How to find the right employees? This sets up to be one of the defining challenges in the coming years for organizations of all types. When accepting the challenge of writing about this I was asked to specifically address the following topics:

• Where should you be looking?
• What are the criteria you should use in evaluating potential new hires?
• Are there generational differences you should be aware of?
• Are there strategies for retaining new employees once you’ve hired them?

First, let’s talk about issues in the background that affect these questions.

1. The population is beginning to shrink in the US and many other parts of the developed world. This is due to declining birth rates which lead to declining high school and college graduation rates. Birth rates are below 2.1 children per woman, the level necessary to keep the population stable.
2. Immigration rates have been reduced to a trickle. Deportations have reduced the labor base further, and forecasts call for much more. When you combine shrinking population and declining immigration results, you get a shrinking labor base.
3. Due to the retirements of baby boomers during the COVID pandemic, a labor shortage developed as the economy began growing out of the short recession that followed.
4. Inflation grew during those years and competition for people led to cost increases for labor in nearly all businesses. Combine a situation where there are more jobs than there are people to fill them with an inflationary environment and you soon feel the pinch of shrinking margins.

This is the big picture backdrop for the situation we find ourselves in as we tackle the problem of attracting, hiring, and retaining future employees.

Second, how has the industry changed in ways that may help us? There are some pluses to be grateful for.

1. Much of the legacy offset production system has been re-engineered for digital printing. Most of the pre-press and post-press processes have been automated by digital solutions. This has dramatically decreased the skill requirements of industry production employees. This reduces on-boarding, training, and the experience required to do the job. Hopefully, due to lower skill requirements, we will over time see lower inflation-adjusted labor costs.
2. Because of automated, remote order entry systems which tie customers directly to the production system, there will be less demand for legacy “relationship” salespeople. The need for the sales function is not going away any time soon, however. The new salesperson will require better problem-solving, communication, and conceptual thinking skills. Companies will need to be vigilant about finding salespeople who fit this profile. They’re not as common as you might think.

The bottom line here is that, in spite of very competitive conditions for finding talent we will need fewer people for the same level of output. Let’s hope our needs for headcount shrink faster than the talent pool shrinks. This could create a small advantage for us in the talent market.

Thirdly, there historically have been two main factors that, in a macro sense, are required to keep the economy growing. These are population growth and productivity growth. With the population actually beginning to shrink, there is enormous pressure to accelerate productivity growth. Looking at history, this is a huge challenge. We are fortunate that artificial intelligence has come on the scene. Hopefully, this provides the necessary leverage needed to continue economic growth. This is a huge opportunity for productivity improvement in our industry if we can capitalize on it. It will also impact us on who we hire and where we look for them.

Lastly, psychometric tools are plentiful and can be very helpful in:

• Determining how well an applicant or promotion candidate fits the behavioral profile required for successful performance in a particular job or role;
• Identifying and developing future leaders;
• Helping current leaders identify and manage sources of stress. When you “raise the hood and look under it” stress is a significant and largely unrecognized cause of ineffective leadership.
• Helping current leaders identify and overcome self-limiting behaviors. Examples are:
  1. Failing to use intuition properly in making decisions;
  2. Failing to recognize and work on a pessimistic outlook that hinders the ability to see the possibilities and opportunities that regularly come the leader’s way;
  3. Failing to understand that relationships work best when they are viewed from “win-win” perspective.
  4. These are just a few…

Let’s get to the task at hand. We will address the questions above in the order they are listed.

Where Do We Look?

Where will we find new employees? Where should we look? How will we attract them?

• They won’t come in and fill out applications at the rate they once did.
• We will need to start interacting with them earlier than ever before.

The best approach I ever witnessed in our industry was the associate program at Consolidated Graphics. A few dozen people, selected from within the company from a number of locations, visited 25–30 colleges and universities prior to graduation every year. They were usually part of a college sponsored recruiting day. They did a fantastic job of talking to young people about Consolidated and our industry. They usually walked away with committed new hires. They were told they would be placed in a two-year management training program designed to produce company presidents. A lot of those folks still have great jobs in great companies in the industry today.

Think about adopting a similar approach. If you do business in only your local market, start with local high schools. This is not a new idea. But, because the numbers are smaller and the competition formidable, start earlier and gain a foothold before other local companies. Think about visiting homeroom periods of seniors where you have a captive audience. Bring something you’ve produced and give out samples. Talk about the technology and the opportunities. I never cease to be amazed by the fact that we have quietly become a tech industry and don’t realize it! Start relationships with these young people. Invite them to your shop. Take them to lunch. Put them on an email and direct mail program and keep them abreast of what you’re up to. Nurture them. If you like them and want them, start talking about “soft offers” that will be waiting for them when they graduate.

How Do We Evaluate Potential Employees?

What are the criteria used to evaluate potential new hires?

1. I don’t think physical, hands-on skills will be as important anymore.
2. Likewise, length of experience in most production jobs will be less important. The hands-on, years-long training, especially in offset printing, is not that much of a factor in digital environments.
3. Technology tends to require a different mindset and different competencies to work with and operate. This includes mental skills, particularly analytical acumen. Soft skills like communicating effectively, collaboration and teamwork, and stress management are key. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is very important working in an environment which combines both technical acumen and personal/social relationships to function effectively.
4. All of these can be tested/assessed for. There are 2-3 dozen psychometric testing tools available on the market that are useful. Talk to a number of providers and choose one that fits your needs. Keep an eye out for new and different approaches. Don’t be surprised if find something better than your first choice. This stuff is evolving rapidly, and data analytic techniques are making it capable of some amazing things.

Are There Generational Differences?

Are there generational differences to be aware of in recruiting and hiring new employees?

Generations have a lot in common with each other—after all, we’re all humans. Social scientists spend a lot of time and money in the form of research grants putting labels on generations. And it seems that these labels take on a life of their own over time. Two things are true I think:

1. The factors that influence motivation transcend generational differences. These factors are universal and apply to all of us. So, don’t worry about taking different approaches based on age groups. Just be cognizant of the differences in their growing up years because they shape mindsets that can hinder them.
2. Generations have collective experiences that end up as part of the label they are given. For instance,
   • The baby boomer generation experienced the largest explosion in population in American history together. They were also part of the greatest explosion of economic prosperity in American history. “Boomers” is an apt description.
   • Generation Y were the pioneers of the digital age. Communication took on a digital shape as the Millennials buried their attention in their devices and, as a result, human touch and face-to-face contact took a back seat. Social anxiety is a recurring theme for this generation in the workplace.
   • Generation Z is coming into adulthood as a lot of economic, social, and political forces are changing their outlook on the future. They are concerned about economic insecurity and pessimistic about enjoying the kind of life their grandparents experienced.
3. To deal with these differences:
   • For the Gen Ys, build your company culture around teamwork, frequent interactions, and recognition.
   • Be transparent and open as possible about how the company is doing to help alleviate the insecurities of Gen Z.
   • These two examples are meant as illustrations. Be as creative as you want in adding to the list.

How Do We Retain Employees?

Are there strategies for retaining new employees once you’ve hired them?

It goes without saying that compensation and benefits must be competitive with the offerings of companies you compete with for talent within your market.

There are two things here that need to be given consideration. These are:

1. The idea of an “Employee Value Proposition”;
2. The hierarchy of human needs. Early in the 20th century Maslow theorized that humans have an inherent pyramid of needs ascending from basic fundamentals like food, clothing, shelter, etc., up to and including self-actualization.

As for the employee value proposition, consider this. Hopefully you’ve done the work on your business model and understand your Customer Value Proposition. The CVP is what your customer sees when they look at you. Ask them how they view your company. Reduce what they say down to 25 words or less. The resulting paragraph is why they buy from you and hopefully it’s more than the lowest price on any given day.

Now, turn around and try to describe why your employees work for you. As a reference, take the time to read an article I had published on WhatTheyThink on May 5, 2022. The article is titled “A Reason to Show Up.”  It is about creating a great place to work where people show up every day and invest their discretionary energy into jobs they are fully engaged in. I don’t have the space in this article to fully describe what must be done to engage employees. So please take the time to read or reread that article.

The essence of this idea is that you, as their employer, provide opportunities to help your employees meet their higher-level needs as sketched out originally in Maslow’s Theory. Learn how to do that. Then create your employee value proposition using that as part of why people come to work for you instead of your competition. This is how you retain good employees. Help them meet their higher-level needs. We all have these needs. We all spend most of our waking hours doing our jobs. Whether we realize it or not, most of us try to meet our higher-level needs through our jobs. Think about it, do you have a better option.

To help this take hold, formalize this process. Set up a process where employees and their supervisor/leader meet 3–4 times per year to discuss/set goals to meet identified, unmet higher-level needs.

Why not help our employees meet their needs? You get good returns on the investment…happier people who perform better, who contribute their ideas, and who stick around for a much longer time. Think about it!

Takeaways

1. Finding new employees going forward will be made easier by starting a recruiting process that involves appealing to local schools and meeting/presenting to seniors during their last year of school. Work to constantly improve the process because it won’t be long before you start to attract imitators.
2. Evaluating prospective new hires should include testing for:
   1. Mental skills, particularly analytical acumen;
   2. Soft skills like communication, collaboration, and teamwork;
   3. EQ or emotional intelligence.
3. Recognize and effectively manage generational differences:
   1. Gen Y—help overcome social anxiety by coaching/training them to work in in-person work environments;
   2. Gen Z—help them manage their pessimistic outlooks by regular communication about how things are going.
4. Improve retention by:
   1. Creating a EVP—employee value proposition explaining why prospective employees should work for you instead of company X.
   2. Formalized process where employees and supervisors/leaders meet three to four times a year to discuss, set goals for meeting their higher-level needs.