In this day and age, you can’t turn on the news or read a publication without hearing something about the following:
Unemployment at Record Lows
Minimum Wage Rate Mandates go into Effect
Immigration Policy Impacting the Workplace
For some Americans, these topics are in the background, and don’t seem to directly impact their daily lives.
However, for businesses in service industries that rely on lower-wage, front-line employees, these topics are front and center of our daily conversations and have a direct impact on our ability to support our clients each day.
As a business in the service-sector, our key to success is attracting, training and retaining front-line employees who care about the services they provide and the clients they support.
The 3 factor mentioned above (Low Employment, Minimum Wage Increases, Immigration Policy / Legal Workforce), make this mission a bit more challenging.
But as entrepreneurs & business leaders, that’s what we signed-up for…Challenges!
Every company has their own strategy and game-plan, but at CleanOffice / PorterPlus, we feel that the key starting point is situational recognition and communication.
Our clients hire us because they are confident that we are experts in what we do, and it is our job to manage the situation effectively.
In addition, it is our responsibility to keep our clients informed, not only of situations that are specific to their accounts, but on a global-level too.
Currently, there is a swift under-current of the 3 factors, which is shrinking the available labor pool.
But we are constantly looking at programs to optimize our ability to attract, train and retain the very best candidates for each position at each jobsite.
This includes monetary programs like improving wage rates & subsidizing health care costs. But it also includes working with our front-line employees to ensure that we are working with them on a successful plan.
Our HR Department includes a full-time Recruiting & Staffing Coordinator who is dedicated to working as a conduit between our Operations Team and our work-force to ensure that our staffing efforts are as successful as possible. During the hiring / placement process, we work through a number of factors to make this happen:
Are we assigning them to a location that has a manageable commute?
Does the employee need access to public transportation?
Is this job a good fit for their skills and experience?
Are their skills and experience going to meet client expectations?
Is the client’s budget realistic based on their work-force needs?
Is the wage rate competitive with similar positions in the same geographic sub-market?
Like most challenges, there is no clear-cut answer or solution.
So our mission is simple – Keep our Clients Informed and Develop Programs that Optimize Successful Hiring / Staffing.