Your Top 4 Hiring Concerns and How to Solve Them

One of my good friends is a physical therapist who runs his own clinic, and we’ve been talking lately about his ups and downs since coronavirus. The thing that keeps him up at night, hands down, is taking care of his patients and his employees. 

Before the crisis hit, he was planning on hiring two full-time therapists. Now that we’re moving out of it, he’s not sure when he can take the leap. According to conversations we’ve seen on Alignable, he’s not alone in his hiring concerns.

Now that we’re inching our way out of the crisis, there are a lot of questions and concerns about hiring, such as:

• When do you hire your employees back if you had to furlough or let people go?
• What about employees who won’t come back because their situation is better on unemployment? 
• Should you consider more part-time staff? 

We asked you to chime in on your employee concerns. Then, we talked to business consultants, coaches, and hiring professionals to get their advice on what to do next. Scroll down to find the hiring concern that resonates with you most and our members’ advice for moving forward.

Top 4 Employee Concerns Post-Covid

While reading through thousands of comments, we saw the same themes pop up when it came to hiring now. Here are the top four: 

1. You can’t bring your employees back until demand returns

Many of you said that you’re not in the financial spot to hire or rehire employees and won’t be until you see your demand and revenue pop back up. This is the case for Rodney Miller from Miller Drywall LLC.

We are a drywall company, and demand for work is down 45-50%. We need demand to come back, so all furloughed employees can come back.

2. You don’t want to bring all—or some—of your employees back

If you can hire or rehire, you might be carefully considering what roles you’ll replace and how you’ll fill them, choosing to only bring back the “strongest of team members,” says Jennifer Hime from Front Range K9 Academy.

Marc Cooper from MBC Consultants agrees:

I am not bringing employees back so we can repeat the past. 

"It is a new world. What now is required is deep team cohesion and tremendous innovation to reinvent our enterprise to succeed in the post-Covid-19 future. I am only bringing back employees that meet these new objectives,” says Marc Cooper from MBC Consultants.

3. Your employees are making more money on unemployment

Some laid-off workers are making more because of unemployment increases, which means they’re not eager to get back to work. 

Tj Duffy of Gutterpiller Inc is in this exact position:

With extended unemployment, it’s difficult to get some of them to come back to work. 

4. Your employees don’t feel comfortable returning to work

For those in B2C industries, employee safety is a big concern. While you might want or need to bring people back, what if they’re not ready to do so? 

Christopher Adamo from Blackstone Massage Therapy Center explains:

They need to feel safe. They don't. 

So the big question now is: What do you do next? 

9 Experts Share Hiring Advice to Help You Through

While there are no perfect solutions, our members in business consulting and coaching shared how they’re advising their clients through hiring in our new world. Take a look at their advice for ideas on solving your toughest employee issues.

If you’re worried about demand...

If you’re not making enough money to afford your employees, it’s hard to justify bringing them back. All of our experts agree there. But it might not be an all-or-nothing thing. 

Maybe you can’t hire for a full-time role or bring back your full-time staff. But you might be able to offer part-time roles, suggests Maria Denney, accountant and owner of Beach Business Solutions, in an interview with us. 

"If you're trying to stay afloat, you have to look at all of the avenues,” she says.

“Ask yourself, 'What can I do myself? What can I pass off to someone else? Do they necessarily need to be full time?'"

Have questions about financing your business? Reach out to Maria on Alignable or via her website and social media.

If the answer is no and you have employees waiting to come back, talk to your current staff about starting on a part-time basis first. If you need to hire someone new, post the role as part time and even add a line about how it might expand to full-time as business picks up. 

Part-time staff can help you keep costs steady while your margins are low, so it’s a good option while you rebound.

Related content: Essential Financial Advice to Help You Rebuild

If you're reimagining your workforce...

If you're like Marc above, you're thinking about how to build a staff that supports you into the future you want now. Some of those people might work for you already, and others aren't on your radar yet.

First things first, say our experts, take a look at who you have in the wings.

"I am strongly encouraging employers to look at the skill sets that their employees have and bring those employees with the strongest skills back first," suggests Wiebke Wilkens from Wilkens Health and Safety Solution.

To figure out who is strongest, "do some serious thinking about what value each employee brings to the company," says Tom Wilmann, a business consultant from More Solutions.

Tom suggests these guidelines to figure out who to bring back:

1. For employees who contribute to your bottom line: Are they creating enough revenue to cover their employment expenses, like their salaries and benefits?
   
2. For overhead employees: Do their wages, benefits, and management costs cost less than outsourcing them? If so, you might be able to combine roles or up responsibilities. 

Step two is to figure out if your business can support bringing people back or bringing new ones on. Ask yourself these questions, suggests James Bygland a leadership coach at Premier Integration Plus.

• What is your 13-week cash flow projection? 
• What is in your sales pipeline?  
• Have your sales started to rebound?  
• How much cash reserve do you have?
  

"If the numbers support the decision to rehire, then it is a great time to rehire. There are a lot of good people who were let go over the past three months," he explains. 

Be sure that you hire people that embrace your culture. People who share your core values. These are the people you want to be surrounded by the next time a chaotic event occurs.

If your staff is resisting because of unemployment... 

What do you do if you have a worker refuse to come back because they're making more now on unemployment?

"Some employees are getting more by staying home than they are working. It's very hard for the employer to give them an incentive to come back if they're going to lose money," says Maria.

According to the US government, employees who refuse to return to work because they're making more on unemployment are disqualified from extra federal benefits. And they might have to pay them back. In most states, you'll need to report situations like these.

If this happens to you and you received PPP funds, don't worry. 

"Fortunately, employees who refuse an employer’s offer to return to work will not be included in any reduction of that employer’s PPP loan forgiveness amount, so long as the offer of rehire was made in good faith and the rejection is documented,” explains Peter Goetschel of the law firm of Vinson & Elkins in an article for EHS Today.

Regardless, if you need staff to run your business, you might have to hire someone new. 

This situation is happening in Canada with CERB too, says Cheryl Dyck from MSI Action Group. "In some cases, my clients have just left those employees at home and hired new—they have to have the workers for the work. What else can they do?" she says. 

If your employees don't feel safe...

First off, prioritize their safety by setting up the best possible working environment given the conditions, suggests Tanya Sowles from Sowles Consulting LLC. "Make sure you have all of the proper procedures and policies to meet the minimum safety requirements," she says. If you can't do so, you're not ready to bring staff in.

Once you know the environment is safe, the next step, according to our experts, is to talk to your employees.

"Don’t be surprised by the anxiety that your employees feel about returning. Have discussions with them to better understand what they need to feel safe," suggests Tim Duncan from Dot to Dot Management Consulting Inc. 

"Talk to your employees," reiterates Tanya. "Be open and transparent about the business situation and plans. Listen to the employees' concerns and questions. And address the concerns employees may have with empathy."

Related content: How to keep your employees and customers safe 

What other employee questions do you have?

If you're struggling with these or other hiring issues, know that you're not alone. There are millions of small business owners on Alignable who are dealing with the same issues. Make sure you reach out to your network or ask a question. We're all trying to figure this out, and we'll do better if we take it on together. 

As Mac Bogert of Aza Learning says, "As the virus's impact morphs, we will all be facing a brave new world. Things are not going back, so how can we face forward?" 

Tell us what hiring questions, concerns, or advice you have in the comments.  

For more about bouncing back from the pandemic, check out these reads:

• 11 Business Owners Share How They're Rebounding
• What Washington Got Wrong About PPP and What You Can Do About It
• What Can Small Businesses Do To Help Employees Adapt?