Remind me to never publicly proclaim that all my staffing needs have been met! I was clearly tempting fate at the end of spring this year when I proudly posted on LinkedIn that we had finally filled our open positions. No sooner than I had made this announcement did we lose two team members. I get trapped in this thinking over and over that our team is unshakable and I won’t need to hire again quickly. Every time the next staffing challenge is right around the corner. But fear not, there are some practical strategies I’ve learned for combatting staffing gaps and losses and it starts with building resiliency.

Resiliency has been one of the big themes of the last two years. Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. This idea is no less relevant when it comes to successful hiring and retention outcomes. For me, it started with letting go of the idea that I could control whether someone stays or goes, understanding that I can do all the right things and it might not matter. Hiring is a process that never stops. It’s in adopting this mindset (with some setbacks along the way 😉 and learning from both experience and hiring experts (see Hirelogy’s The 2021 State of Hiring Report) that I’ve been able to finally build systems, practices and procedures that allow us to bounce back quickly when the next vacancy is imminent.

Here are 10 tips for resilient hiring:

  1. Retention is your best weapon for a hiring crisis. When you lose staff members it’s easy to go down the rabbit holes of self-pity and negativity. This will help no one. One of the first things I’ve learned to do is to take a moment to practice gratitude for the specific team members who are showing up and excelling every day. I acknowledge these staff members for their hard work and show appreciation for their efforts and outcomes. Losing a staff member might also open opportunities for these staff members with new responsibilities, promotion or increased hours if those are things they’ve been asking for. Based on a recent article on Forbes, Tension on the Front Lines: Low-Wage Workers Want Higher Pay and More Training, Not Bigger Titles, we also probably all need to take a pause and evaluate whether we really understand what’s important to keep hourly workers at our companies. “A recent survey of 7,000 ‘deskless workers’ by the Boston Consulting Group found that these workers could leave their employers within the next six months.
  2. Build your company reputation. Staff recruitment starts well before you put out an advertisement or receive an application. Over time we’ve built a reputation that our hotel is a great one to work at. I’ve heard many times that someone was referred by a community member or another employee. We’ve built this reputation by treating our employees well, participating in community organizations, and giving back in donations whenever we can. Company reputation is also built through your business-to-consumer marketing. Does your business look well-maintained? Do you have an inclusive customer and employee environment? Do you have positive reviews on multiple channels?
  3. Review job descriptions before you need them. I don’t have a dedicated HR department so I hired an assistant to review, re-write and standardize our job descriptions so they were consistent with language and up-to-date. Job descriptions are critical for setting expectations with employees from day one and contributing to company culture.
  4. Communicate job opportunities for the highest turnover opportunities consistently. We recently updated our website to have an overview of all of our regular positions. In the past we only posted the ones that were open. This way a potential employee knows what might be available in the future and you can quickly get the information out there when an opening does occur.
  5. Think outside the box. It can be easy to stick to your beliefs about schedules, the type of experience someone has, keeping everything in-house, etc. The current labor climate demands that everything be on the table. We’ve gone back to employing J-1 visa students, hired more part-timers, and outsourced more work than ever before. There’s no silver bullet, but being flexible and finding new ways of working has mitigated staffing shortages.
  6. Establish an employee referral program. One quarter to half of our staff members have come through employee referrals. Make sure your current employees are reminded often about what opportunities are available and reward them with a bonus when they successfully recruit an employee. Then you’ve also contributed to retaining that staff member — that’s a twofer!
  7. Post jobs on the right job sites. Last year we scratched our heads about why we were receiving so few job applications. We had long believed that Craigslist gave us the best results and were reluctant to use Indeed. We thought that Indeed wasn’t the right website for hourly workers and the expense was too much to use it. We finally conceded and tried out Indeed and the applications started coming in (not a flood, but at least a trickle which was better than before). Yes, it’s expensive, but closing out hotel rooms because you don’t have enough staff to keep them open also costs a whole lot of money.
  8. Remove obstacles for people to apply. Let’s say 10 hotels have housekeeping positions open, and only half of them post the hourly rate and benefits. Who do you think the applicant will apply to? Have you ever walked the process on your website to see how easy it was to apply? How many steps does it take before someone’s application is submitted? Forget the resume; it just wastes more time and you can always ask for it after they agree to an interview.
  9. Don’t waste a minute. Respond to applicants within 24 hours and set up an interview within 24 hours after that. I’ve also found that everyone prefers different forms of contact. If you can’t get them to respond to a phone call, text. If they don’t respond to a text, email them. Or try all at once to let a candidate know you really are interested. Don’t give them a chance to take another interview or lose interest.
  10. Hire on the spot. I used to be very reluctant to hire someone after a first interview. With all the turnover, however, I’ve gotten better at identifying when a prospective employee is a good fit. I also set up their first day of work before they leave and preferably within a few days if they’re currently between jobs. This helps mitigate a hire taking a different job or ghosting me on day one.

I’ll relieve the suspense … yes, I’m once again (almost) fully staffed. The strategies above helped me get there and they will again in the future. Staffing resiliency has also alleviated the sleepless nights and that sickening feeling when someone quits because I know I’m prepared and ready to bounce back.