6 tips to improve your chances of filling empty positions and handling workload

A downside of low unemployment and a booming economy is the difficulty many companies are having in filling empty positions. This is further complicated by the ongoing stream of Baby Boomers giving their notice and sailing off into retirement.

Here are some things to consider to help improve your chances of keeping your operation fully staffed.

1. Get involved with the academic community. There are a wide range of institutions and programs that are charged with providing education and/or training skills for a wide range of workers. If you are looking at filling highly-technical positions, you may wish to engage with colleges that offer complementary curriculums. If you are looking for production floor employees, you should look toward vocational schools in your area.

Savvy companies are getting to the front of the line by participating in internship programs. This enables employers to provide hands-on training and actually “trial” the employee.  Frequently, participation in school internship programs proves the employer an excellent way to find future employees.

2. Provide incentives for employees to stay beyond typical retirement age. As a short-term fix, while you are putting other strategies in place, you may wish to incentivize older employees to delay retirement. These incentives may come on the form of reduced hours, working from home, bonuses and other perks that might convince them to give you an extra six months or a year.  With the government offering retirees a larger Social Security check if they take benefits past the age of 66, it might end up being a mutually-beneficial arrangement.

3. Improve the level of automation/simulation. In some instances, you can shift tasks and shorten timelines by automating or simulating processes that were formerly manual. These include a broad number of disciplines from structural design to prototyping. The capability of simulation programs to cut out unnecessary steps and significant development time, also means fewer work hours are needed to execute the tasks.

4. Consider more social media involvement.  How engaged are you on LinkedIn and Twitter, when it comes to your hiring practices? Increasingly, job-seekers are looking to social media to find new opportunities. If you aren’t engaging with groups in your field then you are missing out on an important recruitment tool.

5. Solicit employee referrals. The combined engagement network of your existing employees can be significant.  Are you providing your current employees with incentives to reach out to their own network for suitable recruits?  It could be an efficient way to identify qualified and referable candidates.

6. Leverage trade shows. Most companies attend trade shows to show their products and create sales opportunities.  However, those that stop by your booth may also be people who are looking for their next position.  Don’t overlook that database as a way to identify people with the right background.

These are just a few suggestions to help with some out-of-the-box thinking when trying to fill your next open position. Good luck!

Author: Thierry Fabozzi, president of PTI is responsible for the company’s global operations. Fabozzi has a 30-year track record of significant packaging technology and business development achievements. Before joining PTI, he held positions at Nestlé, Milacron and Tetra Pak.

About PTI Global

PTI Global is recognized worldwide as a leading source for preform and package design, package development, rapid prototyping, pre-production prototyping, and material evaluation engineering for the plastic packaging industry. For more information: www.pti-usa.com.