“Which one of the following is your company’s greatest challenge when it comes to hiring and managing staff?”
This is the question asked in a recent survey conducted by Robert Half that reveals the four greatest challenges small business owners are facing today with difficulty filling skilled worker positions topping the list. Small business owners often do not have the resources to compete for highly skilled workers and may have roles that require uniquely qualified individuals who can perform multiple job duties. The survey results came from 300 small business owners who managed companies with no more than 100 employees. Here are the results:
60% – Finding Skilled Workers
19% – Maintaining Employee Morale & Productivity
8% – Managing Difficult Employees
7% – Retaining Staff
6% – Other
An increased unemployment rate created a buyer’s market for employers to offer positions with lower compensation and reduced benefits and still have hundreds of applications land on their desk. This hasn’t been the case for skilled workers that are still hard to find and hard to retain. One reason is the misleading unemployment rate. The July unemployment rate was 7.4% (BLS) but the unemployment rate for those in a particular skilled trade can be much lower. Because of this, employers cannot assume that all fields are eagerly seeking employment. Instead, employers who need skilled workers might be faced with the challenge of recruiting people who are already employed, but could be seeking better pay, employee benefits or work-life balance. The dilemma is compounded by the abundance of unqualified applications that has increased exponentially so recruiters and hiring managers are required to filter through more paperwork to find a qualified candidate.
Finding Skilled Workers (60%)
PEOs help small businesses offer competitive and comprehensive benefits.
Because skilled workers don’t have the same struggles finding employment, business owners may have to raise the stakes when seeking top talent. Professional employer organizations help small businesses compete with larger companies by controlling the costs of employee benefits. Through “employee benefits pooling,” SOI pools hundreds of companies together to utilize economies of scale and negotiate the best rates possible.
PEOs allow your HR team to focus on recruiting and training.
Skilled worker positions can be difficult to fill because they are often highly specialized and therefore seem to be limited to a specific expertise. Employers could benefit from hiring highly intelligent, highly accomplished workers whose skills do not directly align with the job description. Rather than dismissing a skilled candidate, he or she can be trained to perform the required duties and become a great asset to the company. Oftentimes managers and HR teams do not have the time or resources to train such candidates and are forced to leave positions unfilled for longer than desired. Through a PEO’s human resource administration service, the time-consuming duties of payroll, employee benefits management and other redundant HR tasks can be offloaded so the HR team can be better utilized for strategies such as advance training or recruiting programs.
Maintaining Employee Morale & Productivity (19%)
PEOs give small employers access to comprehensive and customizable employee benefits packages.
Employees who are offered health insurance and other employee benefits have been shown to be more satisfied with their place of employment and more productive as they miss fewer work days due to illness. Wellness programs and the administering of flu shots are proven methods of decreasing absenteeism in the work place while employee benefits communication has been shown to improve employee morale. Professional employer organizations specialize in implementing these programs within a company.
Managing Difficult Employees (8%)
PEOs give small business owners access to compliance and legal advice.
Business owners can seek best practice advice through a professional employer organization when faced with a difficult employee. This allows them to create and enforce workplace guidelines that ensure equal treatment of all employees. PEOs also help employers developemployee handbooks that best communicate performance and behavior expectations. In addition, clients of SOI gain access to our trusted partners including Business & Legal Resources (BLR) and LawRoom that provide employment law best practice advice for business owners.
PEOs let HR teams focus on human capital management.
Through the use of a PEO, human resource departments are better able to focus on employee engagement and employee morale. A professional employer organization does not replace the human resource department, instead it handles the day-to-day paperwork and compliance-related tasks so the internal HR team or business owner can develop a strategy that helps align employees with the core business goals of the company.
Retaining Staff (7%)
PEOs help manage and communicate employee benefits to maximize value.
The three challenges above can affect employee retention. Hiring the wrong person from the start, failing to monitor employee morale, and mishandling difficult employees can affect your employee retention rate. Employers that offer employee benefits tend to see a decrease in employee turnover and a well-administered, well-communicated employee benefits packageprovides more value to employees, however, nothing hurts employee retention more than an executive and HR team that is disconnected from its employees. An HR team that is bogged down with paperwork could have trouble developing a strategy that addresses human capital management, but by utilizing a PEO, HR teams and business owners can develop strategies that focus on the core of their business.
About Robert Half
Founded in 1948, Robert Half is the world’s first and largest specialized staffing firm. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company has more than 345 staffing locations worldwide and offers online job search services on its divisional websites, all of which can be accessed at www.roberthalf.com.
About SOI
SOI is a leading professional employer organization (PEO) for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) serving as a trusted partner in integrated human resource (HR) compliance, risk management, employee benefits, employment practices liability insurance (EPLI), and payroll processing. SOI is based in Charlotte, NC and supports tens of thousands of worksite employees throughout the U.S. For more information, visit SOI.com.
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