The Struggle To Find And Keep Qualified Employees

The Struggle to Find and Keep QUALIFIED EMPLOYEES EVEN WITH THE INFLUX OF NEW GENERATIONS of prospective workers, many small businesses struggle with finding and keeping qualified employees. In fact, according to recent TAB surveys, this is the most pressing issue for a sizable percentage of small business owners. “WE STRIVE TO EXCEL “There comes a time where you need to ask for outside help,” she admits. “TAB’s IN CUSTOMER SERVICE process opened my eyes to see that I while also focusing on the importance of proper risk needed to look beyond the resume when I selection and pricing.” was considering an applicant.”

Kimberly Stufflet, who with Thomas Adderhold INSIGHTS INTO MARKETING established Preferred Aviation Underwriters in 2005, THE COMPANY has felt this pain acutely. As a key player in a niche industry—providing tailored property and casualty Kim also took marketing-related issues to the Board insurance to clients in aviation—the company’s main and her Facilitator. “In this arena of business, you goal is helping to reduce the cost of doing business have to have dedicated face-to-face time with your and offering market availability in the areas of clients,” she says. “One-to-one marketing demands a property, inland marine, auto, crime, premises great deal of time and perseverance.” liability and other hard-to-place risks.

But in its early days, Preferred Aviation Underwriters Kim’s TAB Board encouraged her to increase the needed time to establish its credibility. As the company’s annual marketing budget to support business grew, Kim (in her role as President) found a more hands-on, personalized approach to herself facing a rampant employee turnover rate, marketing. “This was outside of my comfort zone,” despite the well-paid jobs the company offered. she says, “but it was the right thing to do as it has helped grow my company tremendously.” Being in a specialized niche, finding qualified people was proving to be tedious, time-consuming and These days, with Preferred Aviation Underwriters costly. The company suffered from a lack of skilled sustaining annual growth of more than $25 million, staff and productivity fell because of the time spent Kim says she values TAB more than ever. In fact, in training new employees who didn’t work out in she says that if she could go back in time, she the long run. Kim tried consulting with her staff to would have reached out to TAB sooner. dissect the problem, but with little success.

TURNING TO TAB “This company is my baby, and my employees only told me what I wanted to hear,” she recalls. To get the hard truth, Kim turned to TAB.

Her fellow TAB Board Members opened her eyes to what was causing her hiring and retention problems, and it wasn’t what she expected to hear. With their help, she realized she was only considering applicants if they had the correct “As a business owner, you experience college degree, almost completely discounting peaks and valleys daily, but it’s the other personality traits that are essential to the perseverance and knowing when to ask job. Based on their insight and feedback, Kim for help that is essential for your success. modified her job descriptions, search, interview My company would not be where we are and hiring processes. today if I hadn’t reached out to TAB and utilized their processes, which have proved to build a thriving company.”

TheAlternativeBoard.com

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Source: The Alternative Board