9 Things Employers Can Do in a Tight Labor Market | No BS Management Advice
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
When the labor market is tight, what can you do? You know it isn’t easy to find good people to hire and you can’t afford to lose anyone. What can you do?
TRANSCRIPT:
If you manage or run a business, I don’t care which one it is, but you know that there’s a tight labor market out there right now. What do you do? Here are nine things you can do that are going to help your bottom line and help you deal with this tight market.
I’m Jeff Altman. I’m known professionally as The Big Game Hunter. It started when I did executive search. And now I coach people and organizations. I do that around job search, hiring more effectively
management, leadership and a variety of other things.
So the nine things are, number one, focus on staff retention. Now, these could be people, particularly individuals who are high performers for your organization, you can’t afford to lose them. Now, there are other people, you may not care much, you may want to turn them over. But the A performers, you’ve got to hold on to. Pay attention to that.
And in doing so, number two, upskill your workforce, provide training, provide support, so they get ahead, and they shall we say, advance.
Number three, employees don’t like to hear this, but there may be certain functions you need to automate. In automation, you can reduce some of your dependency upon labor. For example, you know, when I go into a big box store or shopping place, there are a lot of aisles now that used to have checkout counters. And now it’s automated. Doesn’t matter how large the the store is, there’s much more automation there.
Number four, build partnerships with organizations in your local area, where they might train and refer to you. Goodwill is a great example of that for certain types of positions where they train individuals. You might look at ex-offenders and training programs related to them for certain types of positions. But start looking at building partnerships with schools, with not for profits and others that might be able to refer people to you.
And that deals with the overlooked populations that I just mentioned. You know, again, ex offenders, schools, you know, moms returning to the workforce. These are people who tend to be overlooked.
Next, number six is, maybe some of these job requirements are unnecessary. Maybe they’re gonna use them once in a blue moon. And you can train them in how to do that once they’re on board.
And that leads to number seven, be flexible. Be flexible with your existing workforce, be flexible with people who are coming on board. Yes, you need them to do a job. I got that. But sometimes, what you have to do is adapt.
Number eight, improve the culture. Some of you have a high turnover environments, and you’re bringing people in, they’re leaving after a short period of time. What can you do to improve the culture.
And of course, the one I haven’t mentioned, and number nine, pay more money. And, you know, I remember years ago, I was doing work in technology recruiting and there was a firm that had implemented a new technology that was particularly hot. And doing that, they became a target for all the recruiters in the area who were trying to pull people out of that firm. You know what they did? They doubled people’s salaries to keep them in place. Now, I’m not suggesting you do a double, but it worked for that firm. They lost no one. raises became small. Their people became settled in the work environment, and they stay there through retirement.
Perhaps there are things that you can do with improved wages, again, particularly around those people you can’t afford to lose, that’s going to send the message to them that they’re important, and you’re going to take care of them.
So those are nine things that you can do to deal with tight labor markets. Hope you found this helpful. There’s much more on my website, TheBigGameHunter.us,. Go to the site and go explore and, as I said, much more in the blog. There are courses there for different aspects of your career. In addition, you can schedule time for coaching from me, where I can help you with different workplace issues.
Also, Tuesdays and Fridays I do career coach office hours on LinkedIn. Do a search for it. I’m sure you’ll get some benefit from it. You can always send messages before the next show to TheBigGameHunter(at)gmail.com In the subject line, put the phrase, “Office Hours.”
Lastly, connect with me on Linkedin at linkedin.com/in/TheBigGameHunter. Have a terrific day and most importantly, be great!
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a career and leadership coach who worked as a recruiter for more than 40 years. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1
podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 2300 episodes. He also hosts Job Search TV on YouTube, Amazon and Roku, as well as on BingeNetworks.tv for Apple TV and 90+ smart sets.
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