5 Ways Companies Are Finding – And Retaining – Key Personnel In A Tight Labor Market

Forbes SunTrust recently featured insight from Workforce Opportunity Services (WOS) chairman and founder Dr. Art Langer in an article about ways companies can recruit and retain talent in a tight labor market. The piece mentioned the importance of tapping into non-traditional talent pools and highlighted the success of WOS and Hewlett-Packard's partnership. Check out an excerpt below:

“There is hidden talent across the country, but corporations have difficulty understanding how to find and assimilate it,” explained Art Langer, founder and chairman of Workforce Opportunity Services, a nonprofit that hires underserved minorities and veterans and trains them for jobs in IT, finance, project management and office work. Langer’s organization has teamed up with companies such as Prudential, General Electric and Johnson & Johnson to determine in-demand skills for the current labor market and develop corresponding training programs. It also helps trainees with soft skills like communications and business etiquette.

According to Langer, nontraditional candidates who are offered opportunities are more motivated and loyal than others. The retention rate for Workforce hires is 90 percent after the first year. A Hewlett-Packard study of its Workforce-trained technology workers found that they added value to the company twice as fast as traditional hires. The company also saved $150,000 in hiring expenses.

Read the full article here.