High-Performing Superstars - Building and Retaining Your Team - Part 1

Have you experienced difficulty in hiring a qualified employee?
Have you had a problem retaining an existing employee?
Would you like to know how to hire and retain good, productive employees?

Within this multi-part article, we're going to take a look at how you can hire and retain a team of high-performing superstars in a difficult labor environment, because you deserve the best-of-the-best working with you in your company.

I assume you want all your employees to be superstars, like you, so I'll give you seven Silver Bullets you can use to hire and retain your team. A Silver Bullet is defined as a "Magical" solution to a problem. While I'm not inferring what I have is magic, I do believe if you were to implement all seven steps, you would think the results were almost magic. A client of mine was considering selling his company, for a number of reasons. He implemented the practices I'm going to share with you and the results were phenomenal. Let's get started.

Understanding the problem: Being involved in business, we recognize people are the single greatest asset to achieving long-term business success. We can have the greatest product or service in the world and unless we have a strong, committed team behind us, it's unlikely we'll succeed. Within the scope of this article, I'll cover the seven essential steps to overcome the obstacles to building and retaining your team of superstars.

The first step, if you are going to be successful and have the type of team surrounding you to achieve and hopefully exceed your vision for your company, is to take the time to simply understand the problem.br>
Historically, businesses have been able to add and reduce staff almost at will. In the latter half of the 1990s, many companies experienced, for the first time, difficulty in hiring qualified people, almost at any price. Recently, due to short-term influences, it has been easier to fill new and replacement position requirements.

Two points need to be considered:

• What will be the future availability of qualified people?

• Regardless of limited availability or abundance, is repetitively adding employees, training them and subsequently reducing your workforce, the most cost-effective way to operate your business?

In considering the basis for concern over future availability, there are at least three essentials that will impact availability.

Declining Workforce ~ The declining workforce is simply a result of the reduced birth rate in our country. In 1978, our workforce growth rate was 3.5 percent. Currently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a rate of growth of one percent. By 2010, it is estimated there will be a shortfall of 10 million people to fill the skilled jobs requirements. Even the deep recession is not a cure for the problem. Clearly, the problem is not just related to growth in the economy.

Skills Deficit ~ 50 percent of the US population, ages 16 to 65 are functionally illiterate. Those age brackets, of course, pretty well define the labor pool we have to work with. Another element contributing to the problem; 52% of our high school graduates lack the basic skills required to perform their jobs.

Workforce Mobility ~ Those people in the workforce with marketable skills are becoming increasingly mobile. 39 percent have now worked for six or more employers. We might question how much of that mobility has been brought on by layoffs within certain industries. However, that can't be the total answer, because it is also indicated that 45% of workers want to change jobs, at least every three to five years. They see more growth potential for themselves by leaving their company than staying with their current employers.

Effectively, the situation is one in which too few people are coming into the workforce to meet the demands. Half of the people coming into the workforce don't have the skills we need and those that have adequate skills see the grass as a greener on the other side of the fence.

Employers can anticipate being faced with increasing competition for a smaller pool of qualified workers to support a growing business. The law of supply and demand will dictate that even those applicants with skills less than desired for a position, will be able to demand and receive higher wages and salaries.

Look for Part Two: Cost Justified Hiring