Small Business Connections                                 November 2012 

Finding and Keeping Quality Employees

Finding Employees

It's an enigma. Every day we hear about how many people are unemployed. But when I talk to my small business clients who are growing and hiring, I hear that they struggle to find the person they are looking for, or they aren't sure where to look.

Here are a few tips that have worked for some of our SBDC clients:

1. Use Career Services at your Community College. In case you didn't know, your local Community College offers a variety of services to employers looking to hire - and many of them are free. Check Waubonsee's Career Services for a list of available services, from online and on-campus job postings, to local job fairs.
2. Sign up for the Resume Search service on job boards. This lets you define the criteria you are looking for and hand pick resumes, rather than post a job and get inundated with resumes that don't fit the job.
3. Network, network, network. Use LinkedIn and other social media tools, as well as in-person networking to get recommendations from people you know and trust. If you read our spotlight article above, Karen Hollis has never posted a job opening. All her employees come from networking, or are attracted to her based on her reputation as an employer.
4. Think outside the box. Check out this article for some off-beat ways to recruit new employees.
5. Acqui-Hire. Look for a competitor who is ready to retire, or a struggling start-up who might welcome the safety of employment in your more established business. Read more about this new way to hire.

Keeping Employees

1. Know the cost of employee turnover.   This alone should motivate you to do your homework and put some effort into the hiring process.
2. Create a formal job description before you interview. For small businesses, this may feel way too "corporate" for your tastes. But it will help make better hiring choices. A good job description helps make sure that everyone is on the same page, and can be used for review purposes after the hire. HR Consultant and Expert, Doreen Petty, a great partner to the IL SBDC at Waubonsee, offered to share her job description template.
3. Formalize the onboarding process. Again, onboarding may sound too corporate. But the time you dedicate to training new employees in everything from your business culture and job requirements to best local lunch spots is a critical investment in a valuable asset.
4. Cut your losses. Ok, this trumps the first point about the cost of replacing employees. We all make mistakes. If, after all of the above, your new hire turns out to be a mistake, terminate him/her as quickly as possible. The cost of keeping bad employees can be greater than the cost of replacing them.

For more information on how to effectively manage your employees, check out Doreen's blog, as well as several articles she has written:

 http://www.hirecentrix.com/the-true-start-of-the-employee-experience.html  

 http://www.hirecentrix.com/the-employee-experience-candidacy.html  

 http://www.hirecentrix.com/the-employee-experience-ibelong.html  

 http://www.theresumator.com/blog/3-awesome-examples-of-job-descriptions/  

Biz Bitz

• Eligible if, as of July 1, 2012, you employed 50 or fewer full-time employees (counting all locations).
• Not-for-profit and Professional Employer Organizations are eligible to receive credit.

• Newly created, full-time position (part-time / contractual positions are not eligible).
• Created between 7/1/12-6/30/16.
• Position pays no less than $10/hour or the equivalent annualized salary of $18,200.
• Position sustained for at least one year (not necessarily held by the same individual for the year).
• Withholding tax goes to Illinois.

• Tax Credit certificate will be issued one year from the hire date.

Include Pinterest in your Holiday Marketing Plans   

Brands are relying on Pinterest and social media to boost sales this year. With retailers ringing up unusually high sales using Pinterest, marketers are getting ready to pin holiday gift ideas and seasonal content like glittering ornaments to a virtual Pinterest Christmas tree. Pinterest users are also able to use their boards as a way to pin their holiday wish list. That way family members and friends can look at their board to know what to buy them this year. 

"We will post a sharable, interactive gift guide and offer how-to videos and tutorials for looks to help [customers be] party ready," said Bridget Dolan, Sephora's vp, digital media. "Pinterest has great potential for the holidays."

"Our Pinterest referrals spend 70 percent more than nonsocial channels, including search," said Jane Carpenter, media rep for home furnishings e-retailer Wayfair, which has 1,800 Pinterest followers. "They are 10 percent more likely to purchase when compared to other social channels. And we are on everything-Twitter, YouTube, Facebook."  To read more on on Pinterest may help your small business click here.

Illinois SBDC at Waubonsee Community College