The growth and development of the Pakistan economy has brought about an unexpected challenge for the business community and the Governments. Across the many sectors of the economy, from blue collar to the white collar positions, we are seeing a huge shortage of skills. Good people have always been hard to find, but perhaps never this difficult. The skills shortage is creating real problems for businesses as they plan for future growth

How do you grow and expand your businesses, when you cannot find the right staff?

A real dilemma, but one that needs to be overcome, if you are going to remain successful. You need to first find the right staff, train them, then motivate them and finally ensure that you keep them. It seems easy enough, but trust me it is not.

Organisations that win the war for talent are the ones that will succeed in the long run.

Finding Staff

Finding the right staff is often one of the most difficult aspects of managing a business. Given the shortage of talent, Organisations have to become much more aggressive in seeking out and recruiting talent. You can no longer to sit back and wait for the perfect resumes to walk in. Since the same issues exist in most other Countries, particularly the developed world, you are also likely to face tough competition for the bright stars of tomorrow from International organisations, with much larger budgets.

When it comes to finding the right staff, I feel that your staff can be taught lots of things and they will pick things up over time but attitude cannot be changed easily. So, in recruiting staff, my primary concern has always been for the attitude they are going to bring into the Organisation. Does the person you are considering have the right attitude? If not, then do not even think about employing them.

Is there a secret to finding and keeping good staff when there is a shortage of talent out there?

In such times a good approach can be to grow your own. This means finding people with the right attitude and willingness to learn and training them. If you are a large enough Organisation, you could set up structured training programmes, for say young people. Once they have acquired the skills to do the job, you could transition them into your Organisation.

Don’t just sit back and complain about the skills shortage, be proactive and take positive action. Invest in training and development of people and it will pay off in the long run.