In the present day, staff shortage may be regarded as a real issue experienced by a substantial number of companies. It goes without saying that this problem has a highly negative impact on the organization’s performance and development in the future and should be solved in a time-sensitive manner. Thus, it is essential for management to develop an efficient implementation plan in order to reduce staff shortage. First of all, it is essential to conduct an in-depth research and workforce analysis of a current situation to define further actions. This investigation should include:
- Identification of staff shortage’s reason. In general, there may be both external (market situation, economic crisis) and internal (inappropriate organizational culture) factors that cause shortage, and they determine subsequent responsive measures (Buchan et al., 2019).
- Determination of current workforce. Employees should be grouped according to their age, gender, skill level and experience, length of service, and other categories to structure the current workforce. Moreover, workers may be surveyed to identify their specific needs and preferences This analysis will be also helpful for the retention of already working and new employees.
- Determination of future workforce. To know what kind of employees are required to minimize shortage is necessary for efficient organization of human resources attraction campaign.
Regardless of the sphere of its activity, any company has stakeholders in relation to its staff shortage that include general management, department administrators, educators, HR management, legislative regulators, labor unions or professional associations, employees, clients, and society in general. All of them may influence staff shortage and contribute to its reduction. While internal stakeholders will take actions within an organization to attract and keep employees, external stakeholders may be responsible for the change of external factors that cause shortage, such as education, laws, and economic situation (Buchan et al., 2019). In general, a workforce action plan dedicated to the minimization of staff shortage should include the following strategies:
- Attraction of potential employees. This strategy implies the use of all possible mass media sources and activities of the human resource department to attract the most suitable candidates and organize training for the development of a competent and culturally diverse workforce (Furnell et al., 2017).
- Analysis of current processes for its optimization. Existing staff shortage should not negatively impact the organization’s performance – that is why it may be optimized. In other words, all non-essential tasks and procedures should be canceled to provide more skilled employees for significant and challenging activities.
- Focus on retention. It goes without saying that the fact that already working employees leave their job does not contribute to the reduction of staff shortage. That is why they should be motivated to stay in accordance with their individual demands and expectations and in relation to multiple social factors. Thus, a comfortable working atmosphere should be created to keep the workforce and increase productivity. In addition, those workers who work more due to shortage should be remunerated.
After the implementation of an action plan, it should be monitored, evaluated, and reviewed. For this, the general management should answer three main questions – Was the desired result achieved with the implementation plan? If no, what may be changed to improve results? In this case, how will the situation change? Thus, the successful implementation of an action plan is determined by the reduction of staff shortage in a company due to the attraction of new employees and the retention of working ones. However, plan implementation may face specific barriers, such as financial constraints and a lack of interest of potential candidates to the company (Quirk et al., 2018). In this case, it may address professional associations for support and provide appropriate working conditions.
References
Buchan, J., Charlesworth, A., Gershlick, B., & Seccombe, I. (2019). A critical moment: NHS staffing trends, retention and attrition. The Health Foundation.
Furnell, S., Fischer, P., & Finch, A. (2017). Can’t get the staff? The growing need for cyber-security skills. Computer Fraud & Security, 2017(2), 5-10. Web.
Quirk, H., Crank, H., Carter, A., Leahy, H., & Copeland, R. J. (2018). Barriers and facilitators to implementing workplace health and wellbeing services in the NHS from the perspective of senior leaders and wellbeing practitioners: A qualitative study. BMC Public Health, 18(1362), 1-14. Web.