The labor market continues to strain businesses in a variety of industries and employment levels. The additional federal unemployment aid is set to end in Florida on June 27, so there may be some relief for frontline workers. In the meantime, here are some strategies to combat the tumultuous employment market at all levels:
1. Go for more capacity than you think your organization needs and over-hire. With a predicted turnover tsunami during this time of re-emergence, it’s a good time for organizations to run fat if they are able to and stay ahead of the curve.
2. Hire younger, especially for frontline workers. Partner with high schools and consider lowering your minimum age for certain roles in your organization.
3. Collaborate as a team on how to ‘Make Their Jobs Better.’ Create a task force designed to bring ideas and creative strategies for making some of the harder roles at your company more lucrative, fun and engaging to encourage people to stay.
4. Get creative with part-time structure and stay bonuses. Many TeamStrength companies are quickening the payout on stay bonuses given the current labor market. And some are finding success by restructuring roles to allow for more flexible, non-traditional hours.
5. Regularly conduct benefits survey and quote it on your website. Understand what benefits reap the most rewards for your employees and use that information to promote your organization as a great place to work. Annual or bi-annual surveys where employees rank the benefits is also a great way to remind them of all the benefits they do have. Many people’s priorities have shifted in the last year, so make sure your benefits reflect that.
6. Embrace social media recruiting – including Tik Tok. Reach new audiences and connect directly with potential candidates by leveraging social media platforms. Promote employees on your company social media pages to show the personality of your team and company culture. Tik Tok videos are also a great way to engage with fun videos.
7. Internally promote and potentially increase current referral/stay bonuses. Shift your strategies help bring in candidates from your employees’ networks. Start a referral bonus program and consider adding a signing bonus. Signing bonuses are a great way to pay more now for someone to come on board without messing up your compensation structure.
8. Create a company-wide Automation Hour. Spend an hour a month automating menial tasks that take valuable time and trickle this down throughout the organization to free up team members to focus on more strategic, higher impact work. This will both make your employees’ jobs better and help reduce the need for additional team members.
9. Encourage ‘boomerangs’ with employees you valued who left. This is the concept of engaging past employees to come navigate their next career opportunity with your company. One company even includes a page on their website for returning employees to apply, welcoming the opportunity to bring them back now that the timing is right.
10. Find companies that help make labor work for your business needs, like Veryable. Veryable is an on-demand marketplace for manufacturing, logistics and warehousing labor that gives a flexible labor solution for companies in need.