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The last two years have taken hospitality businesses on an economic roller coaster. As recently as two summers ago, companies were complaining about how tough it was to hire and retain talented employees in the tightest labour market in 35 years. Many referred to the labour market conditions as a "war for talent" (Part 1). Next, the global economic crisis hit, sending unemployment surging. With fast-rising jobless rates and hundreds of applicants for every posting, the deluge of applications created a false sense of security among many employers, leading them to put HR on the back burner. The "war for talent" officially declared a cease fire.

Good news: The recession is finally over in Canada and the economy is growing again. Bad news: The recession which is now over has not fixed global demographic trends and the economy is heating up. Enter the "war for talent" (Part 2). With HR on the back burner for the last year and a half, many employers have let their HR saw get a bit dull. With steadily worsening labour shortages about to hit centre stage again and talented people becoming scarce, it is time for employers to prepare for the impending war and to make sure their recruitment, training and retention tactics are sharp.

To prepare for dealing with labour shortages and the return of the war for talent, employers must focus on three key areas: recruitment, training and retention.

Recruitment

Workforce Planning
Know your hiring needs before vacancies occur and know your target candidate market.

Would you run your establishment without a business plan, sales or financial targets? Of course not. Yet many employers operate without a human resource plan to manage their most valuable resource: their people. To create a basic HR plan, you need a well-defined strategy to hire the best people who fit your company culture. At the start of every fiscal year, look at your growth targets to figure out the skill sets, head count and timing you'll need for new employees over the next three, six and 12 months. Review your current head count and turnover rates so you can identify the gaps and build a plan. A good visual tool is to put an organizational chart up on the wall with current staff and future resources needed, then plan to fill in the gaps.

Selection Criteria and Interview Training
How to develop selection criteria that work for your business and how to become a good interviewer.

Let's face it, not all great managers are great interviewers. While you or your HR people might be sourcing and screening candidates, it's the manager who does the final interview and chooses who to hire. To avoid bad hiring decisions, you need to ensure that your managers follow a standard process. Create a checklist outlining the steps in the recruitment and selection process, including how to set clear expectations for candidates and the actions required to "wow" them. This list should include interview etiquette, post-interview guidelines and the minimum time to call applicants back—say, individual calls within five days if there are a limited number of applicants or a templated e-mail or form letter if there are a large number. As well, you should develop a list of standard interview questions about company fit and desired answers with your team. (Visit www.jobinterviewquestions.org as a resource to get started.) This will get everyone on the same page, looking for the same talents and talking the same talk.

Sourcing
Where and how to find top talent.

You can't afford to wait for turnover to trigger your search for new employees. You need to build a pipeline of talented candidates and constantly be on the lookout for top talent—everywhere. The people you want are most likely happily employed somewhere else: they're what we in the HR business call passive candidates. Look for them at networking events or on social-networking sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Create a relationship with them and engage with them until future needs arise. Tell passive candidates they're the kind of talented people your establishment is looking to hire. Offer to put them on your career-opportunity mailing list, send them company newsletters, invite them to speaking engagements and send them press releases. You can also turn all your employees into talent scouts. Create a referral program, offering your staff a finder's fee of $250 to $500 or a gift certificate to their favourite store if they refer a candidate who is hired and passes the probation period. And develop referral tools, such as business cards saying "We Want You" to give to potential candidates when you find them.

Branding
What is your employer brand?

Be honest. Would you apply to your own job postings? As an employer, what is your brand, what are you selling to candidates? You need to sell the opportunity, and these days a posting that's merely a standard job description just won't cut it. You need to create postings that highlight the opportunities at your establishment and key career achievements for the applicant. As well, you should have a polished career page on your website where you can educate potential job candidates about what your establishment can offer them and what you expect from them, as well as helping convert clients into employees. Applicants, who are happily employed elsewhere, need to be convinced to join your team. Ask yourself, "What do we have to offer a candidate that differentiates us from other employers?" Ask your current employees to write down the top five reasons why they joined your team and why they stay. Examples might include a great team environment, learning and development opportunities, a top-notch boss, challenging work and opportunities for career advancement. Pull together a list of the five reasons cited most often and include it in your job postings and, most importantly, your website. Even better, profile current employees on your career page or post video testimonials
on YouTube.

Applicant Pools
Local vs. foreign recruits, the pros and cons.

With an aging population and declining birth rates, where are you to find your staff ? The answer may be from outside of Canada but there are pros and cons to hiring locally vs. internationally. It is always recommended to first try exhausting local recruitment pools. Local hires have accommodation, Canadian experience, and support networks (friends/family) and can be easily integrated into the Canadian workplace. If for your business, you decide that hiring foreign recruits is the right solution, there are five key items to be aware of. First, understand the various government programs to hire foreign workers and decide which is right for you. Second, be aware of and avoid cultural biases when interviewing and hiring foreign workers. Third, new foreign hires may experience culture shock when arriving and living in Canada (seeing snow for the first time!) and it may be more work for you to develop orientation programs that make them feel welcome in order to integrate diverse cultural backgrounds into your place of work. Fourth, you need to be very clear on the work you are offering and not misrepresent your offer. Advertise for a line cook and think you can get this person to be a dishwasher, or even worse a supervisor, and you might be in trouble. Finally, when working with recruitment agencies in overseas locations such as the Philippines you need to be aware if they are charging placement fees to their candidates, which is illegal in most provinces. In the end, if you decide to hire foreign workers, do your research, work with your industry association and get feedback from other hospitality employers who have done it successfully. If done correctly, hiring foreign workers can be a great solution.

Training

Assess your Needs
How to develop training material that works for your unique business.

Define what you want employees to deliver. For example, if you are planning a course on customer service, what are the top three things you want employees to do when greeting a guest?

Build Content
How to develop content that is engaging. (Focus on customer service excellence)

Have a good mix of theory and practice. Make the delivery engaging by having a few role play/simulation exercises where participants can put the theory into practice right away. Once you create the training material, run it past a few employees to get some feedback on the content. Make sure it is effective and hitting the mark. Make the material relevant and as actionable as possible by using work related scenarios that employees are likely to encounter. For example, how to deal with a guest who has consumed too much alcohol, is irate about a service delay or the fact that the half-way hut is not open mid-week. Finally, deliver your material in two hours or less to keep your audience engaged. Anything longer and you risk losing them.