CHANDLER, Ariz. — In recent years, it’s become more and more difficult to fill technician jobs in laundries.
How can a laundry operation step up its employee recruitment game to identify talent to fill positions and create a winning team?
Jennifer Poage, a consultant from Lexington, Ky., offered insight on these topics during a session called Shrinking Labor Force at the Association for Linen Management (ALM) annual conference here earlier this year.
“I’m convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring the right people,” says Poage. “You can have a great product, great service, great business strategy, but if you don’t have enough of the right people, you’re not going to be successful.”
She says that, after looking at recruiting numbers early in the year, employers will have a challenge filling positions through the rest of 2016. That includes the laundry industry.
“It’s interesting in the laundry industry when you look at the unemployment rate,” says Poage. “In October, it was 2.7% and here in January it’s already at 5.1%. It just kind of shows you how things are moving pretty quickly.”
Unemployment in the laundry industry is low, but that doesn’t mean that finding the right people for open jobs is impossible. It will, however, take some effort.
SOURCING AND SCREENING
Poage says it is critical that laundry operations take steps to ensure that they are sourcing and screening candidates, because that’s what it takes to select a good candidate. The approach a company takes to find the right talent is going to be critical in determining whether it is successful or not.
“I want you to think about approaching recruiting like a business approaches a product or a service,” says Poage. “What do I mean by that? First of all, don’t think of it as being in the recruiting business. You’re in the people marketing business. Especially when unemployment is really low. You’ve got to go out there and market and sell your jobs to candidates, and you can’t just do it when you can; you have to consistently do it. If you take this approach, this fundamental shift will help you win at recruiting.”
What does it mean to think of a job as a product or service? First, according to Poage, it means having a profile of the job. A laundry needs to put together—based on research like talking to the individuals in the job or through managing the job, talking to the managers—the elements of the job. These include the responsibilities, the physical requirements, the skills and the required experience.
“The next thing that is very good to do, and will set you apart and help you find the right candidate, is having done a profile of what your top candidates look like in that job today, your top employees,” says Poage.
A top candidate profile is created by looking at individuals who are currently in the job at the company.
“You’re looking at people who are laundry technicians; you’re looking at the high performers,” Poage says. “What previous jobs and experience do those people have? What are their likes and interests? Where do they come from? What were their demographics? Look at people who have been promoted to a higher level. If you can come up with that profile, you’ll know what type of candidate to market to, and you won’t necessarily be spinning your wheels as much.”
So, now a laundry can focus on one recruiting method? Not so fast, says Poage.
“Does Budweiser only do a TV commercial during the Super Bowl? No,” she says. “Because they understand that their target audience is made up of different demographics. They’re going to have to do different things to reach those individuals. If you haven’t, you need to think of recruiting as ‘I have to develop a marketing campaign that has different elements to reach who my target audience is.’
“The one thing I would say is don’t ever rely on one sourcing method, because you’re going to miss a lot of candidates.”
She says companies need to use different methods to reach the different generations of workers—baby boomers, Generation X and millennials.
In terms of media usage, says Poage, 56 million baby boomers listen to radio each week and spend an average of 14.5 hours per week listening to radio. They are dedicated Internet users, but they are still the heaviest newspaper users. For Generation X, 58 million listen to radio each week and spend an average of 14 hours per week listening to radio. For them, Internet usage is part of life, and they get their news and do research online. However, they also rely on word of mouth.
Internet is the media most commonly used by millennials. They text more than any other cellphone user. Typically, they don’t read newspapers, but 65 million listen to radio each week at an average of 11.5 hours per week.
To reach the greatest number of candidates, laundries need to advertise on different media. Also, according to Poage, it’s critical to focus on meeting the candidates’ needs when it comes to marketing the job and the application process.
“We know what our needs are,” she says. “We know on paper what the job is, I know what my profile looks like and I also know that I need somebody who is going to be satisfied in the job.”
It is critical to make it so a candidate can apply on any device. If you can’t apply online using a cellphone, Poage says that a company is missing out on 35% of the applicants that are out there. She acknowledges that sometimes a company can’t go through the whole application process online. In that case, even a simple “text your name and number if interested to this number” can work, too.
“Then you have a contact and you can call,” she says. “You have to have some way for them to be able to do that on a device.”
Check back Thursday for the conclusion on “killer” job postings.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].