By:  Chris Luttrell

While at a Texas SHRM leadership meeting last week, I had the opportunity to visit with some really smart HR professionals. These folks really get what it takes to recruit and retain great employees, meaning those employees that are engaged, they want to be there and do a good job for their company.

We spent some time reviewing the Emerging Workforce Study conducted by Spherion Staffing Services. This study was first done in 1997 and as you can imagine, the results have changed dramatically over the years. As baby boomers are leaving the workforce and the millennials (born between 1977-1997) and even the Gen2020 (1997+) take over, things like social media challenges are becoming daily focuses. Employers’ named “finding and retaining qualified/skilled workers” as their top HR challenge.

With this new and innovative thought process, several key strategies have emerged for building productive, engaged and loyal employees.

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  1. Your ONLINE reputation is critically important when attracting talent to your organization
  
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  2. Build stronger recruiting strategies – Focus on where they live, work, play and CLICK
  
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  3. Engaged workers are happy workers – foster innovation and creativity and remember your MISSION, VISION, VALUES matter
  
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  4. Offset the demands of expected higher productivity through work / life balance programs
  
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  5. Treat your employees with the same degree of care as you do your external customers
  
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  6. Build your leadership pipeline – focus on workforce of the future!
  

These may seem like obvious things, but only a minority of companies do these well. We all need to take a hard look at how we do things, make adjustments as needed and position ourselves for the emerging workforce to come.