Employers need to get creative if they are going to fill open vacancies

May 31, 2017

Virginia’s jobless rate stood at 3.8 percent in April.

Even before the low unemployment rate, employers have been complaining of vacancies that go unfilled because of the lack of available skilled workers.

The issue of a skills gap reached the concern of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which, last month, held a public meeting on the issue of the current state of the U.S. workforce, and what jobs may be in future demand.

While not directly in the purview of the EEOC’s mission to eradicate employment discrimination, the EEOC said it was holding the meeting because “discrimination must be remedied with employment opportunity.”

The American Enterprise Institute stated in the meeting that employers are creating skill-intensive jobs but these cannot be filled unless the existing workforce upgrades their skills so they can more easily match positions available.

Employers need to get creative if they are going to fill open vacancies now or in the future, and in doing so, should consider the following:

Grow your own: Employers should tap existing talent (regardless of age) and invest in training their current loyal workforce.

A CEO recently said that he sent several members of his team to a week-long executive training. He said that he didn’t care about the cost because investing in his people always pays off.

Community colleges, vocational schools, workforce development centers and technology centers provide specific technical training that could be tailored to employers’ needs.

Think local: Employers need to determine what skills they need, and work with local colleges and high schools (including vocational centers) to help those organizations build programs designed for what is needed now, and in the future.

Tell them what is needed and build relationships with these groups. Be aggressive with finding local talent directly from these organizations, including taking on interns or apprentices as available.

Be diverse: Diversifying a workforce means an organization expands its candidate pool, realizing that a candidate choosing between two organizations likely will go to where that person feels welcome.

If no one in an organization looks like the job candidate, that candidate may not believe this will be a good fit.

Consider expanding your recruitment relationships to historical black colleges such as Virginia Union University, Virginia State University and Hampton University.

In addition, consider working with local groups and refugee organizations as well, and consider overcoming any language gap for jobs that don’t require strong English communication skills.

Invest in technology: The disability community is ripe with great talent that may require little in the way of technological upgrades to enable a person to perform the job.

Organizations like the Virginia Rehabilitation Center for the Blind and Vision Impaired do the workforce training to get workers ready.

The message is clear – employers can’t just sit back, advertise a job, and expect to fill the position.

That might happen some of the time, but as the EEOC noted, the skills gap into the future is real, and employers need to take control of their own destiny by determining what they need now, and will in the future.

Build relationships with constituents like vocational and other schools, be open minded to developing talent through workforce training investment, and then be intentional about diversifying the workforce.