VITAL STATISTICS

Getting good workers will be hard and expensive

SV:  What does the demographic data suggest about the Seacoast job market in the next few years?

FRANCESE:  What it suggests is the Seacoast job market is going to be tight, meaning it is going to be more difficult to find good quality workers. This is due to the stunning lack of affordable housing for young people on the Seacoast. Depending on the type of business you have you may find it hard to find qualified workers.

In the high tech sector, where recruitment is nationwide, it may not be more difficult than in the past except that you're going to run into a situation where you have to pay people more because of the higher cost of living here. I have heard of people offered jobs on the Seacoast who turned them down because the pay scale was too low to live here.

SV:  What can small businesses do in a time of low unemployment to attract the best and brightest?

FRANCESE:  The most important thing is treat your employees well and with respect. Have a good working environment that is free of as much stress as possible. Provide the kind of benefits people want, with the number one benefit being health insurance. If that's not possible then be sure you pay enough and help them arrange to get their own health insurance.

The best benefit is a decent working environment. The next best thing is fringe benefits that are meaningful. These are health and some kind of retirement program.

What do you consider a good work environment?

You want to create an environment where people can learn something. If you sit at a desk and do the same job over and over, if a job is boring and there is no opportunity to advance, why would you stay?

If the boss harasses you or is just a jerk and doesn't respect you that's not a good work environment. The best boss I ever worked for respected my work but if I wasn't doing well explained why and what I needed to do to improve.

When it comes to young people you can't expect them to be in a job a long time but they can stay for a reasonable period as long as they are learning something new.

Workers need to understand why what they're doing is important. Everyone likes to do important work. There needs to be a shared mission.

SV:  Flex time and telecommuting are two new benefits used in recruitment and retention of workers. Do you think these benefits will become more common in the next few years?

FRANCESE:  Absolutely, because flex time is something older people want very much and there are lots of older people in workforce.

Telecommuting becomes more important as people have to commute longer and longer hours or have small children. You can save a fortune in child care if you can telecommute one day a week. But this is only useful in certain types of jobs. You can't telecommute to a service job.

SV:  When would it be appropriate to use a headhunter to staff your business?

FRANCESE:  Headhunters are really useful when you have a small firm and no HR department. You cannot take a lot of time to interview 20 or 30 people for a high skill job. A headhunter can screen, background check and can present the best two or three candidates and for that headhunters are worth every penny.

I have a great deal of respect for headhunters. They save a lot of time and a lot of grief.