There is no single other factor under your influence that will determine the likelihood of your success or failure more than the quality and quantity of the people you hire. As the economy cycles upward and generates increased demand for skilled workers, the thing that will set your company apart from others is your level of access to the very best people.
Why are many companies finding it more difficult to hire the right people to bring maximum performance and success to their turnarounds? Beyond technical competence, high-performing companies are looking for the all-important soft skills: employees who are reliable, honest, motivated, good communicators, loyal, multitalented, friendly, intelligent, safety conscious, networkers, flexible and eager to learn. But with the advent of Internet advertising and social media marketing, the entire game has changed. Companies are no longer contending against local competitors for the best employees. Skilled employees today can very easily job search a global hiring market.
What else is at play? Hiring an employee is sort of like getting married: It can be fairly easy to do, but you are rarely sure it was the best decision until it is done. When a position is posted, it is not at all unusual for hundreds, some-times even thousands, of résumés to be submitted. Many of the résumés show very little discernable difference among candidates. Without the benefit of having any history with these applicants, screeners and hiring managers often resort to arbitrary means of elimination such as typos, unprofessional email addresses and the general appearance of page one. Unfortunately, some of the highest per-formers are not the best résumé writers, making it likely they will slip right through the hiring manager’s fingers.
But something else has changed the game: Ethics are shifting. According to the Society of Human Resource Managers, 53 percent of individuals lie on their résumés. More than ever before, hiring managers are sifting through fraudulent degrees and certifications, fallacious references, exaggerated accomplishments, inflated salary claims, doctored employment dates and overstated job descriptions from previous assignments. Those shifting ethics make it harder to judge not only the hard skills but the soft skills as well since more individuals are willing to be less than forthcoming about their areas that need improvement.
Understandably, some companies are experimenting with the “grow your own talent” model and finding varying degrees of success. This model requires investing significant time and money in employees who are not proven products, leaving less money to invest in the continuing development of employees who are proven products. To offset the funding for this model, companies routinely bring employees in at lower wages and help them evolve into competent professionals, often just to experience the disappointment of watching their competitors then hire their employees away at a more competitive wage, which their competitors can afford since they are making much smaller investments in employee training.
Another contributing factor is an amazing phenomena reported in the Wall Street Journal July 22. Approximately 10,000 baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) are retiring every day; that’s about 4 million experienced employees a year! Many of our highly skilled turn-around professionals, on whom we have come to rely, are part of this aging group. Unfortunately, the educational institutions have not channeled enough individuals into all the needed disciplines to prevent a shortage. In the turnaround industry, the pool of qualified professionals is shrinking.
The turnaround industry is almost always in hiring mode. The pressure of hiring the very best people never really goes away. Companies face natural attrition: People die, retire or move to another job, leaving direct hire vacancies. There is the repetitive challenge of hiring the best contract workers to augment the regular staff, knowing all the while this is what can set them ahead of or behind their competitors.
For more information, contact Mike Bischoff at (281) 461-9340, email sales@tamanagement.com or visit www.tamanagement.com.
