Employee Poaching

[rjssigns]

When I read the title I thought we were going to share recipes.

 

[jfiscus]

I think a lot of this is going on in our particular industry, which in my area is going through a huge boom right now. If we had the employees here we need we would probably be able to double our business this year, right now we just have to schedule projects further out and use a LOT of subcontractors. Customers are buying more product than ever.

The other part of the equation in this industry is that sign businesses are in need of HIGHLY SKILLED employees RIGHT NOW (see above). And everyone here has to know that getting someone to even show up to an interview is a real struggle right now. Everywhere is hiring and paying well, and there really is NO excuse to not have a job. If you find someone "skilled" without a job looking for work, they're probably lying about their skill level or going to be an issue with something else, there is a reason they're currently "unemployed".

To get to the level of expertise so that we can just turn them loose on projects (design, CNC/fab, installation) without having to train them or oversee everything they're doing (we have to do our own jobs, lol) takes quite a bit of time.
We have been struggling with new hires for 6+ months and finally have a good group of new people getting trained, but it takes a long while to get everyone up to speed (if they stick around).
To me, this is probably the only way right now to get an employee who can just "jump right into" another business and hit the ground running.

 

[Gino]

I thought we were in Sherwood Forest stealing the King's deer.

 

[Johnny Best]

I thought we were in Sherwood Forest stealing the King's deer.

And your one of his merry men!

 

[Gino]

In green tights...... at your service. We no longer wear tutus. Gave that up back in the early 1400s.

 

[RabidOne]

I read a lot of speculation in the posts on this topic ( including my own). If we want to find the real answers to why an employee is leaving, we must ASK them. We have to ask to raise our understanding, not to condemn, judge or criticise them.

And that can take some practice and skill in order to have the employee feel comfortable enough to be completely honest.

This was perhaps one of the most important lessons I learned many years ago while working in sales. Why a customer chose to make a purchase with another agent or company was important because the lost commission was significant. Most other sales people in this successful company didn't have those answers and just bitched about how fickle the customer was instead.

As a caution, I found out that once your customer is comfortable enough to be perfectly honest, you might hear more than you bargained for! I got some tough lessons from disgruntled customers but knowing that info made me a lot more money.