In service businesses, your employees are your product. Without reliable, friendly, skilled staff, there is no service. But since the Great Resignation, small businesses are finding it more difficult than ever to find employees now.
Job opportunities are everywhere, and businesses now have to compete for staff. It’s no longer enough to simply post a job opening online, wait for the applications and resumes to come in, and pick one. Candidates are demanding more perks and positive business culture as well as higher salaries. How can you recruit the best employees with so much competition?
Make Your Job Postings Stand Out To Find Employees Now
Posting on job boards and classifieds is still the best way to start, but you have to make sure your job opportunity stands out to ensure you can attract top candidates. Also, consider that many job listings are searched online, so keywords play an important role. Think about what terms a candidate would search for: job title, location, health insurance, perks, and promoting your company culture.
Be sure to include a catchy headline and opening paragraph that will intrigue potential employees. Job hunters are scanning through dozens or even hundreds of ads when looking for jobs to respond to and take the time to create a cover letter and resume. Because looking for a new job is very time-consuming, so they will often do a quick scan of a posting. Bullet points are a way to see a quick overview of what you’re offering to help them decide if they want to read more closely and apply.
Make It Easy To Get Potential Employee Leads
Often employers make an application process lengthy and too time-consuming for someone who is applying to multiple jobs. A cover letter and resume can tell you if you want to learn more, without having an applicant go through a lengthy process of filling out multiple-page forms and the standard surveys on ethnicity, disabilities, or veteran status.
That can be done after vetting a potential candidate so you don’t waste the time of people who don’t meet the criteria or experience for the position. It’s very frustrating for job seekers to face an enormous amount of paperwork to be done when you may never hear back from a business.
A short letter or email thanking candidates for their interest and following up go a long way to impress applicants. If you show professionalism and courtesy during the hiring process, that doesn’t guarantee a positive company culture, but lack of courtesy in the initial stages certainly implies the opposite.
“But I Like Working From Home”
Many workers balked at the idea of working remotely because of concerns about juggling family and work, but now they want to stay there. Unfortunately, that simply isn’t possible in service-based businesses. However, you can find creative ways to help give these employees maintain more work/life balance.
One thing you can offer employees is a more flexible schedule. For instance, figure out the busiest days for service requests. Schedule most or all employees to work those days, but flex days that aren’t quite as busy. You might offer employees four 10-hour work days instead of the traditional Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. Offering three days off every week can catch job seekers’ attention.
If employees have to take turns being on-call after hours, make sure they have time off to compensate and recuperate if they spend all night making emergency calls, such as HVAC services.
This can make scheduling a little more complicated, but utilizing a software program can make it easy and make employees much happier with their work hours. That’s one of the perks of ServiceWorks software, along with many other great applications to make your business run smoother.
Show Me The… Perks
Speaking of perks, we know money is important, but along with work/life balance, employees want perks. Helping someone get additional training or education through tuition reimbursement is a huge perk to those that want to advance their career. (And people who have big career goals and want to advance often make the best candidates.) It also sends a signal that there is potential to advance with a company that promotes educational opportunities. This can help you to find new employees.
Many companies are promoting a relaxed company environment and an office with great perks. Some businesses have a gym on-site that is free to all workers. Others offer a great employee lounge — everything from pool tables to snacks. You’ve heard the old saying, “happy wife, happy life?” You could also say “happy workers, happy customers,” and you could also say “happy customers, happy business owners.”
Use Other Resources To Find New Employees
if posting an ad is still yielding minimal results, consider reaching out to your network of contacts. Give incentives for referring an employee to those who are already working there. Past employees, vendors, or even clients might be able to help find outstanding candidates.
At the end of the day, if these tips aren’t producing as big of an applicant pool as you would like, you could go to the old standby that always works — higher wages and more money in someone’s pocket. Just be sure you still offer other incentives to recruit and maintain your workforce. When there is less turnover, you won’t have to spend as much time trying to find new employees. That is the ultimate goal for any business’ employee roster.
