How to deal with employee shortage? 4 actions you can implement

One of the most important effects of the pandemic in businesses has been the phenomenon known as the Great Resignation. As a result, employee shortage is one of the mains risks for organizations. This is partly due to the high specialization level that modern job positions require. It increases competition between companies to hire talent. Most HR staffing areas are having troubles to respond to the company’s needs. 

Fortunately, not all is bad news. There are several measures you can implement to deal with talent scarcity. At T2W we have an extensive experience in the world of Human Resources and we can help you with this problem. In this article we will go through some of the best actions to fight employee shortage. 

More than just a salary increase 

In general, the first measure most companies adopt when facing a context of workers shortage is a salary increase, which is usually followed by several bonuses. While these solutions may seem attractive at first, those actions will be also applied for other organizations in the same field. As a result, your offer doesn’t stand out and disappears among the rest. 

The real solution goes beyond a simple salary increase for a job position. It’s necessary to offer a pack of benefits that combines the economic attractiveness of a good salary with measures that meet some other needs also important for professionals. As a result, you’ll have a job offer that can’t be ignored. What other needs are we talking about? Let’s take a look.

How to deal with employee shortage? 

1. Provide career opportunities 

One of the main characteristics of professionals today is that they highly value professional development opportunities. About 60% of Millennials values more a job that offers career growth than just a salary raise. Therefore, your job offer won’t be attractive just with a good salary. It’s necessary to offer a landscape where they can keep learning. The best part is that you will have better trained workers, which has a direct influence over company performance. 

There are several actions you can implement to achieve it. First, you can develop a continuous training and mentoring plan to promote constant learning in employees. Additionally, you can team up with other organizations in order to provide you workers free courses or external training. These are specific actions that help you attract talent and reduce the turnover rate. 

2. Offer a flexible work mode 

The pandemic caused a big paradigm shift in the way companies work. One of the main aspects for professionals nowadays is the possibility of working from home. In fact, most of the workforce today wouldn’t accept certain job offers if those require going back to office every day. After the pandemic, about 80% of people prefers to work from home at least 3 days a week.

Therefore, telecommuting and hybrid work are trends modern companies must always adopt if possible. Additionally, it is also important to offer flexible schedules in order to provide workers a higher comfort level at work. In the current landscape, these are actions that can offer great results against shortage of employees. 

3. Update your recruitment process 

When external recruitment, which is the most common form of recruitment, starts losing steam, it’s moment to try new approaches. First, you can adopt the internal recruitment. This alternative consists in looking for talent inside the organization to fill a position. Since the employee is already familiar with the way of working, the adaptation period will be a lot shorter. Also, the possibility of jumping to higher new positions is always attractive for professionals. 

Another possibility is implementing an employee referral program. In this case, your employees will help you find candidates for specific positions. Since your employees understand the organization, they will recommend only professionals that can fit the organizational culture. These measures speed up the recruitment process and help you find quality talent in times of scarcity. 

4. Adopt technology and its benefits 

Finally, if the organization is having problems to find talent, then it’s the perfect moment to cut down the personnel you organization needs. Here technology assumes a lead role. It’s not a secret that modern businesses are in a process of digital transformation. Integrating technology into a company’s internal processes is inevitable.  

Let’s take for example the breakthrough that was the standardization of the POS system. This happened during the 90s after the internet finally took off, which allowed this hardware to be interconnected. Since this software is able to automate and streamline the sales process, there was a significant reduction in the number of labor hours. 

While current technology can’t totally replace the workforce, it can cut down the amount of work employees have to deal with. This way, it’s possible to have a productive organization with a reduced number of workers and avoid all the troubles related to talent shortage. 

Now you know how to deal with the great resignation. Implement some of these actions and you will successfully reduce the negative effects of this phenomenon.  

At Talent2Win, we strive to align your company’s business objectives with the best Talent Acquisition strategies available. If you want to learn more about the services we offer, do not hesitate to contact us.