Staffing

Filling jobs is Job One.

By Diana McGonigal

Employers who cringe at the prospect of filling vacancies should take a deep breath and count to 10. The current state-low unemployment and few skilled workers to fill key positions-is going to continue. The companies that will overcome the challenge are those which make recruitment and retention an important part of their long-term strategic plan.

Eventually, history may repeat itself, with people finding cradle-to-grave employment in the same company. But the chief difference between yesterday and tomorrow will be the variety of functions, titles and pay scales those people hold over the years.

Outsourcing workers through employee leasing agencies may continue for median-skill-level positions, but the practice of hiring new employees through temporary agencies will grow.

Metrix Inc. Lead Recruiter Julie McBee says she believes the temp-to-perm process will continue to benefit employers and workers alike.

“Everyone is outsourcing everything,” McBee notes. “We believe this will continue, but not necessarily with employees.”

Metrix places accountants, engineers, architects and other specialized workers in Northeast Ohio. Once placed, the employee generally remains on the Metrix payroll for 90 days, allowing both parties the freedom to dissolve the relationship without complication. After the transition period, the employee is offered a full-time position.

“Typically, this scenario has most often been used for clerical and entry-level positions; now it’s executives,” McBee says. “With more and more technical positions developing in the future, I only see this practice expanding.”

Filling key positions is just half the battle. The other half is filling them with people who can not only do the job, but also learn and grow with it.

George Prough, business professor and corporate trainer for the University of Akron, says the ability to learn new skills and adapt to new situations is rising in importance.

“It has to do with becoming what MIT’s Peter Senge calls a ‘learning corporation,'” Prough says. “Everyone in the corporation will need to learn better and faster than their competitors. It will involve benchmarking against competitors, subscribing to more information sources and being capable of learning more than anyone else.”

By hiring skilled employees capable of quickly absorbing and even embracing new technologies, employers will not only ensure a stable retention rate but also the prospect of future growth.

But is the job of employees to learn, or the company to teach? It depends on the economy.

A strong economy “places more and more importance on doing a better job of developing the skills of employees within an organization,” says Amy DeGeorge, director of Kent State University’s Stark Campus office of corporate and community services department, which recently studied that county’s economic climate. “If an organization doesn’t do that, it is more likely to lose employees. … Employees have options in this type of economy.”

Prough points to Goodyear’s effort to “do whatever it takes” to train people and get them into better positions within the organization as quickly as possible.

He suggests following the advice of former Goodyear CEO Stanley Gault, who suggested that if you wait until someone is ready for a promotion, it’s already too late.