Finding skilled workers remains a challenge across manufacturing. To address the current labor shortage, manufacturers must adjust their hiring processes. While many have increased wages and offered improved benefits to attract new workers, a lengthy hiring process can negate these benefits.
In most cases, candidates want to start a job as quickly as possible. A prolonged hiring process could mean the difference between landing the right person or losing them to a competitor. I’ve found that the following methods can effectively streamline a prolonged hiring process.
The competition for manufacturing talent continues to be fierce. The industry added an average of 32,000 jobs a month in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary.
The ongoing labor shortage is changing staffing strategies, hiring processes, and hiring requirements. Attracting workers requires companies to consider adopting new hiring approaches.
Traditionally, talent acquisition was seen as an overhead cost or a commodity. Now it’s seen as an investment in the future, with companies changing how they acquire talent.
One of the easiest adjustments companies can make is to forgo expensive, time-consuming in-person interviews.
Speed-to-hire and how fast you can get a candidate onboarded is the biggest component to getting talent in the door. In my experience, in-person interviews have been the easiest to eliminate for most skill sets. There are some skilled roles where employers should play a larger role in the interviewing process, but for more entry-level positions these responsibilities can be offloaded to a staffing partner. Holding your staffing agency accountable for vetting candidates allows you and your team to focus on meeting business goals.
Job seekers in manufacturing currently have plenty of employment options. In a candidate-driven labor market, speed-to-hire becomes increasingly important. Companies that rely on in-person interviews, a full slate of background checks, drug tests and/or assessment tests risk limiting their candidate pool.
Working with a recruiting partner can help reduce time to hire. However, I believe that companies partnering with a staffing agency should understand and have trust in that company’s screening process. The employers that play a larger role in interviewing may be doing themselves a disservice.
In this market, candidates receive multiple job offers. This allows them to weigh many factors (location, pay, shift, flexibility, overall opportunity, culture, onboarding process, etc.). The companies most effectively accessing these candidates have reduced their involvement and simplified the interviewing and onboarding processes. Also, as employers have gotten more serious about diversity, equity, and inclusion, we are seeing many of the assessment tests, personality tests, and other tests that may negatively and unfairly impact certain demographic groups go by the wayside.
We have also seen organizations (not tied to federal contracting) do away with pre-employment testing for THC use in candidates as the limitations on testing for pre-employment THC expand across multiple states. Employers are also adjusting the scope of their background checks, reducing them from seven to three years, often expanding the pool of qualified candidates.
Employers can and should be part of the interview process while building trust with their staffing partner. Things like providing the staffing agency with a list of five to six questions that must be asked can be an effective way to ensure you’re getting quality workers. It also allows recruiters to use their screening skills to find the right workers for the job and the company’s culture.
Hiring aggressively during certain times of the year to meet demand is a common tactic in various industries. During this time, companies often reduce hiring requirements to create a larger candidate pool. This is an approach that can be utilized throughout the year to attract more candidates.
Companies that keep the same ramp season mindset when it comes to hiring strategies have an easier time attracting and maintaining a strong workforce. To expand their candidate pool, many employers partner with a staffing firm.
Crisp communication and strategies between the company and staffing partner are needed to coordinate proper start dates, shift times, training, and first day safety orientation. Having the staffing agency take the time on the front end to make sure the candidates are qualified and ready for the job makes it easier for the managers to give the personal touch. This allows for new hires to feel accepted and cared for in a safe environment and more likely to perform their best every day.
The manufacturers having the most success with attracting and retaining talent in the current market are the ones open to different types of success profiles from a candidate perspective. Those companies are acting urgently on removing as many obstacles as they can to get top talent through the door.
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