By expanding their recruitment efforts into less traditional demographics, these firms and industries are finding positive solutions to today’s staffing challenges.- By Donna Benjamin.
The prevailing narrative in talent markets is that it’s practically impossible to find good talent right now. This isn’t quite accurate. Willing, talented workers are readily available for hire – if companies expand their recruitment efforts into less traditional demographics.
Examples of less traditionally recruited demographics include minorities, older workers, people with disabilities, workers with known criminal backgrounds, and individuals with lower education levels. Yet within each of these populations are highly talented individuals who can be exceptional additions to any organization. Here, some of successes found when hiring non-traditional demographics will be discussed, with an eye toward elements of the successes that can be replicated.
Blue-collar women
Among blue-collar workers, there’s been a historical assumption that only men would be interested in doing the work. Not true – and today’s women are getting the chance to prove it. The percentage of women working in trucking, construction, protection services, and materials handling is up 43% over the last five years, according to the US Department of Labor. Yet how, in an extremely tight labor market, are firms connecting with women?
One winning example is Dart Transit, based in Minnesota. The firm, who could reference national statistics that women were safe drivers, less prone to road rage and more vigilant against accidents in their trucks, decided to embark on a targeted recruitment program. They leveraged social media and online tools to ensure their job ads appeared to women and appealed to women. As a result, their tailored campaign netted them a large group of female drivers. Many of the women have stayed with the company for years and actively recruit others (in fact, nationwide, there are more than 60 trucking firms that exclusively employ women!).
IT with no degree
College enrollments took a huge hit during the pandemic, and have not yet recovered. According to Bloomberg, total enrollment dropped by more than a million students, with the largest percentage drop happening among men. For employers who’ve relied on degrees as a proxy for skills, this presents a current and future talent problem.
For many organizations, the solution to a degree gap is to provide alternative training and relax degree requirements. A success story here is Alphabet’s Google Career Certificates, built for in-house tech support staff training. However, the program worked so well, they opened it up to the public, and more than 50,000 participants have completed it. Of those “graduates,” the vast majority identify as African-American, Hispanic, female, or military veterans without a college degree, providing a large pool of diverse candidates to the IT world that might otherwise not have been in consideration.
Fresh starts in life
In recent years, a number of states and companies have removed “the box” from job applications – the box that must be checked if the applicant has a criminal conviction in their past. Since nearly one-third of the working age population in the US has a conviction on their record, it’s been a limiting factor in many hiring decisions. However, by eliminating “the box” and hiring those with misdemeanors or even felonies in their past, companies can access a motivated and loyal workforce.
One example of this comes from Kroger. Just before the pandemic, the company tested out a program that actively sought out released prisoners for manufacturing work. Though initially designed as a partnership with a local non-profit, the firm quickly realized they’d encountered an incredibly profitable opportunity. Workers hired through the program turned out to be highly productive and highly loyal – 18 months in, some 93% remained on the job, a jaw-dropping statistic in a high turnover space in a high-churn market. Workers were pleased to have been given a chance, and Kroger has now expanded the program to other sites with plans to make it a nationwide policy.
Gray matters
Older workers have historically been passed over for many positions. However, this often represents a missed opportunity for savvy employers. By considering older candidates – or actively seeking them out – firms can fill vacant positions faster and with more well-qualified candidates.
One company navigating this well is Principal Financial Group, one of the country’s 125 Certified Age Friendly Employers (CAFÉ). The company considers retirement age workers to be an excellent labor pool, and offers part-time positions and shared job structures even at the executive level to accommodate workers who want to keep working but at more flexible pace. This policy aligns well with the preferences of older Americans, many of whom would like to keep contributing but long to give up their 9-to-5 positions. As a result, Principal has been able to keep more of their own workers longer and access top talent leaving other less flexible firms.
Concluding thoughts
Even in a historically tight labor market, it isn’t impossible to find high quality talent. The talent just may lie outside of traditional recruitment pools and recruitment pathways. By expanding their options to include diverse and non-traditional worker pools, companies can uncover exceptional hires.
These hires may be historically underrepresented populations, such as women in blue-collar roles who need targeted recruitment to apply. Or, they may have historically overlooked populations, such as workers without college degrees, who need alternative pathways into the talent pool like Google’s certificate programming. They may be workers who need second chances, like Kroger’s manufacturing crew with the criminal record, or workers who’ve traditionally been thought of as “too old” to continue to do good work. By looking at all of these worker groups with an open mind and open applications, firms can fill open roles with high quality talent right now.