By Jerry Grohovsky
Copyright 2017, JPG & Associates, Inc.
Since the end of the great recession, the expanding economy has provided a confidence base for companies to be “bullish” on investing in more research, creating new products, expanding manufacturing capacity, and in-turn adding to their employee count to support all these activities.
During the past several years, all of us have noticed an increasing volume of discussions and articles about the challenges that U.S. companies are facing in finding qualified talent to fill a growing number of open positions. This growing shortage is present in just about every industry, profession, and trade imaginable—including Technical Communication.
Contributing to this wave of shortages is a combination of several factors: an expanding economy since circa 2012, a “demographic tsunami” of boomer retirements over the next 5 to 10 years, and a rapidly-changing skills environment driven by new technology (commonly referred to as the “skills gap”). Basically, hiring managers are facing a “triple assault” on the available talent pool. No doubt all hiring managers and HR departments have taken notice in the past several years of longer time windows to fill job openings.
The question all tech. comm. hiring managers and human resource professionals are asking with increasing concern: What is the solution to this new hiring environment that we are now facing?
Based on my observations and experiences in hiring communication professionals over the past 24 years, I suggest that there is no single “rabbit out of the hat” trick, or any one “quick fix.” There is good news, however. During the past year or two, I have noticed several large corporations starting to make major changes to their traditional work models in order to accommodate current employees, and to attract more outside talent. But more can be done, and by more companies.
In the following paragraphs, I propose that it may require an adjustment of conventional hiring models and practices, and the creation of some new ones. For any given company, one solution may be sufficient. For others, several solutions applied simultaneously may be required.
- Think Outside The Box—Or Building Rather
Ten or even five years ago, working from home was a rare practice. Many skeptics said that this new model would fail due to a breach of accountability, confidentiality, and lack of person-to-person team communication. Today, however, skeptics are rare, and working from the home office is much more common place. Improved technology—such as high-speed internet, web-X, Skype, and cloud sharing—have all helped to improve the working-from-home model. Companies are viewing this model as a great way to keep the employee at the keyboard more and in front of a steering wheel less–as commuting time has increased traffic congestions, summer construction, and weather all becoming more of a challenge. And of course, let’s not forget about the demand of millennial families when children have a sick day home from school. Working from home on such a day keeps the productivity wheels turning. Some companies today now opt for 100% virtual—no real estate or infrastructure overhead.
- Increase Internal Training Commitment
Looking back pre-recession, it was more common than not for companies to provide training—particularly for entry-level positions. Particularly after the last several recessions, as companies shed millions of jobs, internal mentoring and training became a relic of the past. Today we see the pendulum swinging the other direction. Companies appear to be putting more time and energy into employee training—even for contractors. Some companies in the manufacturing and specialized trades—such as CNC machining—are opening their own training centers within their organizations—to virtually create the talent that they cannot find on the outside.
- Don’t Rule Out Part-time
There are many experienced professionals who exited the workforce for x number of years in order to raise children or care for family members. Now several years later, many are seeking a way to get back into the workforce on a part-time basis, while still devoting a few hours per day to family obligations. Many I have interviewed say that opportunities for part-time professionals are scarce. Most company positions are based on the 40-hr work-week model. Case-in-point are the stay-at-home mothers and fathers who made a choice to be stay-at-home parents until their children reached school age—but who still wish to be there part of the day. The two sides need to come to the middle. Even bending the flexible-hour model even further will help capture more talent from the pool of candidates who still have personal life-style needs prior to and following the typical 9 AM to 3 PM core hours of a work day.
- Be Aware That Today’s Highly Competitive, Fast-Moving Talent Pool Environment Demands A More Proactive Hiring Process
Today’s hiring environment demands that companies constantly do periodic reality checks with the market-place. This will allow them to make adjustments where possible in their hiring practices: how they recruit, where they post jobs, how jobs are structured and also defined in postings, what compensation and benefit packages need to be offered in order to secure top talent. Important as well is knowing that in an employee’s market (based on supply and demand), employers need to be sensitive to the fact that a smaller talent pool means more competition. And “beating the competition to the candidate” means shortening the reaction times from making decisions about interviews schedules, to how rapidly and offer is presented. (I have seen instances where several days, even hours, can make a difference between seizing an opportunity and missing an opportunity.).
- Be Cautious Of Turning Policies And Procedures Into Hiring Barriers
For the most part, the on-boarding and pre-hiring requirements that have become a part of the hiring landscape the over the past 10-15 years that been both necessary and helpful in ensuring that quality and legal requirements are followed. My only observation is that—in some instances—that some corporate environments have either: 1) not built-in adequate flexibility to their procedures and guidelines, and 2) sometimes create compliance procedures and requirements that often create unnecessary obstacles to facilitating a smooth hiring process and 3) sometimes the “means to an end” over time starts to blur the objective, and the “end” becomes a slave of the “means.”
- Let’s Focus More On “The Ability To Be Trained”, And Less On “Checking Off A List Of Requirements”
Pre-great recession was a time of tremendous job creation, and tremendous talent availability. It was not uncommon to find several candidates very quickly who would match item- by-item on the requirements list of skills and experiences. With a shrinking talent pool and growing skills gap, it may be time to refocus the attention to a candidate’s core abilities and strengths, and the potential to train a candidate who is perceived to a good fit for the long-term. Software tools are no doubt important, but sometimes an experience requirement can be waived and made up later with auxiliary training.
- Retirees
It is estimated that the boomer generation is retiring at a rate of 10,000 per day. I believe this group (and boomers have always had a major impact) will get more attention as a source of talent in the near future. There are many advantages to this consideration, among them: retaining valuable knowledge base, bridging project knowledge between long-standing employees and new employees, mentoring, and so on. There are many retirees who would like work part-time to supplement their retirement income, but find that part-time professional opportunities are scarce. Breaking down the traditional 5-day, 40-hr/week model would help companies add experienced resources, particularly if you can capture the interest of many retirees and peek their interested with part-time opportunities versus full-time retirement.
- Partner With Niche companies Who Can Provide Specific Talent
Seek out, vet, and partner with companies who specialize in a particular profession or category that you most often seek out (i.e., technical writers, instructional designers, UX and UI specialists, etc.).
- Collaborate With Service Companies Who Have The Talent And Consulting Capability To Which You Can Consider Outsourcing Some Of Your Projects
Keep in mind that not every project needs to controlled and sourced from within. Seek out partners (collaborators) with service companies who already have the resources and expertise to support your projects on an RFP basis. This option is entirely different than the individual contract (or temp) option provided by a staffing agency.
Conclusion
The “take away” is that no single solution is likely powerful enough to solve either talent shortages and/or skill gaps in the technical communication profession. Colleges and universities have made tremendous progress over the past several years in keeping their undergraduate and post-graduate programs relevant and current—including bolstering their enrollment numbers of new students. It may take a combination of several of the above, or possibly all the above to achieve sufficient staffing objectives. Certainly changes in internal processes, attitudes towards new work models that tap into high-technology, and renewed investment in internal training should all bring immediate improvements in securing the talent companies need to sustain growth.