Colorado businesses today are facing many staffing challenges. These challenges include competition in the job market, implicit bias in staffing technology, difficulty with candidate sourcing, staying current with workforce expectations, and maintaining compliance with employment laws.
Understanding the top staffing challenges facing today’s Colorado businesses helps hiring teams proactively find solutions. Partnering with a staffing agency can help.
Discover the top five staffing challenges facing Colorado businesses today and how Job Store Staffing® can help.
1. Competitive Job Market
Low unemployment and increasing wages are contributing to the competitive job market. As the number of open roles continues to outpace unemployed workers, Colorado businesses are facing increased staffing challenges.
Many hiring teams are experiencing staffing challenges in the following areas:
- Increasing turnover
- More open positions to fill
- Lack of qualified candidates
- Competition from other employers
2. Staffing Technology
Advancements in staffing technology are contributing to the staffing challenges facing Colorado businesses. The following are areas of particular concern.
Cost of Staffing Technology
The initial investment in staffing technology can be significant. As a result, small businesses might have difficulty including the technology in their budgets. This difficulty impacts a small business’s ability to remain competitive with larger organizations.
Over-Reliance on Staffing Technology
Although staffing technology can enhance the recruitment process, the human touch still is essential. For instance, candidates who communicate with the hiring team more through technology than with a person typically feel more like data points than valued potential employees. These results contribute to a poor candidate experience and lower quality of hires.
Bias in Candidate Selection
Recruitment algorithms are typically trained on historical data. Therefore, if the data is biased toward specific groups, the algorithm will favor candidates from these groups. As a result, the candidate selection process will be biased and the workforce will lack diversity.
3. Candidate Sourcing
Many Colorado businesses have challenges finding skilled candidates. Candidates who have relevant education and work history and blend with the company’s culture tend to be successful within an organization. Therefore, an inability to source qualified candidates impacts a company’s ability to maintain its competitive edge.
4. Evolving Workforce Expectations
Many employees expect significant flexibility from their employers. Remote or hybrid work models, a 4-day workweek, a flexible schedule, and generous paid time off (PTO) are common examples. As a result, Colorado businesses must adapt to these expectations to fill their staffing needs and maintain their workforce.
5. Compliance with Employment Laws
Colorado businesses must maintain compliance with local, state, and federal employment laws and regulations. Not staying current with changes in these regulations can result in financial and legal penalties.
For instance, employers must not ask for specific information on a job application that can lead to discrimination:
- Salary history can perpetuate the gender wage gap.
- Age, birthdate, or graduation year can lead to hiring bias against candidates 40+ years old.
- Marital status, pregnancy, or children can eliminate a candidate based on their potential to be out of the office to care for their family.
- Previous convictions can hinder candidates with arrests or conviction records from securing employment.
- Citizenship can lead to race or national origin discrimination claims. Asking about authorization to work in the United States is acceptable.
Get Help to Resolve Your Colorado Business’s Staffing Challenges
Partner with Job Store Staffing® to help resolve your Colorado business’s staffing challenges. Contact us to start the process today.