Think of it like real estate. There are buyers, and there are sellers.
It is a seller’s market when you have lots of people (buyers) looking for homes and a limited inventory. High prices, bidding wars, bully offers over asking, etc. When you have a flood of homes on the market and few people looking to buy, it is a buyers market because people can pick and choose and are happy to present low offers with (what some may consider) crazy conditions. Now apply this to your business.
Right now, there are opportunities galore! If you are not hiring somewhere in your business, you are either blessed or doing something wrong. In Aerospace, we are facing a double whammy. People left the industry in 2020 when air travel all but vanished and order books dried up like a grape left on the vine too long. Couple this with every other sector realizing how fantastic people from Aerospace are.
Now companies are acting like it is pre-pandemic, trying to use their old playbook, but now they are trying to hire in a market as we have never seen. People have left! Aviation companies are now competing with every other industry to attract top aviation talent but playing catch-up. Other sectors have increased compensation, offering remote, flexible, hybrid work environments. They offer stability and growth. They are dangling mother effin carrots left, right and center!
What are you offering?
How are you competing?
How are you differentiating your business?
Benefits and compensation need to be competitive. There need to be adjustments for the cost of living. You may need to reduce your EBITA to invest in your talent so that you have a team to take you to the next level. It would be best to engage current and future employees and think about how that will look. If you are not buying into a “Candidate Driven Market,” then you aren’t buying! This is capitalism in its purest form.
It would help if you looked at work-life balance. What does that mean? It is slightly different person to person but are you open to flex days? Under the ” a LEAN workplace” banner, do you require people to work 80 hours regularly? Does your staff have time to have a life outside of work?
People have re-evaluated what is important to them, and it is most likely not an 80 hour Sunday to Saturday job.
Regardless of how you operate, you need to be honest with your new hires and get the message out to the masses. I hope it isn’t an email. I hope it isn’t more digital noise that we all glaze over.
The best approach is person to person. High-touch. We are all people and have been missing interaction. It would be best to tell the people who you are and why they want to join your team. You need to set yourself apart to attract the talented professionals who will help your business bounce back from the worst two years of commercial Aerospace in the last 40 years. Heck! Maybe the worst years since the Wright brothers took flight. Why does someone want to work for you?
Let me let you in on a secret. It isn’t because candidates don’t have any other options.
Who is it that is going to spread your message to your next leader? Is it a Google ad? Are you going to take out advertisements in every local paper? Well, I reach out DIRECTLY to people every day for my clients.
Who is going to do it for you?
