Where Are You Going to Find Your Next Employee?

Where are you going to find your next employee, or replace one that is already on the way out the door, but you don’t know it yet? The answers surprised me.

In May Axios reported that there were 1.8 jobs for every person ready to work. Baby boomers retired at a prodigious rate before the pandemic, which accelerated the trend. Apparently, the advent of cable television was enough to keep them entertained because they did not have nearly as many children as their parents and
grandparents.

The result for employers: it is harder than ever to find employees and we need to be innovative and creative with our solutions.

A side note on East Tennessee: with a lower cost of living than most other areas of the United States you, as an employer, need to be ready to compete with every other business in the United States for any jobs that can be done remotely. Employers in Atlanta, or Houston, or New York or Seattle all look for employees that live in areas with a lower cost of living, so the relative salary is higher for the employee. That leaves us at a disadvantage.

So where do you find employees? Here are some creative ideas:

1. Find American ex-pats abroad.

While the notion of finding an employee in another country may seem far fetched, it is not as difficult as you might think. Social media has made the world smaller and there are a number of websites and services that can help you find American citizens living abroad. (Our office manager, a native Tennessean, lives and works in Guatemala City).

2. Find Americans in US territories.

There are a number of US territories where the cost of living is quite low. Puerto Rico, for example, has a lower cost of living than most states in the mainland United States. If you are willing to consider remote work, there are a number of American citizens who live in these territories who would be interested in working for your company. As a huge bonus, many of your applicants will have flawless English and be bi-lingual.

3. Find out where your future employees already live in low-cost-of-living cities.

For example, Robert Half has a tremendous salary guide. Jobs in finance and accounting in El Paso, TX are on average 28% lower than the national average [1]:

When you are looking at a 28% lower cost of living, that means your company only has to pay 72% of the salary to get the same purchasing power. OR, you can pay 90% of the salary and get talent that your competitors cannot, and expand your market share as a result.

To Work From Anywhere Your Technology Has to Support It.

In the past, companies would set up a VPN so their employees could connect to the company
network from home. But that’s not enough anymore. With the pandemic, employers are looking
for complete solutions that will allow their employees to work from anywhere, at any time.
There are a number of solutions that will allow you to do this, but you need to make sure that the
solution you choose is secure and that it meets all of your company’s needs. You need a partner to
help you with this: specialized technology companies (*cough*) have a broader view of the solutions
available across the marketplace and experience implementing them in multiple locations. If you
DIY this it will be your first time, and you will likely need a re-implementation before long.

The bottom line: With the right technology in place, you can find talent anywhere.

So if you are looking for an edge on your competition, start by looking for employees in places where your
competitors are not.

Sources: [1] https://www.roberthalf.com/salary-guide/home