Labor shortages are now the ‘new normal’, but employees are a crucial part of your marketing strategy. They ensure customer relations, value creation, quality, fun and more. In this article I share 8 strategies to recruit, retain and reduce absenteeism.
In a series of articles I will discuss the five biggest marketing challenges that SME entrepreneurs in the service sector face. Today I will start with the first challenge: labor market shortages.
Recently, at a relationship event, I spoke to an entrepreneur with an administration office. Their company has sufficient opportunities to grow, both in terms of customers and employees. But they still do not succeed in attracting enough new employees. They recently started a LinkedIn campaign. The result? There are reactions, but no new employment contracts.
How come? According to the entrepreneur, candidates have a choice of ten offers and often go for the larger offices, where a candidate thinks he can learn more.
You probably recognize this challenge, to a greater or lesser extent. Although it UWV predicted at the end of last year that the worst labor shortage is over, figures from CBS see that in the second quarter of 2024 there were 108 vacancies per 100 job seekers. In short, SME entrepreneurs in the service sector will also continue to notice it.
How do you approach it?
Of course, it depends on where you are as a company and what you have already tried. Below you will find ideas to inspire you. Employees are a crucial part of your marketing strategy. Why? Although you can automate many processes (see also tip 2) by optimizing your business processes (also an important part of marketing), employees remain essential in service industries. They ensure customer relations, value creation, quality, fun and more.
1. What value should your organization deliver to employees and potential employees?
Focus on the needs of both current and future employees. Adapt work at individual, team and group level. This plays into the basic psychological need for autonomy. Conduct research into what your employees find important, for example through desk research, interviews or questionnaires. Below are some findings from the Workmonitor 2024 from Randstad among Dutch employees (n=1,000) who can help you:
94% find work-life balance as important as salary
Ask yourself: how do we respond to this and how do we communicate this to (potential) employees? Investigate this at an individual level, because there can be differences per individual, for example due to socio-demographic backgrounds. Think of working hours, working from home options and deciding when you work.
1 in 3 employees consider working from home a must
Do you already offer this possibility? Think carefully about the policy, for example, are you considering requiring employees to be present more often? Then check in advance whether this fits the wishes and needs of your employees.
1 in 3 employees refuse a job if they disagree with the organization’s vision
What is your organizational vision and does it inspire? Many SMEs lack a vision or it is not very inspiring (just making money, no-nonsense service, etc.). That is a missed opportunity, besides a strong vision is an important part of the organizational strategy.
1 in 5 employees would resign if there were no development opportunities
Discuss with each employee what they understand by personal growth, what their wishes are and offer a suitable offer. Look carefully at the common denominators among employees in advance.
2. Automate less fun processes
We often see automation as a way to save costs. But in service industries, you have to carefully balance the needs of your employees, customers and services to develop processes that create lasting value.
Ask your employees, which tasks do they find less enjoyable and which do they like, what do they want to do more of and less of? Do the same with customers, what do they really value and what do they value less in relation to the service?
Also get inspired by other companies. Determine which processes you can automate and how to implement them. Do this without harming job satisfaction or customer satisfaction.
3. Reorganize the work
As an SME, you may not have an HR department that constantly monitors the balance between the wants and needs of the company and the employees. This means that you need to look critically at how leadership (board, management and team leads) views work.
Does this match current HRM trends and the expectations of current and new employees? What needs to change here? Think of flexible functions, dividing functions, splitting full-time jobs into part-time positions and more.
4. Tap into the goldmine of 236,000 people who want to continue working
Although the aging population is often seen as a threat, research by ABN AMRO that the aging population offers opportunities. There are 236,000, mainly highly educated, experienced AOW’ers who would like to continue working on a flexible basis. These experienced professionals can be deployed quickly, are relatively cheap and help your company to make a social impact.
Also consider other groups such as working students, lateral entrants, UWV benefit recipients, foreign employees, status holders and more. Of course this presents challenges, even opportunities, because did you know for example that there are already pilots running with AI language models to get non-native speakers into work faster?
5. Don’t mop with the tap open
Mopping with the tap open, tidying up toys while your toddler throws them back on the floor just as hard. Well, it’s like recruiting new employees very hard with great employment conditions, while in the meantime there is a lot of absenteeism and a high turnover. A bit of a shame…
So invest just as much in retaining your employees and reducing absenteeism if that plays a role. Inventory how they think about their work on a group, team and individual level. There are many theories that you can use for this. Go deep here, after all, your employees are an important factor for growth and success.
Do you signal from basic research that there is work to be done? Then don’t start messing around yourself, but work together with an experienced party (not it!) to make analyses and improvement proposals. Focus on rapid implementation, because the sooner you can test and experiment with what works, the better the motivation of the employees will be.
Recruiting new employees is pointless if you have a lot of absenteeism and turnover at the same time. Invest in retaining your current team. Investigate how your employees think about their work and improve where necessary. AMO-model can help with this: look at the ability, motivation and opportunities that employees get from their work.
6. What about your labor marketing?
I don’t really believe in employer branding, I think the brand should stand for something (see also point 1 about the vision), which attracts employees who fit in with it. For me, employees make or break organizations in the service industry.
On the other hand, employment marketing/communication is important. Because you want to convey the brand well to current and new employees, so that they can identify with it or not. After all, a good brand has an appeal to customers and employees. In employment marketing, you naturally highlight the aspects that are important for employee target groups.
- How is your brand or employer brand doing?
- Do you communicate sufficiently what makes it great to work for you?
- What value do you offer to employees?
- Do employees talk about this themselves?
- And is this reflected in every piece of employment marketing?
7. Go crazy, try open hiring
Adopt an ‘open hiring’ policy, drastically simplifying your application procedures by, for example, applying the first-come, first-served principle.
You hire candidates without an interview or extensive selection, which makes access to work easier for groups such as long-term job seekers, people with a distance to the labor market and people who do not like to apply for jobs. You significantly increase your talent pool and most likely get a different type of people on your path than you would select yourself.
Is this suitable for every company? Certainly not. After all, for a position as an employment lawyer it is quite important that you have your diploma. But you can set that as one of the few requirements. If you have an internal training program, it may be particularly useful.
To be successful with open hiring, you will need to develop a good onboarding process so that the new employee and you know very quickly whether it is a match (for both sides) and whether the job can be done successfully.
8. Boemerang
Here you actively approach ex-employees (who made you happy). You discuss together where they are in their career and what their ideal next step is. You can also offer additional (internal) training or agree on a development path. These ex-employees already know the company and have acquired knowledge and skills during their work for other organizations that can be used directly at your company. The advantage is that the training period is shorter and the chance of successful onboarding is greater.
Approaching labor shortages from possibilities
So much for this big marketing challenge for SME entrepreneurs in the service sector. Of course, no single action will suddenly solve all the problems, but it is about approaching the labor shortage from possibilities. They will always be there.
What actions are you already taking and what are the results? And what action are you considering taking?
Source: www.frankwatching.com
