Actually, Small Business Owners Can Recruit Top Talent in a Tight Job Market

Despite most small business owners not having the means or capacity to bring in headhunters and top recruiters, these tips can help you find skilled employees that are built for the job and looking for a long-term work home.

Hiring new workers is a task that can cause some entrepreneurs to feel a slight wave of anxiety or even excitement at the thought of pouring through resumes, conducting interviews and ultimately, making your first major hire. However, this anxiety can quickly spiral out of control if as an employer, you don’t have a firm grip on the pulse of the current labor market or you’re going into your hiring decisions blind and hoping for the best outcomes.

For example, all over the Internet one can find conversations about worker productivity, work-life balance, generational differences in work culture, handling harassment and employee conflict, and more headaches that bosses and business owners alike are faced with. In fact, even if you’re just starting to look for new recruits, keep in mind of some of the issues you’ll likely face, such as:

• Finding highly engaged employees that will stick around long-term (3–5 years minimum) in this current “gig” economy.
• Weeding out candidates who are “good on paper” but who lack the intellectual depth or ingenuity to do the job.

and

• Changes in professional norms (for example, candidates asking about remote work, expectations around family leave and retirement savings, candidates questions about turnover, etc.)

Turnover is actually one of the biggest issues affecting small business owners today. Recruiting long-term or committed talent in the gig economy is a big problem for those in positions to hire, as enterprise companies are able to stiffen the competition through employee perks and benefit packages, or more “attractive” working conditions.

Now thanks to reduced unemployment, even big firms are having a difficult time finding talented and dependable employees with specialized skills and it’s becoming even harder to retain them.

In addition to that, in cases where talent is available, the current shift in our global workforce culture often makes integrating and retaining these employees harder than ever. Previously, most people’s career trajectory saw them staying in the same careers (if not the same company) for years and decades at a time. For an employer, investing in that employee and keeping them happy is a necessity to keep turnover low.

Unfortunately, once the last Great Recession hit, and thousands of companies were forced to lay off these loyal, long-term workers, our professional culture took a sharp turn into the “pay to stay” job market that we have now.

In order to work around this, many employees are being hired via recruiters, often times as consultants or contractors, making them more affordable as most companies are not required to provide contractors with benefits such as health care or paid time off.

Despite the high churn of these employees (most stay in a job for just 1–3 years), this system allows businesses to stay staffed at half the cost.

So, how can a small business owner invest in new employees without over investing in time? To start, let’s take a look at the most common issues small business employees routinely face.

Bad Management

This can happen anywhere, but due to the size and financial limitations that most SBOs face, bad managers can doom your entire business to high turnover rates.

Establish a documented system for handling employee affairs, or bring in a third-party consultant to help improve relationships between your staff and management. Trust us and invest in bridging the gap between higher-ups and entry-level workers — good managers are hard to find, but disgruntled employees come a dime a dozen.

Zero Flexibility or Work Life Balance

Again, most small businesses cannot handle the more lax employee conduct policies that some corporate companies or trendy startups can offer, but that’s no excuse for losing employees.

SBOs are in the special position to create employee policies that are tailored to the needs and key desires of their workforce. If your particular vertical or industry has made changes to help ease employee frustration or burnout, try finding ways to adopt these practices into your business as well.

Lack of Feedback and Interpersonal Relationships At Work

How can you create an environment of employee loyalty and accountability? By building policies that prioritize employee engagement at every level. Do your hourly employees have the chance to receive additional training and move into a salary position? Is there a policy around employee performance reviews? Can staff go to their higher-ups in confidence about work-related issues without fear of reciprocity?

These are all important questions for small business owners to ask themselves, especially if they want to learn more about what can keep their employees from leaving for another company.

Running a business, no matter the size, is nigh impossible for small businesses who don’t have the right team in place. The main objective when hiring new employees in such a tight job market is to make sure that you set good expectations from the start, and understand that your team’s productivity and skill level is dependent on your own adaptability.

If you’re looking to cut through the clutter online to more easily engage new candidates and potential hires, get started by signing up for willu today and use your brand’s hashtag to share new job alerts, company updates, or more!