Slippery Rock Gazette

Mark McMunn

Hiring employees is a hard task. Companies complain too much about this problem that they often cause themselves. A big part of the problem is that too many companies write job descriptions that border on the ridiculous. Anyone who has ever hunted for a job online has read some of these job descriptions. The most absurd ones describe a job that is actually several full-time jobs wrapped into one. Older workers know better than to waste time calling about these jobs because they know that an absurdly long list of skill requirements usually indicates a short list of Owner Management Skills.

Entrepreneurs are, to be sure, the backbone of the economy and are the great drivers of employment in the US, but increasingly workers are finding the search for work with these entrepreneurial companies to be an exercise in reviewing one’s inadequacies as a potential employee. So who do we believe about the employment situation? Employers claim that there are not enough qualified people for the positions they offer and the workers say that employers are demanding unrealistic combinations of skill levels and experience. The evidence appears to be favoring the worker’s position.

It is very hard to sympathize with the cries from Silicon Valley about not being able to find enough qualified workers to fill their job openings when we hear of layoffs in other tech firms by the hundreds. Is not one of them qualified to be reassigned to another tech company? It appears that the one qualification that many employers want, especially from older workers,  is: “must be willing to perform same job for half of previous salary.” No tech company in their right mind would outright list such a job qualification but it is implicit in the wording, and if not in the wording, then certainly in the first interview – if you get that far.

As for the stone business, it has its share of unrealistic job expectations listed in job descriptions, but many other job descriptions are rather straightforward and much more inviting for someone looking for a chance to try something new. There was a great job description a couple of years ago for a shop worker that read:

Position: Stone Shop Worker
Requirements: The ability to reliably show up on time for a forty-hour workweek.  Be willing to perform tasks asked of you and to ask questions if you are unsure of what to do. Must get along with others. Have means of getting to work on time by either your own vehicle or public transportation, and desire to get paid every Friday at 5 p.m. .
No experience required.

A phone call to the owner of that shop the next day revealed that not only did he get replies from shop workers from other shops but actually had wives, girlfriends and mom’s calling for their husbands, boyfriends and sons. What is more is that he ended up hiring two people instead of one because the applicants that showed up were just so happy to have an opportunity like this from a company that appeared to be more interested in the worker as a person rather than the worker as a necessary expense and the attached conflict ingrained in that type of Owner -Worker relationship.

The great lesson to be learned from this simple job description is that there are many people out there who have the potential to be your next greatest employee, but unless you write a job description listing qualifications meant to invite the worker to call versus writing a job description that ends up being a list of barriers to potential employees, few to no calls will come.

The 50-plus Age Group: The Great Untapped Experienced Resource

For all of the chest-beating talk about “thinking outside the box,” when it comes to the 50+ age group of workers, that box appears to be getting fuller and fuller by the month with no desire to even try and open it. 50+ workers are a treasure trove of good workers if you can be creative and use some of that “out of the box thinking” that so many people say they do, but in fact do not.

One great benefit that 50+ workers offer is flexibility. Lets examine just one way. If you are a good manager you can tell when you are going to need more help, but you don’t want to hire permanent help, and the people sent over from the temp agency don’t know how to fabricate or install. 50+ workers can be brought in as temporary help for peak periods of the year, but you must give them some leeway regarding hours and days worked. For instance, many of 50+ workers are trying to look after grandchildren, so let them work hours that allow them to get the grandkids to school and then leave for the day before school is out, so that they can pick them up. That basically amounts to a five-to six-hour day. Also, it means that they need to be off any days that the kids are off from school as well. Too, pay them well, at least a couple of $’s an hour than what they used to make. Most business owners when first hearing this scoff at it because it appears to be a sweetheart deal that will anger the other workers. Well first off these folks are only working 30 hours or less so you do not need to pay any benefits and when the work is slow the workers can be laid off with no animosity because it is understood from the beginning that the position is temporary. The other employees have FULL TIME jobs year round so what would their complaint be, that they want to work less? If you want to contribute to the preservation of the family this type of arrangement will go a long way to help many families have a care provider at home with children when children need supervision the most right after school.

Space does not allow for several other ways that even accounting folks can be hired on a part time, temporary basis which many small businesses could use, but may have never thought of exploring, much less even though of the idea.

Slippery Rock Gazette readers: If you have some great employee solutions, please contact the SRG and let us know how you have creatively employed some of your stone industry workers.