Keep up to date on articles and news and subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Casting A Wider Net

High-powered executives know the bait:

“Come work for us. We’ll treat you right.”

“We really, really like what you have to offer.”

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Every day, cooing headhunters entice the best of the best to new jobs with words like these. But job recruiters are finding it’s not so much CEOs - “The Big Ones” - companies want.

The proverbial “catch of the day” in American business is the middle manager - an experienced worker ready to head up the corporate ladder.

The demand for employees skilled enough to oversee and manage workers has reached a level where recruiters are constantly and aggressively looking for experienced talent, said John Challenger, chief executive officer of Chicago-based outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

“It’s even more important now because unemployment has really dropped since 2003,” he said.

Florida’s low unemployment rate and rapid job growth are just two of several factors making now a great time for professionals looking for promotions into management, experts say.

In the early 1990s, an economic slowdown led to the decimation of many middle manager positions, said Brent Short, director of Spherion Professional Recruiters in Tampa. Companies didn’t grow, and middle management was the first to go, he said.

Now, Florida has the highest number of new jobs in the nation, according to the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation’s analysis of labor market statistics from October and November. It also has the lowest unemployment rate of the nation’s 10 largest states, the agency said.

Short said that rosy economic picture benefits employees willing to be the workhorse or frontline managers in a given industry. He doesn’t foresee Florida’s economic picture changing any time soon.

“If there’s no one to manage the business, how can they grow?” he said.

But there’s another reason recruiters can keep a well-stocked pool of candidates: good old-fashioned burnout. Middle managers are in high-stress positions ripe for job dissatisfaction, said Heather Gatley, executive vice president of human resource services at AlphaStaff Group Inc.

Historically, corporate culture doesn’t address that stress. Instead it recognizes and rewards executives and ignores its lesser but very important midlevel leaders who juggle supervising workers while being supervised themselves, she said.

“Your high-end executives are well-compensated,” Gatley said. “Where are the [incentives for the] middle people they really, really need that they forget about at bonus time?”
A Costly Mistake

That tendency to overlook middle managers can be costly. Lose a middle manager and tangible losses can be 150 percent of that manager’s annual salary, Gatley said.

Costs associated with recruiting, interviewing, selecting and training a new manager add up, as does the cost of hiring temporary help. Intangibles such as decreased morale and productivity add to that total, she said.

Middle managers make up 7 percent to 8 percent of any company, said Dan Smith, managing partner of Princeton Search, a Tampa executive recruiter. Anything less would not create a successful environment, he said.

Careers fraught with middle manager turnover include financial services and information technology, areas where workers need a certain level of expertise, Challenger and Short said.

Short said the Tampa Bay area has only recently become an “employee’s market,” where workers are controlling how, when and why they switch companies. Six months ago, candidates he sent for interviews waited weeks to hear about a job. Now, Short sees candidates get offers during first interviews.

He said that if companies continue to grow and as baby boomers start hitting retirement age, that pattern could only increase.

That drastic need for employees with some but not too much experience directly affects the way recruiters approach a search.

When recruiters seek out top executives, they focus on one or two candidates who meet the company’s specific needs, Challenger said. Recruiters targeting middle managers, on the other hand, collect and offer pools of talent that meet a company’s general purposes.

Challenger said that bodes well for people thinking of looking for new work. And with more people younger than 40 entering management, a whole new set of career priorities are being introduced.

“People should think of themselves as free agents,” he said. “We are out of the days of lifetime tenure. This generation of X and Y want jobs with meaning.”

This month, Monster Worldwide Inc. reported that 70 percent of human resource managers surveyed worry most about keeping workers on the job. Forty percent of the companies surveyed said turnover has increased in the past 12 months, placing employee retention as one of its top challenges over the next five years.
Corporate Culture Is Key

A positive and clearly defined corporate culture is the key to keeping a good middle manager, said Dick Wood, president of National Executive Personnel, a Largo-based management recruiter in the convenience store and petroleum industry.

“What a lot of companies fail to do is identify a clear career path for employees,” said Wood, who estimates that the loss of one good convenience store manager translates to $30,000 in lost sales and inventory.

For example, incentives such as mentoring need to be offered to promising clerks, store managers or district supervisors. That kind of investment in the corporate culture affects everything, from efficiency to sales to the morale of the clerk ringing up your morning cup of coffee, Wood said.

Gatley said her Fort Lauderdale-based human resources company found that midlevel managers leave jobs for one main reason, and it’s not salary.

“They don’t leave bad companies. They leave bad bosses,” she said. “Money is the least significant factor in turnover,” Gatley said.

As a result, more companies are looking at incentives such as flex time and increased vacation to retain good managers in high-burnout fields such as law and accounting, she said.

Although retention is a top priority, Short said there are times when workers need to be let go to find the right person for management. Some people are identified early and groomed for management; others are targeted as missing the mark and not being part of the company’s long-term goals.

“You truly are looking at the person in that seat and decide if that’s the person to take you to the next step and beyond,” he said.

That approach triggers what Short describes as a management “chess match.” Because there’s a worker shortage in these specialized areas, experienced workers dropped at one firm are soon picked up by another.

For example, a senior accountant with experience at a $20 million firm may find a spot in management at a firm making $5 million a year, Short said.

But Short said the worst thing anyone looking for new work can do is quit a job before they have a new one.

“Don’t quit your job. It’s always easier to find a job when you have one,” he said.
GREAT CATCH!
Tampa professional recruiter Brent Short offers these tips for people wanting to move into management:

• Don’t quit. Stay employed while you search.

• Register with just two recruiters to avoid looking desperate and having multiple résumés sent to a company.

• Diversify skills. Specialists in the latest technologies get noticed.

• Check your résumé for grammar and spelling errors.

• If you’re out of work, consider getting an advanced college degree.