Employee Poaching

[Tom Allen]

Just curious the general consensus of aggressive competing sign companies in the same small town offering a POACHING bonus to their employees to recruit your employees away.
In my 40 years of sign making I have never seen this tactic in our small town or been exposed to it until recently. The owner of the competing company acts all innocent but is sending texts directly
to my employees trying to hire them away. Many are well seated at out shop and like their job and pay /benefits however some of the younger folks who have just enough experience since we have
been training them decide to jump ship for a buck. Is this just the new no ethic way of doing business or am I that out of touch with reality. Curious if this is everywhere or isolated tour town or if it is happening nationwide?

 

[Gino]

You're outta touch. That sh!t has been going on as long as I can remember....... and all over the place. There is no such thing as loyalty, not at all. In today's climate, ya hafta go where the money is. Ya just hafta be sure it's long-term before ya burn a bridge.

 

[Asuma01]

Why should an employee be loyal to a company? Money talks.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I saw this back in the last boom with a few construction companies. They had recruiters. It's dirty and unethical on both ends.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Why should an employee be loyal to a company? Money talks.

Why should a customer keep coming back to use you? Just go find the cheapest price possible for every job. Or better yet, get 3 prices and ask the fourth person to beat the lowest of the 3. There's more to a job and employer than a buck.

 

[Boudica]

Why should an employee be loyal to a company? Money talks.

I value a happy and healthy work environment, and a reasonable and good boss - over a couple extra dollars. I consider myself loyal - we are small, and my employer really depends on me. Out of conscience I would never be "poached" away to another printer. He'd have to really piss me off for that to ever happen.

 

[XtremeXccessories]

We've had a couple of the "Money talks" people roll through here over the years. They generally over-promise and under-deliver on their skills/abilities/knowledge, usually stick around for 6-12 months then bounce to another shop for an extra buck; we don't fight to keep them.

 

[MNT_Printhead]

Do you ever offer to match the pay the other shop is offering? Curious if you have had people leave your shop when they could have stayed and made them same/

 

[StarSign]

A few of my guys have been approached to jump ship in the past few years, they knew the grass really wasn't greener and laughed it off when it was brought up to them.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Do you ever offer to match the pay the other shop is offering? Curious if you have had people leave your shop when they could have stayed and made them same/

That's a bad road to go down and a good way to annoy the employees that wouldn't do that to you. Always make sure you stay up and or above what others are paying. If somebody leaves, make it for good reason, not money. Like Xtreme said, the ones that are always hunting around using another job they found to back you in a corner are usually not worth keeping. Plus, they never stop doing it.

 

[JamesLam]

It's only a tactic of value when the economy is booming and/or there is a shortage of bodies. This is a ruse as in many cases an employer loses out on a trained employee and the employee and new employer are not always a good fit. The recruiters are often less than honest about the prospective job opportunity as well as really they get paid to move bodies around and not much more than that. The employee has to really stand back and think to himself or herself why is my value all of a sudden greater?

 

[gnubler]

I value a happy and healthy work environment, and a reasonable and good boss - over a couple extra dollars. I consider myself loyal - we are small, and my employer really depends on me. Out of conscience I would never be "poached" away to another printer. He'd have to really **** me off for that to ever happen.

Agreed. It's a quality of life thing, and money isn't everything.

 

[JWitkowski]

Do you ever offer to match the pay the other shop is offering? Curious if you have had people leave your shop when they could have stayed and made them same/

It's Iike when you're shopping for equipment. Vendor A quotes $X for the gear and Vendor B's price is higher but agrees to price match. I say "if the only reason you will sell for $X is because the other is offering that, then No Way". I'll go with the one who has a better deal up front. If you will only price match a higher wage when you need to do it, I think you're asking to lose employees, aren't ya? Maybe proactively paying good employees more is actually cheaper in the long run?

 

[SignosaurusRex]

Loyalty is something that cannot be bought . . . it's earned by one and learned by the other. Think about that for a bit. If an employee is worth keeping, then earnestly show them how much. That in itself can be a task well worth giving much thought and exercise. After all of that, they seldom leave. If they do leave, they are not worth having, let alone keeping. Quite often it is not just a matter of $$ unless you yourself view it that simply.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

What people have realized this last year or so, is that companies aren't that loyal to employees like they used to be. The security that came working for someone else is really just a pipe dream. Think of how many people were let go during the economic stupidity when things started to get rough (and some of those companies had big bonuses for the higher ups) and now all of a sudden want to rehire the people that they let go?

Now, will this trend actually cement into some thing more long term, remains to be seen as most people have the attention span of a gnat.

There have actually been studies as to what employees value and what they tolerate depending on how well those values are handled by the employer. Now that we have other things going on in the pipeline, that's going to add stress to that. What can I say, "The Great Resignation" is on. I see tons of now hiring, bus drivers especially, I never use to know when they needed help, now there are 4 school buses with banners on them spread through the town that I saw just yesterday mentioning that they were hiring.

 

[JamesLam]

I think the poaching is just a reaction to a situation, certainly not a long term solution. Unfortunately many potential employees are not available as we stream many of our high school graduates through university. That is a three to four year delay before these professors, doctors, economists, and thinkers come to the realization that that is not what they will be doing for the rest of their working days. Potentially that could be up to ten percent of their career spent idle instead of being productive. Stop teaching kids how to shop online (computer training) and teach them how to sew, machine, cut, weld, fix, cook, repair and make stuff. It will make them more valuable and they will be more confident and competent. Unfortunately this may also mean that some industries such as making absurdly priced coffee and selling glass beads and trinkets to the masses will have to take the hit.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

That is a three to four year delay before these professors, doctors, economists, and thinkers come to the realization that that is not what they will be doing for the rest of their working days.

Keep in mind as well, that when a student goes through that institution to learn whatever degree that they went for, odds are what they learned was outdated to begin with (given that university is a monolith that takes forever to get something approved), and even more so by the time that they get out of uni. That is why a lot of companies are doing more on location education compared to going through the traditional system (and that isn't the only benefit that they get as well, but I digress on that one).

 

[Terry01]

Companies don't poach employees... Employees choose companies based on merit and MONEY.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

We have millions of people coming over the border and a massive labor shortage, particularly at the lower end of the job market. It seems silly to me that positions in fast food and hotel maids need to be "legal". There is a shortage of "legal" people wanting to do those jobs so couldn't we eliminate that requirement and let them work?

 

[WildWestDesigns]

We have millions of people coming over the border and a massive labor shortage, particularly at the lower end of the job market. It seems silly to me that positions in fast food and hotel maids need to be "legal". There is a shortage of "legal" people wanting to do those jobs so couldn't we eliminate that requirement and let them work?

A lot of the lower end job market isn't really filled out with legals as it is. Even if it was a "requirement". Go to that day labor pickup off Parker I think it is (close to the DART), or at least it was there before 2020, I don't think there are that many that are legal there. But I am speculating. I wasn't always the type to ask for people's papers, but that notion seems to be changing here.