Finding Workers And The Role Of Minimum Wage Increases

6. How are you finding frontline workers?

Online recruiting (Indeed, Craigslist, CareerBuilder, Monster), job fairs, Spanish newspapers, word of mouth and referrals. — Laurie Sewell, president and CEO, Servicon Systems, Inc., Culver City, California

Industry and company referrals remain the best source for us to find frontline workers. While we use numerous other methods to find employees, such as job fairs and applications through our website, the mutual selection process works best through a referral who can help provide a potential hire information about the company. The result usually is a better-informed and well-reasoned selection process. — Nathalie Doobin, owner and CEO, Harvard Services Group, Inc., Fort Lauderdale, Florida

We’ve found that statistically our employees who are referred by current employees stay 33 percent longer than those hired individuals who were sourced via another medium. We believe the reason is that our loyal employees are careful not to refer a less-than-stellar employee to work with us, because they know that applicant they refer is in a way representing them.

We’ve also had moderately increasing success using Facebook job boards as an additional source of applicants. This is a free and easy way to spread the word about our position offerings. — Scott Stevenson, president and CEO, KleenMark, Madison, Wisconsin

7. Will a $15 minimum wage make it harder to recruit janitors away from other industries?

No, we don’t believe it will have a big impact, because we will all be on a level playing field with pay. — Laurie Sewell, president and CEO, Servicon Systems, Inc., Culver City, California

The $15 minimum wage might initially make it easier to recruit janitors away from some industries, as that wage rate will be very close and competitive to some other non-janitorial hourly jobs in the economy. But in the intermediate and long term, the economy and labor markets will adjust to the cost of doing business, and I see this having no long term impact on the recruitment of frontline employees. — Eric Luke, president and CEO, Varsity Facility Services, Salt Lake City

Yes! It will make it worse, because a lot of other jobs will be paying the same rate. It will create a bigger pool of competition for employees for all industries. — Mary Miller, owner and CEO, JANCOA, Cincinnati

No. A $15 minimum wage could most likely be an immediate help. In our region of the country, it is common to hire frontline janitorial positions starting at $8.50-$10 per hour. Many of the same potential applicants we are recruiting for at that range also have positions that they qualify for that pay between $11-$15 per hour. This could be in a factory, a restaurant, another trade, etc. These positions that pay $11-$15 per hour would most likely not go too much higher than $15 as a starting wage in a $15 minimum wage scenario. Suddenly, those folks who we were going after who were attracted to those other industries just because of the $11-$15 per hour wage would now be looking at us with an equal playing field.

Since we have taken away a major variable to consider (wage), the employee will now be focused on intangible aspects of the job. We feel our industry has great intangibles (quiet, independent environment; flexible scheduling; etc.) and we feel we could use these aspects to attract talent from other industries. — Scott Stevenson, president and CEO, KleenMark, Madison, Wisconsin

I think $15 and hour will help us recruit employees in general. — Paul Senecal, managing partner, AffinEco, Bridgeport, Connecticut