Michele Harmon
Last month I wrote about best practices for hiring. This month, I want to take a step back and look at recruiting in a market where recruiting keeps getting more and more difficult.
I have taken a new job as the Director of Recruitment and Retention for the largest employer in Midland. I will not mention who, but you can guess. Therefore, I must design a recruitment plan yesterday.
First, I turned to my go-to website, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), and searched for how to design a recruitment plan. SHRM recommends establishing objectives, developing your strategy, carrying out recruitment activities, and then measuring your results and evaluating your efforts. Sounds good to me.
However, a plan is great, and it needs to be done, but for now, how can we all think out of the box and get potential employees interested in working for our organization, applying, getting them interviewed, and if hired, getting them to show up the first day and stay for a few years? Pay a bonus for staying up to two years. I had a call about a five-year retention bonus the other day. That is too long. Once you get an employee onboard, take care of them. I am out of breath just thinking about it.
Start with examining what you are doing and how well it has worked. Ask your employees and friends for their ideas. No idea is a bad one. Leave no stone left unturned.
Which job fairs has your organization attended, how many applicants did you get, how many of those applicants did you hire, and, last but not least, how many were still with you a year later? Those are not just analytics to show the boss; they are part of the recruiting staff’s gauge on how recruiters’ time and your money are spent—because time is money, so the recruiters must be strategic about which job fairs to attend in the future.
Next, go to other universities than your recruiters have gone to in the past. If you need engineers, then go out of state, not just to UT Austin, Texas Tech, A&M, and UT Permian Basin. Texas is the state to move to, so get some non-Texans. Offer newly hired staff living accommodation and educational opportunities. Go beyond the normal healthcare and defined contribution offerings. Remember all those wonderful students that come to West Texas for a great American college degree from other countries. Let’s figure it out together and find a way to streamline the process of retaining foreign workers. The current U.S. system we have now is difficult.
When the recruiters go to our local high schools, colleges, and universities in the Permian, they must reach out to the faculty, not just the career centers, to find those interns. When did networking not pay off? Remember, you can always train a good employee to be great.
No idea is bad if it is polite and not offensive. Put magnetic signs on your company vehicles saying we are hiring for all positions. Empower all your employees to be informal recruiters all the time. Offer bonuses to employees that refer a candidate, and be sure to include a timeline for how long the new employee must stay to pay off the entire referral bonus.
Be prepared, wherever you go, to assist the significant other to come to the Permian as well. Take a school district representative, a realtor, and a healthcare representative with you. When Anadarko relocated staff to Midland from Houston, I went to talk about the school offerings K-16, and Victoria Printz went to talk about living accommodations.
Those of us recruiting in the Permian need to work together, not against each other. If you do not support groups like the Permian Strategic Partnership (PSP), consider it.
I rode back from Houston in late June next to a wife and soon-to-be mother of two. She has an amazing undergraduate degree and is working on her Master’s in healthcare. They live in Odessa, and her Odessa friends told her she should home-school her two children. Yes, that would be the family’s choice, but we need her in the workforce and her children in school in a few years. She also plans to return to Houston to have her second child as she did with her first child because she is concerned about our local healthcare. I gave the mom my card and had two OBGYN’s names for her before the plane took off. Since I was riding and not flying the plane, I texted one of my younger friends, and Abracadabra, I had two great suggestions for the mom.
It will take every one of us to recruit and retain staff. Let’s collaborate and work together and share applicants that may not be the right fit for your organization but may be perfect for someone else.
“Your employees are the heart of your organization.” Dr. Michele Harmon is a Human Resource professional, supporting clients in Texas and New Mexico that range in size from five to more than 3,000 employees. Email: micheleharmon1@gmail.com