There’s a huge labor shortage looming over the economy right now. With a record-breaking 11.4 million job openings waiting to be filled, companies are scrambling to figure out how to keep productivity and profit margins flowing in the right direction.
In some industries, COVID-19 amplified a shortage that was already under way, while other industries have experienced a full-blown crisis in short order, leaving leaders struggling to pick up the pieces with very little warning. As the pandemic grew stronger, millions of workers left their jobs to take care of their families or pursue other employment options. The Great Resignation also compelled workers to re-examine their career goals and priorities, forcing companies to work harder to attract and retain top talent.
In this era of great change, companies must be willing to alter the way they do business or risk losing everything. As it stands, U.S. firms could lose $160 billion in annual revenue as a result of understaffing. Before you can identify what attracts and retains great workers, you need to improve your internal culture and enact proven tactics to keep people engaged and productive.
The right technology can help you take on these challenges by promoting growth, boosting productivity, and strengthening hiring. This is where Acumatica enters the picture. Acumatica’s robust and connected ERP solution helps you optimize operations while promoting a collaborative, transparent culture. These factors will boost employee engagement and performance. When you have end-to-end transparency, you’ll eliminate the bottlenecks that can cause frustration and diminished productivity in the workplace. This, in turn, leads to better allocation of resources within the organization, allowing for more efficient operations overall.
Let’s examine some best practices you should employ to combat the labor shortage.
1. Revitalize Company Culture
People’s personal experience with their companies ultimately determines whether they’re going to stay or leave. Unfortunately, employee experience has suffered greatly in recently years. Before the pandemic, businesses relied on in-person connections to shape their cultures through teamwork, one-on-one interactions, and well-equipped environments.
When the pandemic forced everything to change, workers were not only faced with fears related to the virus, but they also had a great disruption to their work and personal lifestyles, as well. They were forced to deal with unprecedented understaffing, supply chain shortages, and customer dissatisfaction.
Although those who worked from home were a bit safer from a health standpoint, they often faced the problem of isolation and a lack of equipment in their home offices. As such, companies must now carefully investigate the state of their current cultures—both onsite and remote—and foster an experience that empowers workers to do their best in the lifestyle that’s optimal for each individual. Additionally, companies need to monitor the effects of fluctuating working conditions and employ engagement strategies that nurture purpose, empathy, open communication, and career development.
Acumatica’s cloud-based ERP system is available to workers who need to access information anytime, anywhere. This fosters solid communication and collaboration because everything lives in a single, centralized platform.
2. Optimize Hiring
Great employees are at a premium now, with the Great Resignation and the retirement of Baby Boomers leaving huge gaps in organizations across the country.
Before you create a job posting, you need to consider labor pool limitations. Make sure you understand the skills needed to perform the role, then make it a priority to consider candidates who demonstrate the desired aptitude, even if they might be lacking experience.
As an organization, you need to optimize your hiring practices to extend their reach as far as possible to attract the highest number of qualified candidates. You can use applicant tracking software to automate routine recruitment scheduling and screening so your HR and management teams can focus on securing the best talent.
In this era, it’s also important to cross-train employees where you can. ERP solutions can provide you with integrated workflows and centralized databases so you have access to real-time data and can track what your new hires and existing employees are being trained on. When you hire someone new, this software will help that new hire connect the dots between functions and offer cross-training opportunities. This means they’re set up for success from the beginning, ensuring they understand how to prioritize their role’s demands.
3. Strengthen Retention
Hiring great employees is just one part of the battle; you also want to keep the awesome people you already have on staff. High turnover is extremely costly—both financially and from a knowledge base perspective. It also breeds dissatisfaction among remaining employees who are often tasked with filling in the gaps when someone leaves. Every time someone departs from your organization, there’s a huge drain on the morale and finances of your company.
To combat this, you need to boost employee engagement on a number of levels, including interactions with management, as well as overall opportunities for development. Lean on technology to improve employee satisfaction and productivity. Acumatica’s ERP solution gives managers and employees the tools they need to work efficiently and flexibly, thereby improving retention rates. This tool allows you to create personalized dashboards and KPIs so people know exactly what’s expected of them and how they’re measuring up in the process. It also lets managers see when coaching opportunities arise so they can provide one-on-one attention to staff members who might be struggling to keep up.
4. Empower Collaboration and Personalization
It’s important to make sure employees feel connected to your company’s mission and vision. As such, you need to consider intangible factors to boost morale, such as creating purpose and showing appreciation.
Acumatica allows employees to focus on priorities with minimal inefficiencies while connecting them with colleagues in an easy-to-use platform. This people-focused technology helps remove siloes and enhances visibility across operations.
Learn More in Proven Practices for Overcoming Today’s Labor Shortage
Our new solution brief, Proven Practices for Overcoming Today’s Labor Shortage, reveals how cloud ERP technology plus seven best practices can help growing organizations go head-to-head with today’s labor shortage crisis and come out on top.
Work with MIBAR to Combat the Labor Shortage
These are just a few best practices that’ll help you combat the labor shortage companies in every industry are experiencing today. If you’d like to learn how Acumatica can strengthen your hiring practices, build better retention rates, and improve employee satisfaction, we’d love to talk to you. Schedule a demo to see how Acumatica’s ERP platform works today!
