Job Market Vise Tightens

Area employers have to wrap insurance and retirement plans in everyone’s favorite green paper these days. It takes a pretty package to compete for high-quality employees in Northwest Arkansas’ tight labor market.

rSince unemployment rates in Washington and Benton counties are well below state and national levels of 4.1 percent, local employees can afford to wait for the best deal.

rManufacturing, trade, finance, insurance and real estate services posted record low unemployment levels in August for the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metropolitan statistical area, according to figures supplied by the Arkansas Employment Security Department. Overall rates for Northwest Arkansas dipped down to 2.1 percent, lower than any other MSA in Arkansas by 1.1 percent.

r With few people needing jobs in the area, workers are in demand.

r”That places a premium on the hourly person. They can find work at any hour on any given day,” said Dan Bekebrede, plant manager for Dayco Products Inc. in Springdale. About 180 employees work for Dayco Products, the largest producer of automobile belt tensioners in the United States.

rCompetition for labor in the market is chronicled daily on local radio stations. Daytime spots for recruitment advertising have increased significantly in the last few years, said Sonny Hildebrand, Radio Central’s recruitment director. Owned by Clear Channel Communications Inc., the group of four radio stations caters to area hiring needs.

r”As we talk to other businesses out there, we’re seeing a real crunch to find good employees,” Hildebrand said.

rMedical staff, truck drivers, information technologists and telephone marketers are all popular recruiting targets for the stations.

rAt least 10 area companies have run ad campaigns for employee recruitment in the last three weeks, Hildebrand said, including businesses such as Tyson Foods Inc., Staffmark LLC and St. Mary’s Hospital.

rAd campaigns for recruitment often include job fairs. In 1999, Radio Central sponsored one fair, but this year, its stations have promoted 20 different fairs.

rJohn Delery, an associate professor of management in the Sam M. Walton College of Business Administration at the University of Arkansas, extensively studies human resource management.

rImage plays a big role in finding and keeping valuable employees, Delery said. Companies can generate a large number of applicants if people want to work there, he said. It also makes hired employees want to stay.

rA tendency to hire the first person available often surfaces in a tight market, but Delery said employers should hold out for a qualified worker.

r”Don’t just jump to hire a warm body,” he said. “Make sure this person’s going to fit into the [company] culture long-term.”

rHiring the wrong person costs big money. By the time a business interviews, trains and processes paperwork for the employee, they have spent quite a bit. Hidden costs to damaged staff moral when the new employee doesn’t succeed can also be harmful to the business, Delery said.r

rHeadhunters for hire

rRHI Consulting, the Information-technology staffing arm of California-based Robert Half International Inc., recently set up shop in Fayetteville to revel in the tight labor market.

rThe parent company, which recruits and places workers in a variety of fields, did $2.1 billion in revenue and netted $141 million for 1999.

rJJ Hurley, division director for RHI Consulting, said tight markets create several obvious trends in the work force: salaries rise and become more competitive, skills of the workers grow and technology increases.

rVeteran staffers of the Northwest Arkansas market have also begun to flourish.

rAl McEwen, president of Management Recruiters of Rogers Inc., has witnessed the increase of recruiting needs in Northwest Arkansas. About 60 clients — including Tyson Foods Inc., JB Hunt Transport Services Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. — have used McEwen’s division to find workers.

r “We’ve seen a lot of well-meaning organizations that believe they have hiring processes that work well, when in actuality some of those are really bad,” McEwen said. “A lot of companies don’t understand the poor hiring practice decisions they make can lead to their demise.”

rManagement Recruiters of Rogers’ parent company, Ohio-based MRI Worldwide Inc., is the largest international executive recruiting service with 1,000 worldwide offices, McEwen said. It will gross about $1 billion worldwide in 2001.

rProfessional recruiting agencies use many sources for locating potential employees, but some work better than others, McEwen said.

r”Usually when we get candidates from the Internet, it’s not much different than when they come from newspaper want ads,” he said. “The person you want is probably already working for someone else and isn’t looking for a job. They may even be working for your competitor. They’re probably very happy where they are, and probably are being well paid. They’re not going to spend their Sunday afternoons leafing through the want ads.” r

rListen up, boss!

rOnce the perfect employees are hooked, keeping them requires another plan.

r”Finding the best employees is difficult, but keeping them is more difficult,” Hurley said.

rNina Gupta, a professor of management in the Walton College, insisted that pleasing employees isn’t rocket science. No big secrets or amazing discoveries help to retain employees. Rather, simple communication makes business relationships more likely to work, she said.

r”I’m amazed at the number of people who think they know what people want,” Gupta said, adding that businesses should listen to and address employee needs and concerns.

r”I don’t mean talk at them,” Gupta said, “listen to them.”

rEmployee retainment includes more than just a reasonable pay level, she said. Workers should feel fairly treated and valued. Mc Ewen agreed.

r”People are looking for quality of life, not just income,” he said.

rDelery listed several reasons why people continue to work in certain places: respect at work; increased salary; flexible work schedules for parents; and benefits like insurance and retirement plans.

rSurveys and formal complaint systems can help determine employee concerns.

rDayco Products offered a strong example of retention in September when it kept 100 percent of its employees. Bekebrede said the average monthly retainment rate is 98 percent.

rThe plant made a positive move toward employee appeasement by building a new 100,000-SF campus that addressed working environment issues such as poor lighting, dirty work space, small restrooms and break rooms, and a lack of air-conditioning in the summer.

r”We work pretty hard to create an environment that our employees can be proud of,” Bekebrede said.

rRepeatedly, employers and scholars emphasize that money is not the main reason employees stay or leave a company, but they all recognize it plays a definite role.

r”This really is an awful time for companies that have a poor management system,” he said. “If you have a history of being a low-wage employer, you’re in trouble. If pay is really high, people will put up with a lot, not everything, but a lot,” Delery said.