Are you not able to hire staff because you can’t…

Find the right candidate? 

Searching for the ideal employee is like selling a house — you don’t need hundreds of people to come through, you just need the right person to walk in and get interested.

Are you attracting the right people? Do you really know (and does everyone agree) what you are looking for? Are you paralyzed by a previous hire that didn’t work out? 

In this competitive market, months can go by without a hire. Which means you are spending more time and resources than you expected. 

Solutions include changing your process, getting better buy-in from those involved, or hiring an Executive Search firm to clarify process and help determine who would be successful in your organization.

Afford to take on a full-time employee? 

Would you consider a part-time employee, an interim staff member, or a consultant? Temporary staffing can help increase funding so you can afford to staff up permanently. 

Get your favorite candidates to accept the job offer? 

If this happens, think about if it is based on:

• The reputation of your nonprofit’s workplace environment.
  
  Given a choice, employees are not going to choose the job where everyone is overworked, there are micro-managers, and no one stays for more than a year. In other words, the high rate of nonprofit turnover is not only happening because there is more money at another organization. It’s also because employees want to like showing up at work every day while still having a life.
  

• Your compensation package.
  
  With the trend/requirements to list salary ranges, saying that you can’t afford the current rate will eliminate many people whom you might like. You can list something like one recent Netflix posting for $90,000-$900,000. Or you can consider other ways to compensate employees, like bonus vacation time or paid education stipends.
  

• Your nonprofit’s cause doesn’t make enough of a difference.
  
  Sure, your cause matters to a job candidate, but not as much as you may think. An employee can help increase cancer research, enhance education, or improve youth programming at many different organizations (not just yours). And that is true of most markets. Especially if you include jobs that are 100% remote.

Join us next month when we tackle Part 2 of this topic, with a focus on preventing employee burnout. In the meantime, if you have ideas for what I should include, please email me and let me know!