The battle for talent is getting spooky. Unemployment is running quite low, a “great resignation” has created a lot of transition and labor force participation rates are falling through the floor. Not enough people are working.
You see it with recruiting police officers. I talk to chiefs and city managers all the time who have several open positions but cannot find people who want to take the jobs. Further contributing to the challenge - the washout rates through the academies are high. Also, finance staff and finance directors in particular, are hard to find. If you have a good finance director, hold them tight, give them a bigger monitor and send them an extra bottle of red at Christmas. Even lower-level positions remain vacant. One city manager was recently noting that hiring lifeguards for the community pools has been hard and they are shifting hours due to the shortages.
Staffing issues don’t stop at local government. We have seen them affect restaurants and service businesses, and we have likely experienced an extra wait for table service or finding ourselves wandering a Bed, Bath and Beyond unable to locate a sales associate to tell me where to find bottle brushes.
Tripepi Smith has done well in the talent war. Although we lost a couple along the way who we dearly miss, we have recruited amazing people and tripled our staff in the last two years. We didn’t just work to replace. We have hired to grow. And our team learned a few things along the way:
- Hire for attitude and aptitude. You can teach what needs to be known and be patient for the experience that comes with time.
- Focus on culture because working with great people and fitting in is very sticky - and rewarding.
- Turn your staff into mini-recruiters and offer everyone a bonus for referring people to join your organization. If you already have a great culture, your new recruits referred by existing teammates are more likely to fit right in.
Our team has a few more ideas and philosophies to share that might be helpful to your efforts, but we also have an entire division focused on these issues:
TS Talent Solutions. If you want to ruminate on these challenges, let’s talk.
Happy Hiring (and Retaining),
