HR Leaders Increasingly Challenged By Recruitment In 2019

HR teams are increasingly willing to train job candidates who may not check all of the boxes for qualifications and skills

No HR professional today is immune to the effects of the tight labor market. As the rate of unemployment hovers near a 50-year low, HR teams in businesses of every size and industry nationwide are struggling to attract and retain  quality employees. The 2019 Paychex Pulse of HR Survey, released at the 2019 SHRM Conference & Expo, found that talent is among the top factors impacting HR leaders this year. In fact, for the first time in this survey’s three-year history, attracting talent surpassed regulatory compliance as the top HR concern.

More than two-thirds of HR leaders say it’s difficult to find and hire quality candidates, up from 59 percent last year. When asked specifically about challenges related to hiring, HR professionals most often cited: 

As a result of these challenges, HR teams are increasingly willing to train job candidates who may not check all of the boxes for qualifications and skills. Eighty-five percent of HR leaders would be willing to train and upskill an underqualified candidate, and 78 percent said their organizations have already benefited from upskilling underqualified workers. When hiring in the current labor market, HR leaders should assess from the job description which qualifications are required versus desired and which skills  are must-haves from the start date versus can be learned on the job, if necessary. 

Another tactic HR leaders utilize to attract and retain top talent today is offering nontraditional benefits and perks. Younger generations of employees place a high value on work-life integration and weigh benefits offerings (including healthcare, retirement, ancillary perks, and more) heavily as part of their overall compensation package. For the third consecutive year, flexible scheduling ranked first among nontraditional benefits with nearly 40 percent of respondents offering this increasingly in-demand perk. The next most popular nontraditional benefits offerings, in order, are:

According to the survey , leveraging technology tools also lends businesses a hiring edge. Eighty-one percent of respondents say their company’s tech investment will allow them to maintain or grow their headcount, increase employee productivity, and 72 percent have found success using recruiting technology to reach high-quality candidates. As such, technology tops the list of HR spending priorities. Among the two-thirds of HR professionals surveyed whose department budgets are increasing, technology investment topped the list of ways they would like to spend the additional funds. 

Though recruitment efforts are key, retention is the other big piece of the talent  puzzle. The cost of turnover should not be overlooked and employee engagement plays a major role in getting employees to stay and, most importantly, feel fulfilled. To foster employee engagement, HR leaders surveyed recommend regularly asking employees for feedback about their job satisfaction, empowering employees to suggest new work methods or projects, and offering employees training to develop new skills. Communication is the root of many employee frustrations. HR leaders should create channels for honest, specific two-way discussion with employees, and utilize these channels to provide praise and feedback in real time.

From training to perks to tech, HR leaders should take full advantage of every tool at their disposal to ease the burden of finding top talent and, once they’re hired, keeping employees engaged.