What Keeps Our Spirits Bright?

There’s something about the season that brings out the best in us. Maybe it’s baking those special dishes that you don’t cook during the rest of the year. Maybe you take a vacation somewhere special. Building snowmen? Walking in the snow? Maybe you like how much happier and friendlier people seem. Let’s hear it for fruitcake? Looking at the decorated houses in your neighborhood? Pictures with Santa? Maybe you have a family tradition you look forward to or a favorite gift you’ve received. Do these strike a chord with you?

At Casey Accounting & Finance Resources, we wanted to share the things that make our spirits bright. But we also wanted to say that the holidays are when we look to help organizations in our community. Every year, we support Northwest Compass in Mt. Prospect and the Humanitarian Service Project in Carol Stream with donations. You can see a bit of synergy between the noble work we do helping people find a job or improve their careers and the honorable work these organizations do.

Northwest Compass assists people in meeting the challenges of having a safe environment for themselves and their families, from which they can create a path to a positive future. You can find out more about the organization at www.northwestcompass.org.

The Humanitarian Service Project alleviates the pain and suffering that poverty brings to seniors and children in DuPage and Kane Counties, Illinois, without discrimination or exclusion for any reason. The organization has four programs: 1. Senior Citizen Project 2. Children’s Project 3. Christmas Offering 4. School Supply Drive. You can find out more about the organization at www.hsp.agency

We are so thankful for all of you who have chosen to partner with us this year and in past years. We wish you and your loved ones a very, happy holiday season and look forward to the light a New Year always brings.

From all of us at Arlington Resources and Casey Accounting and Finance Resources, we hope you enjoy some of our favorite things about the holidays!

 

“I like going into downtown Chicago at Christmas to shop and check out the holiday lights.”
Pete McTague, Director, Casey Accounting & Finance Resources

“What keeps my spirit bright is family traditions during the holiday season! As a newlywed, I get to continue those traditions by picking out a real Christmas tree with my husband and decorating it with all the ornaments from our childhood. And can’t forget watching A Christmas Story over and over again on Christmas Eve!”
Nina Salgado, Administrative Assistant

“What keeps my spirits bright this holiday season is the anticipation of seeing the look on my great nephews’ eyes when they open their presents. Oh, the joy! Secondly, spending time with my family. Lastly are all the decorations in full view with twinkling lights.”
Eileen Renk, Director of Recruiting and Sales, Casey Accounting & Finance Resources


Eileen’s great nephews

“Our neighborhood purchases small lit Christmas trees that we line our streets with. The proceeds go to a foundation that is dear to my heart. It makes our homes even more beautiful to look at. Also, I love Christmas music and candles!”
Julie Jurek, Sourcing Specialist, Arlington Resources

“The holidays are my favorite time of the year. The joyful season and beautiful holiday displays and decorations everywhere keep my spirits bright!”
Erika Cobos, Payroll/Accounting Administrator

“I love the smell this time of year brings! You get the cold smell outside, the smell of fires burning in fireplaces, and the cinnamon smell that just seems to be everywhere! It really helps me slow down and enjoy these moments because they won’t be here for long!”
Elizabeth Lanaghan, Senior Recruiter, Arlington Resources

Elizabeth’s fur kids ready for the holidays!

“Christmas is my most favorite holiday of the year. From the day after Thanksgiving, I embrace the season and have so many things that I love about it. As my girls are older now, I do relish in the fact that there is not as much “stress” as there was when they were younger.  I am a real tree lover and can’t wait to decorate my tree (which takes two days)! Every morning when I wake up, I spend at least 15 minutes sitting by my tree with my morning coffee. It is so peaceful, and I love looking at all the amazing ornaments that I have collected through the years. I love driving around the neighborhood to see all the decorations. I love listening to Christmas music all day long. I love picking out gifts. I love sending cards and receiving them. The best part is spending Christmas morning with just my husband and girls, having an amazing breakfast with sweets, of course, and hanging in our pjs as long as we can!”
Cheryl Reinwald, Director, Recruiting & Sales, Arlington Resources

Cheryl’s tree

“Most people that know me well, know, that I love to cook. Here’s my recipe for Air Fryer Cornish Hens which are beautiful for a smaller holiday gathering.”
Denise Young, Director, Arlington Resources

2 Cornish Hens (Thawed and Rinsed)
1 teaspoon of garlic powder

1 teaspoon of paprika

½ teaspoon of thyme

½ teaspoon of rosemary

1 teaspoon of poultry seasoning

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 teaspoon of melted butter or olive oil

Instructions

Spray the air fryer basket with cooking oil

Dry Cornish hens and rub each bird with oil or melted butter

Rub seasonings mixed together on each bird
Air fry for 20 minutes breast side up at 375
Flip over and cook for an additional 10 minutes

 

PS – We are here over the holidays for any last-minute staffing needs. Reach out to us at https://www.caseyresources.com/contact/. 

How Will the Economic Downturn Affect Hiring?

Are you laying off or hoarding employees? Implementing hiring freezes? Considering salary transparency practices to fill critical positions?

Consider salary transparency as a recruiting strategy? Are we nuts? There’s a method to our madness and we’ll explain more below. As we continue to watch the economy and inflation, we’re also noticing the labor market slowing down – employers are adding fewer jobs, hesitant about hiring if we fall into a recession. On the other hand, employers are also hesitant to lay off employees as would traditionally happen with an economic downturn. Why? Because it continues to be difficult to fill already open positions. Employers are concerned that if they let people go, it may be twice as hard to fill the positions again. Confusing? That’s an understatement.
Overall, the job market is still strong. HR and staffing industry leaders will tell you that this has been the weirdest time in recruiting, and it doesn’t appear to be ending any time soon.

Labor Hoarding

With inflation still climbing, there are signs that companies may be “hoarding” employees. A recent report from Employ, Inc. suggested that some companies may be “labor hoarding” – choosing to keep workers rather than laying them off, hoping to save time and money overall. The report states that 52% of recruiters surveyed said their organizations were retaining employees, even those who might be underperforming or lacked a fit with the company culture. John G. Fernald, a senior research adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said that employers would be especially hesitant to lay off workers who would be difficult to rehire once the economy recovers from a downturn, such as those with specialized skills or higher levels of education. In an article published by Vox, economists say there are several reasons employers may be less likely to lay off workers if it is short-lived:
  • Dealing with labor shortages and finding it difficult to hire people.
  • It’s costly to offboard employees.
  • It’s costly to onboard and train workers.
According to Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist and senior researcher at W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, “You can’t count on a long line of job applicants to just show up whenever you post an opening. I think employers hadn’t felt that so acutely in a long time.” Diane Swonk, the chief economist at KPMG notes that companies are still understaffed. “Even as you scale back, you’re still understaffed, so you’re not going to be firing as many as you would have. There’s also a sense that, if you work so hard to get workers, you want to retain the workers you have.” Fernald also suggests that employers should be especially hesitant to let workers go who would be difficult to rehire. “If you lay off people with valuable skills, well, you’re not going to be able to recover production when demand picks up again,” he said. While layoffs will still happen, Allie Kelly, the chief marketing officer of Employ, said there has been a “clear, growing trend of more companies implementing hiring freezes, although they still largely aren’t laying off workers yet.”

Is There Hope to Fill Critical Open Positions?

Yes, there is. There has been plenty of talk about re-examining hiring processes, modernizing benefits to include things like mental health resources and caregiving leave, and more flexibility in work hours, to name a few. Would salary transparency help? More recently, we’re seeing articles about salary transparency in job postings. Once a taboo subject, research done by Adzuna, a search engine provider, reveals that an increasing number of job seekers want to know the salary attached to the job before they apply for it. 54% of jobseekers turned down a job offer when they finally learned the salary. So, what’s the big deal? Only 3% of U.S. job ads include a salary. And why wouldn’t you want to reveal salary? With more than half of jobseekers turning down job offers, Adzuna calculates that represents about 480 million hours of wasted time on vetting candidates, interviews, and negotiations. All for naught. Positions go unfilled, and the process of recruiting and interviewing starts all over again. Adzuna’s survey respondents also delivered this information:
  • 28% of people feel no salary or a lack of salary clarity on job ads is their biggest frustration when looking for a job.
  • 33% of job seekers would not attend a job interview before knowing the salary the employer is willing to offer.
  • 86% of U.S. employees would be open for their colleagues to know how much they earn
  • 73% think employers making salaries more transparent would make the workplace more fair.
So, is there a downside? Again, yes there is. But only if you ignore current employees’ salaries and needs. According to Harvard Business Review (HBR), there are consequences of salary transparency – fallout with disgruntled employees whose pay is not equal to a new colleague. But eventually, the consequences go away after pay equities are established therefore establishing more employer/employee trust, fairness, job satisfaction, and found to boost individual task performance by taking a more holistic approach to reward-related human resource practices. More information can be found here: https://hbr.org/2022/08/research-the-unintended-consequences-of-pay-transparency How can we help? Casey Accounting and Finance Resources is here for all your sourcing and outsourcing needs. If you’re struggling with your recruiting strategies, call us today!

Is the Workforce Shrinking Before Our Eyes?

In the second part of this two-part series, we share research from Emsi, the leading provider of labor market data, on the vanishing workforce.

In the first part of this two-part series, we shared insights from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) on why the economic and labor numbers are unfamiliar with the ongoing talent shortage. You can find that article here. 

If you are in HR, a hiring manager, or running a business, you are not alone in your struggles to find workers. Wage inflation, the persistence of the Covid-19 pandemic, and workplace fatigue are all contributing to the challenge of hiring and retaining employees. In the past, when talent acquisition created anxiety among recruiters, we knew it was just a rough patch we’d all get through. Emsi’s research suggests that we’ve entered a “sansdemic” (without people), and the “hire more people” directive we’ve heard before isn’t going to help. Emsi reports the workforce is “vanishing” and will continue to disappear for decades to come. It’s not just a matter of a low labor force participation rate (LFPR), which measures people working or actively seeking work; it is a lack of available prime-age workers.

What’s Really Happening?

The last few years have been tumultuous with the pandemic. A February 2020 study by Manpower reported that a record 70% of US businesses reported a talent shortage – more than double the 32% who were having difficulty in 2015. With the Covid-19 shutdown, unemployment rates soared. In the past, when unemployment was high, talent was plentiful. But, in the frenzy of shutdowns and layoffs, and employees working from home, coupled with extended unemployment benefits and stimulus packages, workers didn’t jump back into the workforce pool. The result – millions of people not working and millions of open jobs unfilled. Esmi reports the LFPR has dropped to lows not seen since the recession of the mid-1970s.

Companies are trying to combat employee exoduses with strategies that include “internal mobility, reskilling and job redeployment…open to part-time workers, employees who live and work remotely, and workers who need training to perform…improving employee experiences with culture and wellbeing programs to make a company (and the job) more enjoyable and rewarding.”

But these tactics won’t be enough because there won’t be sufficient numbers of prime-age workers, and Covid-19 isn’t to blame. Emsi notes that this is “history catching up to us. We’ve been approaching this cliff for decades,” and there are a growing group of researchers and writers who are noticing this same trend.

In brief, Esmi reports that “there aren’t enough millennials and GenZers to fill baby boomers’ shoes”:

  • The mass exodus of boomers (workforce past)…The largest generation in US history remains a powerful cohort of key workers that still hold millions of roles. Their sudden departure from the labor force will gut the economy of crucial positions and decades of experience that will be hard to fill en masse.
  • Record-low labor force participation rate (LFPR) of prime-age workers (workforce present)…Thousands voluntarily opted out of looking for work. The children and grandchildren of baby boomers are not replacing the boomers who leave the workforce.
  • The lowest birth rates in US history (workforce future)…The national birth rate, already in decline, hit a 35-year low in 2019, and the relative size of the working-age population has been shrinking since 2008.

Where did the Prime-Age Workforce Go?

It might be easy to understand that, according to Emsi, 2.4 million women left the workforce from February 2020 to February 2021. Many stayed at home as their children attended school remotely. But Emsi tells us that this fact was overshadowed by another mass exodus – men have been disappearing from the workforce since the 1980s. Here are some additional takeaways from what Esmi is calling an “erosion of the prime-age male workforce:”

  • The prime-age male workforce (ages 25-54) plunged from 94% in 1980 to 89% in 2019. That five percentage-point drop represents over three million missing workers.
  • Millennials are expected to inherit an estimated $68 trillion from their boomer parents by 2030, making them the new, wealthiest generation in history…making millennials less motivated to seek careers of their own.
  • The opioid epidemic is a major culprit in siphoning prime-age men off the labor force.
  • The number of prime-age men willingly opting for a part-time job jumped from six million to nearly eight million in 2019.

Valuing What You Have

With the impending shortfalls, both near-term and in future decades, Emsi tells us that:

  • Education institutions and businesses will desperately compete for recruits who simply don’t exist.
  • The US stands to lose $162 billion annually due to talent shortages.

We need people. We won’t be able to “technology” ourselves out of this jam but recruiting and retention strategies can help slow the impending worker drought.

Conclusion

Emsi summarizes it by saying – “The sansdemic is going to make a tough situation tougher still. Fewer people means fewer new ideas. Fewer students. Fewer people in research and innovation. Fewer skills in the job market. Fewer employees. Fewer products and fewer goods. Fewer opportunities for growth.” Every person is going to be of value and will need to feel valued.

If you would like to receive a copy of Emsi’s research, email us at info@caseyresources.com. Let us help you develop effective retention strategies.

How to Get the Most Productivity Out of Your Meetings

A report by Harvard Business Review showed that more than 70% of the senior managers surveyed said most meetings are inefficient and unproductive. Among the top reasons were they keep managers from finishing their work, take away time for deep thinking, and result in lost opportunities to unite the team.

A study conducted by Beenote showed that 80% of the employees surveyed had problems in at least one stage of the meeting lifecycle. A lack of minute-keeping, participant preparation, team communication, follow-up tasks, and finishing on time made most meetings unproductive.

As a result, reducing the amount of time spent in meetings can increase employee satisfaction and productivity. You can use these tips to get started.

 

Follow these guidelines to increase productivity during meetings.

Limit the Number of Participants

Keep your meetings between seven and nine participants. Smaller numbers promote greater participation than larger numbers.

Invite only the necessary employees to participate. Smaller groups can make faster decisions and accomplish more than larger groups.

Advance the Agenda  

Send participants an agenda well before the meeting. Include the meeting goal and anticipated outcomes.

Limit the number of discussion topics. This helps the meeting stay on schedule and finish on time.

Begin on Time

Start the meeting at the designated time. Avoid recapping the discussion for latecomers. Do not let them in 15 minutes past the start time.

Beginning on time enforces the habit of employees showing up on time. This helps keep the meeting on track and within the timeframe.

Designate Action Items

Write down specific follow-up tasks according to the decisions made during the meeting. Include which employee is responsible for each task and what the deadline is.

These action items help prepare employees for the next meeting. They can more effectively report on their progress and results.

Enforce Time Limits

Keep each meeting at one hour or less. End the meeting on time, even if items are left on the agenda.

Enforcing meeting time limits lets employees more effectively plan their work day. It also encourages meeting planners to include only the necessary discussion topics.

Send Follow-Up Information

Let employees know whether you will send additional details about the topics discussed during the meeting. This encourages employees to participate more in the discussion and take fewer notes.

Ensure you send the information so employees can review it. This reinforces the discussion topics from the meeting.

 

Need to Hire HR Professionals?

Limiting the number of participants, advancing the agenda, and starting on time increase the productivity of meetings. Designating action items, finishing on time, and sending follow-up information increase the likelihood of implementing the decisions made during the meeting.

If you need to add HR professionals to your team, involve Arlington Resources in your hiring process. Find out more today.

 

When Will the Talent Shortage End? Maybe Never, and Here’s Why!

In the first part of this two-part series, we share insights from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) on why the economic and labor numbers are unfamiliar with the ongoing talent shortage.

Even though there are plenty of predictors for employment and unemployment, most hiring managers rely on the unemployment rate to determine if their company will struggle to acquire talent. Since the pandemic began, the traditional indicators that usually moved together aren’t. Have they gone haywire? Are magnetic fields affecting the numbers? The answers are no and no.

How to Interpret the Conflicting Numbers

Alex Domash and Lawrence H. Summers, both from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, have studied all the predictors and indicators and conclude, in their NBER working paper, that the “labor market tightness is likely to contribute significantly to inflationary [wage] pressure in the United States for some time to come.”

They note that, “Economists have typically turned to common slack measures, such as the unemployment rate or the job vacancy rate, to assess labor market tightness and predict nominal wage growth. Historically, measures of slack on the supply-side, like the unemployment rate and the prime-age (25-54) nonemployment rate[1], have moved in tandem with measures of slack on the demand-side, such as the job vacancy rate and the quits rate, meaning that different indicators gave broadly corroborative signals of labor market tightness. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, however, the supply-side indicators and the demand-side indicators have diverged significantly. While the unemployment rate and prime-age nonemployment rate remain elevated at late-2017 levels and imply modest degrees of slack, the job vacancy rate and quits rate have surged to series highs[2] and imply a very tight labor market. The unemployment rate does not adequately capture all movements in the labor market that are significant for wage inflation.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggests looking at other indicators, like the prime-age employment- (25-54 years old) to-population ratio, to better understand the presumed lack of candidates every company is feeling. So, it’s not just a matter of how many people are employable, it’s a correlation between the population and those who want to work. More on this in a minute.

Does This Have Something to Do With Soaring Wages?

Quite simply, yes. Domash and Summers comment that, “A high vacancy rate signals a high demand for labor and puts upward pressure on wages as firms compete to attract workers. A high quit rate signals that workers are confident enough to leave their jobs to search for a better opportunity, and can put upward pressure on wages since job switchers drive up wages as they move up the job ladder.” Let’s see a show of hands from the hiring managers out there who can relate to this.

Domash and Summers note their research indicates that “estimated wage inflation in the fourth quarter of 2021 is the highest it’s been in the last 20 years.” They also “simulated wage growth in 2022 and 2023 under the assumption that the vacancy rate, the quits rate, and the inflation rate remain the same…nominal wage growth under these assumptions is projected to increase dramatically over the next two years, surpassing six percent wage inflation by 2023.”

Where are the Workers?

Understanding indicators and predictors is one thing, but we are all feeling the pain of finding workers. Here’s the reality. Domash and Summers outline six factors as to where the workers have gone, and chances are, they might never come back. Those factors are:

  • Shifts in demographic structures (population aging specifically) = 1.3 million workers;
  • Covid-19 health concerns = 1.5 million workers;
  • Immigration restrictions = 1.4 million workers;
  • Excess retirements = 1.3 million workers;
  • Reduced incentives to work = 1 million workers; and
  • Covid-19 vaccine mandates = 0.4 million workers.

At the same time, they “project demand-side indicators such as the vacancy to unemployment ratio to continue to be very high over the next year.”

Conclusion

Domash and Summers predict that “the majority of the employment shortfall will likely persist moving forward. Moreover, if employment were to increase due to an increase in labor force participation, it would be accompanied by increases in incomes, and therefore an increase in demand. We believe that labor markets will continue to be very tight unless there is a considerable slowdown in labor demands.” This all suggests that companies need to sharpen their talent acquisition strategies and stay on top of the numbers since the tight labor market is bound to continue for some time.

In the second part of this series, we’ll discuss the “demographic drought” associated with the labor force participation and how it may shrink the available labor pool going forward.

If you would like to receive a copy of Domash’s and Summer’s complete working paper, email us at info@caseyresources.com. Let us help you develop effective talent acquisition tactics.

 

[1] This is equivalent to one minus the prime-age employment-to-population ratio.

[2] As of December 2021, the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) reported a seasonally adjusted

job vacancy rate of 6.8% (a near-record high, and much higher than any vacancy rate before 2021) and a seasonally

adjusted quits rate of 2.9% (the second highest quits rate on record).

Interview Skills You Should Brush Up On to Succeed!

As companies move forward during The Great Resignation, they need to hire the right employees. This requires effective interview skills.

It takes a significant amount of time for a hiring manager and HR to discuss the job requirements, source and screen candidates, and conduct interviews. It also takes time to conduct background checks, finalize the candidate selections, and wait for candidates to accept offers and begin working.

As a result, hiring managers should participate in training now to refresh their interview skills. This helps build candidate pipelines for current and future hiring needs.

Discover some benefits of hiring managers brushing up on their interview skills and topics to discuss during training.

Advantages of Refreshing Interview Skills

Proving a refresher for hiring managers’ interview skills training lets them practice in a safe environment. Because these managers may not have conducted interviews for a significant time, a mini session would be advantageous.

Refresher training ensures hiring managers and HR are on the same page regarding interviewing. This increases success in hiring the best candidates.

Topics to Discuss When Refreshing Interview Skills

Intake meeting: Talk about the meeting between the hiring manager and HR to discuss the job requirements and sourcing strategy. For instance, emphasize the importance of the candidate experience throughout the hiring process. Also, discuss specific ways to show commitment to diversity and inclusion so candidates feel they are welcome and can be themselves at work.

Discussing the intake meeting ensures the hiring manager and HR are following the same policies and procedures for interviewing. This speeds up the hiring process, increasing the likelihood of hiring top candidates.

Interview questions: Emphasize the importance of asking effective, compliant behavioral interview questions. These questions provide insight into a candidate’s experience.

You may want to use the STAR method to create interview questions. This involves asking a candidate about a situation they encountered, the task they needed to accomplish, the action they took, and the results they attained.

Ensure the hiring manager asks follow-up questions to gather enough detail for a complete picture of the situation, task, action, and result. This helps provide the necessary information to make a hiring decision.

Candidate selection: Remind hiring managers to look past their unconscious biases when choosing the best candidate. This can be accomplished through an online training program that may be included in your diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

Need Help with Hiring?

Refreshing hiring managers’ interview skills ensures managers and HR are on the same page throughout the hiring process. Sharing details about the intake meeting, interview questions, and the candidate selection process increases the likelihood of hiring the most qualified candidates.

For additional help with hiring, partner with Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. Get started today.

What Employers Can Do to Better Support Their Working Parents

Employers always are looking for ways to support their employees. This improves productivity, performance, and retention.

One key area of support is for working parents. Because most employees have families, they make up a significant part of the workforce.

Working parents often deal with issues that affect their professional performance. Examples include taking time off to care for a sick child and needing to finish work early to handle family responsibilities.

As a result, employers who provide accommodations for working parents are more attractive to employees and job seekers. Taking small steps can result in a substantial impact on your organization with little impact on the bottom line.

Choose among these methods to provide support for your working parents.

Talk About Working Parents’ Needs

Find out more about what your working parents want help with most. You may want to begin with a survey to understand their issues, concerns, and suggestions for help. Then, you can use this information to begin discussions between working parents and management about methods to increase support.

You may want to identify a specific issue that many working parents face. Then, you could encourage managers to speak with their employees for more details. The managers could meet with HR and leadership to share feedback and discuss implementation methods.

Create a Parents’ Network

Encourage working parents to share ideas, provide support, and organize family-friendly activities. This may include creating an email chain for parents to swap out gently used children’s clothing. Or, parents might provide tips to ease the stress of raising children while working full-time.

Having this network helps fill working parents’ wants and needs by connecting them with the right individuals at the right time. You may want to create a dedicated intranet page or Slack channel to encourage working parents to join the network.

Provide Flexibility

Offer employees a flexible schedule and options for how they work. Examples include working remotely, hybrid, flextime, part-time, or having a compressed workweek.

You may want to make accommodations for when working parents’ children start school or change their childcare routines. This reduces the stress of fitting in work around childcare. It also increases productivity and retention.

Looking for Additional Advice?

Working parents appreciate help supporting their personal and professional needs. Talking about and accommodating working parents’ needs, creating a working parents’ network, and providing flexibility are effective methods to provide this support. This increases employee engagement, productivity, and performance. It also increases employee attraction and retention.

For additional advice to better support your team’s working parents, reach out to the professionals at Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. Contact us today.

 

Are the Economy and Inflation Hampering Recruiting?

We’ve all heard the news reports on how unusual the economy is right now. Interest rates are rising – great for our bank accounts, terrible for loans and mortgages. Wages are up. Unemployment is down. Consumers are feeling the pinch at the gas pumps and grocery stores. And while employees may be earning more money, it isn’t covering the increased costs of goods and services. While the Federal Reserve hasn’t declared a recession, everyone from the CEO to the receptionist certainly is wary that our country is headed in that direction. How can you keep your eye on the potential impact all this may have on finding and retaining employees in an already competitive talent war?

Lack of Engagement

There has been a strong recovery in the lost jobs since the pandemic started – faster than seen when jobs went away during previous recessions. Labor Economist Andrew Flowers commented, “In the previous recession that started in 2007, it took 76 months for job openings to return to the level at the start of the downturn. But in the recent COVID recession, it took only 12 months for job openings to recover to the February 2020 level, and by November 2021, openings had risen 50% above that.” However, Flowers notes that “there remain 5.6 million people who say they want a job but are not actively searching for one.” Even with the lure of more money and better job benefits, there are many potential job candidates out there who just aren’t interested. Have we hit a plateau in labor market participation? Perhaps. Are we in a transition? Maybe. Either way, we need strategies to recruit and retain the best.

Tips to Weather the Storm

With the labor market so tight, many companies have settled for the best available candidate versus the best candidate. Part of the challenge is the disconnect between what companies will pay and what candidates will accept. Currently, candidates are in a position of power.

Whether you are still struggling to fill positions or you’re in preparation mode for a recession, or both, there are some ways to improve recruitment strategies.

A recent article on SHRM’s website offered the following suggestion: review all open positions, why it exists, and what value does it bring to the company – drive business, contribute to employee engagement, or serve the customer. “Every role and position must have a purpose, a defined expectation for achievement of specific metrics, clarity in the purpose of the organization’s business strategy and how their position plays into that strategy. Just because you thought you needed a senior leadership role in the past does not mean you need that same position today,” commented Melanie French, managing principal at DLP Capital.

Review your job advertisements. In the old days, it was acceptable to simply list the skills requirements and other necessary credentials, and candidates would apply. Now, job seekers are looking for the WIIFM on job posts. Consider attracting candidates with a picture of what it looks like to them if they were offered that job. Companies are also waiving some of the education requirements if there are other assets and skills a candidate offers that bring value to the company.

Trent Cotton, Senior Global Director of Talent Acquisition and Retention at HatchWorks, offers these three strategies:

  • Identify top talent and show the love
  • Stop being cheap – you get what you pay for
  • Develop and nurture your pipeline

He also notes:

  • Workers are plentiful, but they have a higher price point than most companies are willing to pay.
  • Large employers are changing requirements, pay, and benefits to compete for the workforce.
  • We still have a huge number of long-term unemployed workers who are not entering the market.

Summary

The combination of economic conditions may be souring the mood of employers and employees, but it’s not all bad news, and there are opportunities in front of us.

A recession is bound to happen at some point, but we aren’t in one right now. Balancing your needs to fill positions right now with the odd economic conditions will be key. “Employers are probably keeping in mind that they went quickly from letting people go to hiring them, and they had a hard time rehiring people,” commented Nick Bunker, economic research director at Indeed.

How can we help? Casey Accounting and Finance Resources is here for all your sourcing and outsourcing needs. We can prepare recruiting strategies that offer the flexibility you require to manage the ups and downs of the labor market. Call us today!

Appreciating Senior Workers as an Asset

“Work gives you meaning and purpose, and life is empty without it.” – Stephen Hawking

Do you view employee longevity as an asset? As most companies face staffing shortages due to The Great Resignation, have you revised your recruiting strategy to include attracting and retaining older workers? So many companies have a DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) plan, but it may not include hiring people over the age of 50. If it doesn’t, it should. One reason is that you don’t want to be called out for age bias. Second and more importantly, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 25% of the U.S. workforce is currently over the age of 55. The number of people ages 65 and older who are still working is expected to rise to 29 percent by 2060.

Outdated assumptions about older workers persist but did you know that senior employees add value to your business? According to Josh Bersin, a global industry analyst, and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, chief innovation officer at Manpower, “people over the age of 40 are more entrepreneurial, patient, have collaborative natures, and they’ve moved beyond a phase of having to “prove myself.” In their article published in the Harvard Business Review, they note that even though there is an entire media and publishing industry that glorifies youth, the scientific evidence on this issue shows differently:

  • On average, raw mental horsepower declines after the age of 30, but knowledge and expertise – the main predictors of job performance – keep increasing even beyond the age of 80.
  • There is also ample evidence to assume that traits like drive and curiosity are catalysts for new skill acquisition, even during late adulthood. That means that there is no age limit to learning things.
  • Older workers can bring cognitive diversity to the workforce to help maximize team output.

In an opinion piece published by the Boston Globe, Tim Driver – president of the Age-Friendly Institute and founder of retirementjobs.com, Jody Shue – executive director of the Age-Friendly Institute, and Alice Bonner – director of the Age-Friendly Institute state a convincing case on “why employers should recruit and retain older workers.” The article explains that “smarter organizations view their employees’ longevity as an asset: their experience, lower turnover rates, ability to foster higher customer satisfaction, and diverse perspectives are among the crucial contributions older workers offer.”

Why Hire and Retain Workers 50+

Kerry Hannon, author of Never Too Old to Get Rich, provides the business case for seeing the benefits of hiring senior workers: “The truth is experience, put simply, gives you an edge.” In an article published by Forbes, Hannon offers 10 reasons to hire and retain workers 50+, including:

  • Loyalty and stability, attitude, productivity, and mojo
  • Decision-making skills, leadership skills, essential skills, and networks
  • Cognitive capacity and collaborative
  • Mentors

“When it comes to hiring, smart employers know that it’s not about age…An innovative company wants talented people, period,” commented Hannon. And with talented employees, companies win.

But considering that one-third of available workers are 55 years of age or older, there is an economic impact, as well. As the workforce ages, so will the global economy. Many people do not have enough money in their retirement accounts, which means they need to work and want to work longer. They enjoy the mental and physical stimulus going into an office provides and like to provide value to their companies and community. If your company is struggling with unfilled jobs, it is unable to meet the demands of customers, thereby creating ongoing supply chain challenges and affecting your profits.

Driver, Bonner, and Shue note that “postponed retirements are similarly beneficial to the economy as a whole: increasing GDP, providing skilled and less-skilled labor in a tight labor market, and reducing public health costs because people are active and engaged. By working longer, older adults are more likely to remain physically and mentally active, are better able to support themselves financially, and stay four times more socially engaged (vital to good health).”

How Can Organizations Appeal to Older Workers?

Bersin and Chamorro-Premuzic offer these suggestions:

  • Give older people titles and roles
  • Offer accommodations for flexible work such as more accessible workstations, the ability to perform tasks while seated rather than on their feet all day, and a varied schedule
  • Look at pay equity by job and level, not tenure
  • Bring age diversity into your DEI programs
  • Give older workers managerial roles, supervisor roles, and mentor roles
  • Coach and teach recruiters not to discriminate by age
  • Teach younger leaders about reverse mentoring

With a strategy in place, retaining your senior workers can be as easy as letting them know you want them to stay and/or offering phased retirements, reconsidering training and education opportunities, and incorporating the advice above. To attract senior workers, find organizations, programs, networking groups, and job boards targeted to the 50+ people in your community.

Summary

It’s time to rethink any antiquated points of view regarding senior workers and shift to a more well-rounded talent acquisition strategy. What else do you need to convince you to develop a plan for retaining and bringing back senior workers to your workplace? Let Casey Accounting and Finance Resources help you pursue talented Accounting and Finance professionals with years of deep-rooted knowledge, confidence, practicality, loyalty, and stability.

Workers Still Quitting. Where Are They Now and What Can Employers Do About It?

The big quit continues. Unemployment remains low. Jobs go unfilled. If workers are shuffling around and jobs are available, where did everyone go, and why is recruiting so hard these days?

The Facts

  • Many of those who quit or are considering quitting are Gen Zs. An Adobe survey of 5,500 workers found that 56% of those ages 18–24 say they are planning to switch jobs in the next year.
  • A key finding from the Lever “2022 Great Resignation: The State of Internal Mobility and Employee Retention Report” is that members of Gen Z are more than twice as likely to leave their current job (13%) as compared to Millennials (5%), Gen X (3%) or Baby Boomers (6%).
  • While the Adobe survey didn’t address Baby Boomers, Goldman Sachs estimated that the other half of employees who quit their jobs were Baby Boomers over 55 years old.
  • Steven Vaughan-Nichols, senior contributing editor of Red Ventures/ZDNet, notes the MIT Sloan Business Review, the biggest single predictor for companies losing workers by a big margin was a toxic work culture. “How big? A toxic corporate culture is 10 times more important than compensation in predicting turnover. Other reasons that ranked higher than wages were job insecurity/reorganization; high levels of innovation; failure to recognize employee performance; and poor COVID-19 response.”
  • Finally, some employees retired or “aged out,” some just took time off, some switched to “gig” work, and others forged a new path –  a new industry or different career, or started a company, to name a few alternatives.

Employers Need to Face the Issues

Workers are in a position of power and are being offered more opportunities and choices. Employers cannot deny or delay that much of their workforce, today and tomorrow, is requesting more from them. And the pandemic wasn’t the tipping point. Workers have been wanting changes for some time.

LinkedIn conducted a survey in 2018 to understand what professionals want. The key takeaways:

  • The Hiring Dealbreakers – professionals would not work at a leading company if it meant they had to tolerate:
    • Bad workplace culture (70%)
    • Lower pay (65%)
    • Forgoing a fancy title (26%)
  • What’s Making Them Stay the Next 5+ Years?
    • A sense of belonging (46%)
    • Benefits over perks (44%)
    • Support from the top (36%)
  • Tips for Attracting, Retaining, and Fostering Top Talent Today
    • Build pride in your company (87%)
    • Maintain values in the workplace (39%)

There are numerous articles and surveys today that echo these same indicators four years later. As Baby Boomers move on, Millennials, Gen X, Y, and Z are reexamining their careers and the workplace culture and environment that fits them best.

Twenty-seven percent of 18-39-year-olds tell YPulse they have quit or resigned from a job in the last year, and of that group, 14% have left their positions in the last 6 months. When YPulse asked why they left, “My previous job was not good for my mental health” is the top response, followed by “There was not a healthy work/life balance at my previous job.”  In the face of mounting crises, Gen Z and Millennials have been changing their lifestyles to cope with stress. Wanting to go into a different field/industry is another one of the top reasons young people told YPulse they have resigned or quit a job, and in fact, 29% of employed 13-39-year-olds say they have resigned or quit a job to combat stress/anxiety in the last year. Meanwhile, 26% of 18-39-year-olds tell YPulse they have taken time off from work or school, and 19% say they have moved to a new city or state to combat anxiety/stress in the last year.

Encouraging People to Stay

The pandemic gave people a new lens from which to view their lives, work, and integration between the two. There’s a disconnect between the many job openings and workers wanting their old jobs back. With nearly half of the workforce searching or being recruited for new opportunities, Vaughan-Nichols noted the Adobe survey sheds some light on why employees will elect to continue working in their current job/company:

  • Proper company recognition.
  • Pay raises.
  • In-person and remote flexibility.
  • Improved listening.
  • Hours and schedule flexibility.

The Lever study noted that the biggest motivator for employees planning to stay in their position is salary and/or potential bonuses (46% of respondents said as much). This top-rated motivator was followed by attractive levels of paid time off and flexibility (21%) and internal mobility (13%).

Retooling Employee Retention Strategies and Rethinking Hiring Credentials

Let’s assume you have an attractive company culture, offer very competitive pay, and expanded your benefits to include PTO, caregiver leave, and better healthcare, what else will make a difference in your recruiting and retention strategies as you prepare your organization for the future of work? There are two key opportunities to consider: skills development and alternative credentials.

  • Reskilling your workforce.

Gartner, Inc.’s 2021 HR Priorities Survey of more than 750 HR leaders found that 68% of respondents cited building critical skills and competencies as their number one priority in 2021. The survey, conducted from June through August 2020, found the other top HR priorities for 2021 are: organizational design and change management (46%), current and future leadership bench (44%), the future of work (32%), and employee experience (28%).

A LinkedIn survey revealed that 76% of Gen Z workers believe learning is the key to a successful career. Learning new skills and executive mentoring are appealing to this generation and are important to their future and how the companies they work for compete. Members of Gen Z and Millennials are also more likely than other generations to ask for role changes (36% and 43%, respectively), according to the Lever report.

“In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, HR leaders are moving away from crisis management toward focusing on what will make their organizations strong, both today and in the future, including having the right skills and competencies, building resilience and having a strong cadre of leaders,” said Mark Whittle, vice president of advisory in the Gartner HR practice.

According to the latest LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report, amid 2022’s storm of urgent priorities, skill-building and skills-based planning stand out as the most impactful places to make progress. While it’s natural to feel anxious that, for example, only 10% of HR and business executives say their organizations have a skills database with profiles for all employees, the report stated, “there’s a light in the dark clouds.”

The report goes on to say that organizations that shift to skills-based planning have a unique chance to catalyze learning culture and capitalize on emerging trends — especially the convergence of learning, talent acquisition, talent development, and the red-hot rise of internal mobility.

  • Employees who feel that their skills are not being put to good use in their current job are 10 times more likely to be looking for a new job than those who feel that their skills are being put to good use
  • 79% of Learning & Development (L&D) pros agree: It’s less expensive to reskill a current employee than to hire a new one
  • 54% of L&D pros agree that internal mobility has become a higher priority at their organization since COVID-19

 

  • Untapped Talent: The Rise of Using Alternative Credentials in Job Posts, Recruiting & Upskilling

Increasingly, U.S. workers are turning to alternative credentials to enhance and demonstrate skills and work-readiness, according to new research from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), made possible by a grant from Walmart to the SHRM Foundation. SHRM’s new reports, The Rise of Alternative Credentials in Hiring, along with Making Alternative Credentials Work: A New Strategy for HR Professionals, found that nearly half of U.S. workers (45%) say they have some form of an alternative credential. Among those who don’t, about half (49%) have considered earning one.

But while employees and employers alike agree that alternative credentials bring value to the workplace and are instrumental in employee development, potential barriers to employers’ wider recognition of alternative credentials include a lack of systems that can easily identify an individual’s skills and talents, standards to recognize nontraditional or untapped talent, as well as employer reluctance to recognize a new way to validate these skills.

“Alternative credentials are key to uncovering untapped talent, especially when it comes to those job seekers who may not have the opportunity to build skills in a traditional way but have the competencies they need to succeed,” said SHRM Foundation President Wendi Safstrom. “A majority of executives, supervisors and HR professionals believe that including alternative credentials in hiring decisions can actually improve overall workplace diversity.”

Other key findings from the SHRM reports include:

  • Alternative credentials are popular with U.S. workers: more than 70 percent of U.S. workers agree they are an affordable way to gain the skills or experience necessary to enter a new job and that having a job-relevant alternative credential increases or would increase their chances of being hired for a job.
  • People who hold alternative credentials bring value to the workplace, according to executives (87 percent), supervisors (81 percent), and especially HR professionals (90 percent).
  • During a time of skills shortages, alternative credentials can uncover untapped talent. It becomes easier for diverse candidates to obtain employment (81 percent of executives, 71 percent of supervisors, and 59 percent of HR professionals).
  • Adjusting applicant tracking systems could help increase awareness of alternative credentials. Nearly half of HR professionals surveyed (45 percent) say their organization uses automated prescreening to review job applicant resumes, but only one-third of those (32 percent) say their automated system recognizes alternative credentials.

Ready to Remain Competitive?

If you are looking for ways to make your organization stand out, contact Casey Accounting & Finance Resources today. Let’s discuss the challenges you’re facing along with other hot topics in employee retention through upskilling and reskilling and considering alternative credentials in your job descriptions.