Compensating For Our Low Unemployment Rate

Are You Adapting to the Times?

For anyone that remotely tries to stay current with trends in the economy, it will come as no surprise that the current unemployment rate for the nation is approximately 3.9% (as of the writing of this article in August 2018).  With that in mind, I wanted to share some tips and tricks that will help you manage and better compensate for the low unemployment rate.

The Impact of Low Unemployment on Hiring

Low unemployment is great for the economy – more people employed usually means more consumer spending.  But for employers, it also means a more challenging applicant pool.

HR and hiring managers need to react quicker and dig deeper to find better candidates and streamline their processes because the time that individuals are spending without a job is significantly lower.  With such low unemployment, gone are the days when HR can “take their time” and/or have a wide breadth of applicants for a single position.  Hiring managers need to speed up qualification and move candidates through the process before other companies snatch up top talent.

How to Speed Up Recruiting

What are you doing to ensure a speedy recruiting process?

Communication between the hiring manager and HR is key.  It’s important to keep a real-time posting of each applicant and where he or she is in the process.  HR needs to communicate with the hiring manager almost immediately after an interview to determine the applicant’s worth and whether recruiting needs to continue searching for the position. The applicant pool is shrinking and getting tighter so the better the communication between departments, the better your chance of getting top talent.

Retaining Existing Employees

Low unemployment doesn’t just affect new hires though.  HR can’t take their focus off existing employees either, as they are the foundation of any organization.  With low unemployment comes a lot of opportunity for existing employees to test the market.  Often, the mindset that ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’ prevails and employees will jump ship in a tight market for what seems like greener pastures.

So while HR tries to fill open positions and attract new talent, don’t take your focus off empowering and retaining your existing employees.

What can you and your organization have in place to encourage employees to stick around?  Sometimes you need to think outside of the box regarding their job and position.  Easy solutions may include offering job flexibility to enhance work/life balance.  That is something that doesn’t cost an organization a lot of money, but does show you care and goes a long way to job satisfaction.

Flex time, flexible schedules, and enhanced PTO packages can contribute significantly to job satisfaction.  I have read a study that shows Millenials would prefer to have time off to go out and make an impact on the globe as opposed to getting an opportunity for a promotion within their job.  Work/life balance can entice employees to stick around as they feel valued, accepted and understood.

An Opportunity for HR Departments

While the unemployment rate is great for the economy, it is something we need to manage and consider from a HR perspective. With the right attitude and tools of the trade in HR that improve your speed to hire and commitment to existing employees, you can place yourself in a position to take advantage of the low unemployment wave and experience a workforce that is engaged, qualified and committed.