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Every company has employees who live in daily instability, meaning they do not have enough resources for today, let alone tomorrow. Employees’ daily instability creates pain for both the employees and your business. Transportation is a good example. If your car has good tires and a half-tank of gas and if the engine turns over on the first try, then you don’t spend time worrying about getting to work, running errands, or picking up your children. However, what if your potential hire does not have reliable transportation? What if they are taking two or three buses to get to the workplace?

Consider the following when thinking about how this example impacts potential employees’ ability to be successful:

What must an applicant do to get hired? What are their application options? Is an online submission the only option? How tight is your application algorithm? Are misspelled words accepted? Will a deficiency of buzzwords disqualify an application from the human resources inbox? Can an applicant fill out an application in person? How many times must an applicant come to a place of business during the application process?

When an employee lives in stability—when there are enough resources for today and the short term—the employee doesn’t think twice about hopping in the car to run an errand, getting on a computer, or driving to your office to apply for a job. 

Do any of your application and hiring processes create barriers for potential hires, great hires who will make outstanding employees but are dealing with a certain set of issues?   

The mindset of an applicant living in daily instability is about survival and relationships—relationships of family, friends, kin, ethnic group, and neighborhood. The mindset of your human resources team and management is about achievement and work. These two different mindsets can collide in the application, job interview, and the workplace. The environment in which we spend our time creates certain habits, patterns, mindsets, and opportunities. It impacts how we complete tasks and how we spend our time. 

The Society of Human Resources says it costs $4,129 to lose an entry-level employee and 42 days to find a replacement. You don’t have that kind of time in our post-COVID world.    

I encourage you to take a moment to think through the hiring processes of your company. Do any of your application and hiring processes create barriers for potential hires, great hires who will make outstanding employees but are dealing with a certain set of issues?   

In what ways can you streamline the process? Can an employee fill out an application in person, interview, and provide a drug test during the same visit? Can you provide a gas card or weekly bus pass for an employee’s first week of work? Do you participate in hiring fairs in the neighborhood you hire from? 

Good employees are hard to find. Use this opportunity to put yourself above your competition to secure the workforce you need. This is a direct financial opportunity for your business, one that allows for expansion and scalability in the future. 

About the Author: Ruth K. Weirich , MBA is an author, trainer, and management professional experienced in business operations efficiency and profitability. She is also a past president of aha! Process, an education and training company specializing in economic class issues. 

Is your business unintentionally creating unnecessary barriers to hiring better employees?