How to tackle the issue of staff shortages
You see it everywhere nowadays; firms and businesses are short-staffed. This makes it difficult for them to meet customer demand. You hear it everywhere; businesses complain that they cannot recruit staff. We see evidence daily on news broadcasts; long queues at airports, shortage of catering and hospitality staff, missed or delayed refuse collections, etc..
Have you ever wondered why?
Three Reasons Why we Face a Staff Shortage Problem
Let me suggest three reasons we find ourselves facing this staff shortage problem.
- Businesses expect too much
- Recruitment is too long and complicated
- People’s values have changed
Businesses expect too much
This is not a new issue, but one which has been evident for an awful long time. Businesses want to recruit people with the skills they (the business) need. Consequently, they advertise for people with this skill or that skill, with this experience or that experience.
But where or how are candidates going to acquire those skills or those experiences? Probably by working elsewhere in the industry or business concerned. In this way, the business is recruiting by poaching staff from other businesses in the same or similar sectors. In this way, they are not easing the staffing shortage, but merely moving the shortage from their business and handing the issue to another.
Alternatively, a business seems to expect candidates to have acquired the required skills from the education/training sector. Of course, businesses are quick to complain about that sector when it fails to provide students with the necessary skills. Quite rightly, the education sector retort that their role is to educate their students and not merely to provide candidates with the skills a business might need.
Rarely is a business prepared to take on a new employee and then train them in the skills the business needs. Admittedly, that would take time; time which a business may not have. It would also incur a cost; a cost which a struggling business probably could not afford.
However, by expecting candidates to come forward WITH the skills and experiences already, businesses are expecting too much.
Recruitment is too Long and Complicated
Only the other day, I looked at a role at an airport; an industry currently hit hard by staff shortages. I looked particularly at the recruitment process.
First, a potential candidate would have to identify a potential role. This is fair enough and is no more than one would expect. The candidate would then have to submit an application for that role. Again, an obvious expectation.
This is when things get complicated. Assuming the candidate’s application is correct and accepted, the candidate is then asked for an informal interview; note, this is not part of the interviewing process but is simply designed to get further information about the candidate.
Assuming the candidate is not rejected after the informal interview, they will be asked to attend a first interview. This, presumably, is to cut the candidates down in number and to select a smaller number of promising candidates.
Successful candidates from the first interview are asked to attend an assessment session. This could be a day or half day, along with other candidates taking part in simulations and/or a written assessment tests.
Candidates who are not rejected after the assessments, may be invited for a second round of interviews, and possibly a third round thereafter.
At the end of all this, a few successful applicants will be asked for references and security checks before they can be offered a position. How long these checks take is variable, depending upon the level of check required. It is poignant to ask whether anyone needs to supply references to a company if they have also undergone security checks.
During this whole process, the business concerned has still been experiencing issues with staff shortages. The convoluted recruitment process has possibly extended the shortages by weeks, possibly months.
People’s Values have Changed
One of the things which has become evident following the outbreak of Covid pandemic, is that many people have re-evaluated what is important to them. Being employed and providing profit for someone else (i.e., being an employee) has decreased in people’s estimation. Facing an uncertain future, has led people to re-evaluate what is important. It has become clear that being employed has decreased in value. This is what lies behind what has become called the ‘Great Resignation’.
This is not to imply that people do not need to earn an income and do not need financial security. What it suggests is that people are looking for something else from their life and their work. What that ‘something else’ is, will vary from person to person, but it is likely to be something that adds value to their life. Something other than financial income, especially where that income is small; as is often the case in service industries.
So, the onus for businesses is to provide candidates and employees with something other than financial remuneration for their time/skills/expertise or to show how the financial remuneration can help employees achieve or realise their values.
Conclusions
Businesses need to change their expectations of candidates and employees. They must invest in their staff by providing skills, opportunities and to support employee values.
Businesses have to streamline their recruitment processes; they must make it easier and quicker for candidates to take on roles available.
Businesses have to recognise the importance of their staff and must take cognisance of the changing relationship between employee and employer. Businesses with a future are the ones that provide a future for their staff.
