It is the big topic of owners of businesses of all size – where have all the people gone? Looking for, finding, hiring and having staff be part of the organization’s success is a daily objective in most organizations. Businesses have the need but there is an absence of talent/people to participate in the work. That being a given in the present marketplace, it should not be a green light to use it as an excuse for performing the commitments of the organization to its customers, clients, employees, and vendors.
If you have called a vendor, service company or just about any business in the past 24 months, it is likely that you heard something similar to the following – Do to high call volumes… At the onset of the pandemic when businesses were caught off guard by the sudden lockdown of the marketplace, there was some reasonableness which needed to be given. The infrastructure to have people work from home had not been fully setup and therefore the handling of calls was in a bit of a challenge. That gap was eventually addressed. Now 24 months later these same outbound messages exist, and organizations may or may not be using them as a means to deal with talent or people shortages.
If nothing else, the last 24 months have given both small and large businesses the option to deploy technology to assist in various parts of business operations. Thus, allowing for remote and hybrid work environments in addition to in office work location support services. We all had to pivot from one way of conducting business to various other ways to achieve the same or in many cases even better options for results.
This is not to downplay the real challenge of talent in the workplace. With the changes, many people were forced to leave their prior work careers and jobs and work from home not as business people but as parents to children who were now being virtually educated. Others were enlightened to the freedom from working from home and found it very productive. It also gave them an option to relocate to other parts of the country while maintaining work activity with their present employer. So, this sudden change caused lots of shifting to happen and we are still sorting through the aftermath.
These views into the last 24 months are not here to rationalize anything but to highlight that as business leaders we need to have the energy and focus to overcome whatever is put in our way. We can’t just wait for something to change. It does not help to complain about this or that program impacting the talent pool. These systems have existed for a long time. True they were amplified to extreme levels but that does not mean they have altered the mindset of all the talent available for the workplace.
This week as leaders you need to put on your thinking caps and pivot again in the arena of talent recruiting and acquisition. If what you have been doing is not working, then consider alternate options. Just like having to pivot when the lockdowns took place and your survival instincts went into motion, the same is true for attracting and retaining people for your work efforts. There is no magic wand or silver bullet but working together we can seek and find the silver lining in the gray cloud of working talent.
Interested in getting your team focused on 2022 being a great year to excel? Give a Promise Guide at call at JKL Associate – FL (407) 984-7246 or MI (313) 527-7945
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Celebrating 30 years of Delivering on “Promises”
