You needed seven production line workers yesterday. Now you need eight as you lost one overnight. No notice was given!! The temporary agency does not have anyone. You hear they have plenty of people for a larger more lucrative company. The candidates you have received so far for the sales job have been underwhelming. You have no idea how you are going to find a production engineer. The recruiter has brought few resumes and always at a price you cannot afford. The list goes on and on.
This is a workforce which has been created by a rushed environment
Rushed environments are created when you are not going to the candidate sources with the right message. Simply saying, “we are hiring” is the wrong message. You have to market to the appropriate sources the same way you market for customers. When you are marketing for customers, you have to determine the right customers for your message and product. You don’t want to waste your time marketing a product to the wrong customers. The same is true for employees. Rushed environments are created when people are interviewed and hired who do not meet your standards. You hire the candidate because you have to. You need the warm bodies. This creates turnover.
The rushed environment is in full control
The worst case of rushed environment I have come across was a manufacturer. They were being rushed in all areas. We started going through the questions which I have discussed in other articles. They had no answers for any of them. They had no idea who they were as an employer. They had a shallow view of their target candidate, what to look for and what not to look for. They were spending time they did not have to interview bad candidates. They had no idea where to go for their target candidates.
Their message was limited to a short job description and an email address to send resumes. High value candidates would not be impressed. Low value candidates saw somewhere they could get hired quickly. This explained why the resumes were all from people below the manufacturers’ standard. Clearly, we had to build the fundamentals and then implement a strategy, plan and processes. As always, shortly after implementation we started to see the results.
We were on our way to stability!
