looked outside his neighborhood. He realized that within 20 to 30 minutes travel, across the New York City line, were some neighborhoods that teemed with prospective employees. He did some quick calcula- tions and realized that the cost of bussing employees in from other neighborhoods would more than make up for the costs he was incurring in turnover and lost customers due to long waits. But the owner soon realized that other employers were importing employees as well, and some employers in the suburbs also provided transportation. The dilemma was how to get them onto his bus.

His solution was to start the employee’s time when they boarded the bus. Not only was the owner providing transportation to and from work, but also he was actually paying for the time to ride in! The clock stopped when employees left the restaurant at the end of their shifts, but a bus was made available to drop them off in their neighborhoods. The owner’s recruiting problems disappeared; loyalty and morale went up and so did the profits. It has been demonstrated in banks, department stores, and restaurants that satisfied loyal employees translate into a satisfied loyal customer base.

Recruiting Loyal Customers A department store that was renowned for customer loyalty

couldn’t staff its flagship store in midtown Manhattan. The store’s recruiters came up with an ingenious solution. They sent out a flyer with the August bill to all their gold-card members. The flyer read, ”How would you like 3376 off all your holiday purchases?” and stated ”Turn Over” in the lower right hand corner. On the reverse were the first four lines of the store’s job application. At the bottom of this side of the page, it invited



Successful programs for each area share many common requirements.

cardholders to complete the rest of the form on their next shop- ping visit. What is brilliant about this was their targeted ap- proach. Why send these flyers out to their most affluent customers? The rationale was that these customers were most likely to have nonworking spouses who didn’t need the money but would consider the job opportunity a lark!

Not only was the store successful at meeting its staffing needs, but it was able to cover the cost of the recruiting campaign-all the money the new employees made, they immediately spent in the store. As a result of this creative recruiting, the store created a loyal seasonal staff who came back for years and was, therefore, also able to cut future recruiting costs.

CONCLUSION Recruiting, retraining, and retaining staff are critical elements

of the HR function. Successful programs for each area share many common requirements. First it is key to understand the impor- tance of retaining the qualified individuals who are currently employed by your organization-the costs of recruiting and training new hires far exceed the costs usually associated with retention programs. Furthermore, these same programs will ultimately attract new candidates when you need them.

When you do recruit for new candidates, consider diverse and untapped sources that may be available. Human resources professionals must consider not only the company’s recruiting needs and the qualifications needed to fill specific positions, but also the potential candidates that are available. It is essential that we think outside of the box and apply creative solutions to today’s recruiting problems. +


recruiting strategies for today's staffing trends

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