Definition "Difficult" to Hire

MMBarnes

We're looking at possibly providing certain incentives for "difficult" to hire positions. I'd like to know if anyone uses this employment designation. If so, how do you define "difficult" to hire? Also, what types of incentives do you use?

Dutch2

Couple of things... Alternative Scheduling: we have allowed four 10 hour days vs. the usual 5 days at 8 hours and three days in the office and two days working from home. What helped more than the schedule changes was to contact similar businesses in the area to ensure we were in the ball park with our salary range. Turned out we were not. Had to dramitically increase the rate of pay for a couple of positions in order to hire somone already trained that could come in and immediately go to work, rather than go through a lengthly training process.

davids

Although we don't have a written definition of "difficult to hire", in practice, we define it as a position for which we recruited in the past few months and had no or a minimal number of qualified applicants. Our incentives include advancing the new employee sick or vacation leave (rather than making them wait to accrue it which is our normal policy); allowing the employee to accrue vacation leave at a higher rate (we have a graduated vacation accrual schedule based on years of service); or providing moving reimbursement. As a public employer, and thus stewards of public funds, we do not offer significant monetary incentives.

MMBarnes

This is so very helpful and it is along the lines we were thinking about with respect to incentives. We too are a public agency so I fully understand the monetary limitations.

MMBarnes

I forgot to ask if the "dificult" to hire designation is limted to certain employee classifications
(e.g., executive, management, exempt).

ritaanz

David, in making these changes in your policy, how do the other employees feel about it?

Seems to me if you have one that has been with you 6 months and accrued 24 hours vacation and the new hire gets a week ASAP, someone is going to have their nose out of joint or, leave for another job.

davids

No, we do not limit the "difficult to hire" definition to executive or management classifications, although those higher-level classes do tend to be more difficult to hire. However, we have provided the incentives to firefighter and police hires as we are having difficulty in hiring for those positions. When we are dealing with a union-represented position, we alert the union to ensure they do not have any issues. Up to now they have not.

As an aside, we have provided similar incentives when we had a top notch candidate who we really wanted, even though the position was not difficult to hire and there were other qualified candidates.

As for a current employee getting his/her nose out of joint, it hasn't happened as yet; but if it did, so be it. Having the unions okay the process probably helps with those positions. We just haven't had any complaints regarding equity. I suppose, the same argument could be made regarding starting salaries. We have some positions for which we need to pay "right out of school, no experience" applicants higher wages than we pay employees who have been here several years.

ritaanz

I get the impression that since these are union employees, it doesn't matter to you. "As for a current employee getting his/her nose out of joint, it hasn't happened as yet; but if it did, so be it.".

If it is that difficult to hire into these positions, why not make an effort to keep the ones that are already trained?

You will not know how many complaints have been lodged because of your hiring practices. They probably go to their union rep and vent. Now why would the union care if you are paying some of their members more than they in reality deserve?

davids

I don't want to give the impression that we don't care. However, caring and being able to redress the problem are two different things. Engineering graduates, right out of school, command higher salaries than we pay some of our long-time employees. It's unfortunate, but the labor market is what it is; and our budget is what it is. When it comes to salary equity, we do hear about it from employees.

However, when it comes to new hire incentives, such as leave accrual rates, it just hasn't been an issue. I think employees are aware that we occasionally provide the incentives, but they respond reasonably to it. They want us to hire a qualified employee rather than the current employee covering a vacant position in addition to doing his/her own job.

As to your comment: "If it is that difficult to hire into these positions, why not make an effort to keep the ones that are already trained?", turnover is inevitable. Our turnover rate is no higher, and probavbly much lower, than our comparators. However, we do have a large number of employees who are retirement eligible and turnover happens. The "difficult to hire" positions that we have been addressing is not a common occurence. However, for example, difficulty in hiring police officers is a nationwide issue. We deal with such issues as best we can within our limitations. We can't satisfy everyone. If someone's nose is out of joint, so be it.

ritaanz

I guess I come from a different environment or school of thought. My company is a non-union manufacturing facility and we really don't like to train people for our competitors.

The other aspect is that unhappy people make poor product and are inefficient. Sooooooooo, we pay well, provide good benefits and treat our people fairly.

SMace

Rita pretty much already siad this, but..........Just because you're not hearing complaints does not mean it is not causing problems. Do you do opinion surveys? Do you have meetings with open discussions?

In my experience, different levels of benefits for similar ee's is a huge issue.

davids

I think this thread has gotten off course. This started with rita opining that because we occasionally provide a new hire with additional leave as an incentive, other employees will be angry. That just hasn't happened. And, with four bargaining units, I am positive I would hear about it if employees had a complaint.

We compensate our employees very well. We conduct compensation surveys (looking at wages, medical insurance and retirement contributions) on a regular basis. They consistenly show that our employees are compensated at or above market. We conduct exit interviews and rarely hear negative comments. Overall, I feel very comfortable stating that we have a happy work force.

ritaanz

When I worked for a company that had a union, the first thing that I would have heard if I "advanced sick or vacation days" was that I just set a precedence.

It is truely a rare union environnment you have there. Enjoy!