Immigration Reform, Why Should We Care?

Why should we care? Here is the lastest scenario I see in the current forms of the proposed changes. The bills do not reflect any solid parameters to guide hiring. It states more or less as I have interpreted it, that if no US citizen will take a job then that job can be offered to a foreigner. Well the word foreigner is a broad market. People think that well it will be lettuce picking jobs or something labor oriented, however are not all jobs more or less viewed as labor by employers? Employers do not see employees as assets but more as a required nuisance they must contend with. Under said law changes here I could hypothetically post a job for let's say an accountant. There is a large shortage of those presently (actually there is no shortage except at the offered pay scale but that is another discussion). I decide to offer it at lets hypothetically say minimum wage. I must be crazy, no accountant will work for that right? WRONG. I can get someone from somewhere else to do it. An industry that really stands to benefit is transportation, trucking if you will. Why should you care? Well another possible problem. Drivers have typically made around 25-28 cents a mile but if can get drivers from South America to come and drive for 6 cents a mile there is an instant savings of 21 cents per mile or so. Now you're saying I still don't care, so what now its cheap to move stuff around. Is it? Well at 100000 miles per year at 6 cents a mile it saves 6000 dollars per truck. 6000 times the single largest fleet that is in operation at 2004 stats of 18500 trucks puts that savings at 111 billion dollars a year. That is only one company. A more accurate forecast would probably top a trillion a year. Even if the savings are passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices guess what, now you have increased unemployment. Now we have only looked small scale, lets say UPS and Fed Ex follow suit uh ya now see where things are leading? The Unions and their well paid salaries can hang it up. Now even further where is the real hidden cost? What about the all the social services that would be sapped at taxpayer expense? If drivers worked for that little companies would have no incentive to provide healthcare letting state programs foot the bill. So your groceries are a few cents cheaper, you may be unemployed or now grossly underpaid because unemployment would climb making the pool bigger driving down wages (no pun intended) as your taxes rise. As I see it the bills are nothing more than a greedy grab for some quick bucks at the expense of hardworking Americans. If you have someone in Congress representing your state that is favor of this lunacy vote them out. ( The above scenario is purely hypothetical in nature and only a reflection of the authors opinions based on insight gained from economic classes taken at a college level. It in no way implies any offer of employment. The author recognizes that opinions may differ and this entry in no way reflects the views of any particular political party.)

My Views on Hiring

My views on hiring revolve around finding the right fit. Often companies promote/hire based on gut feelings, seniority or simply because they need to fill a position now rather than wait to find a good fit. There are often people that are miss-filed as well. Promoting a clearly substandard employee because they have been with a company for a long time is a mistake I have seen too many times.

While the person may be very unhappy about not getting the job, what is worse, the loss of that one employee if they quit or the loss of all the talent under that employee that should not have that job and the fact that the company could have performed better?

The thing that I see most often hurting companies today is a lack of good hiring practices. Poor interviewing skills and relying on gut feelings, rather than taking the time to get a good candidate. Firms run out and hire temp to hire agencies that only care about lining their own pockets rather than providing good employees to their clients. If more companies paid attention to the resumes coming in, adapted a pre-screening, and testing process, they would have a larger pool of people from which to choose. It does not matter if you have an opening or need or not. Screen constantly so you have a well to draw from. Everyday I hear CEO's gripe that there are no good employees to from which to choose. There are plenty of them but they will not be cheap. The adage of you get what you pay for has never been so tested as it has with employers.

Often the best employees are inside the company. The employers never ask what employee’s ambitions are, never ask them to do anything they believe the person cannot do, when often either times they already know how to perform the task or they could easily learn it. Employers have only themselves to blame. Great employees are leaving companies all the time because they do not feel valued, do not get respect and have their skills and talents go unrealized. I know because I was one of those employees for many years. The only reason I stayed was in hope that the management would eventually listen. I left not because the pay was bad. In fact, every time I mentioned leaving they gave me a raise. It was not about the money. I had a great HMO, an IRA, 15 paid days off vacation a year, and 12 sick days a year. The reason I left was that all my skills were simply going to waste and management was never going to change. I left and with me, many followed latter. I had been carrying an organization for a long time and no one noticed. That was until I left and everything fell apart. I still have inside contacts that tell me that the entire organization is slowly disintegrating and people have remarked that I was right about everything.

I have to gloat a little. I was sent to so many classes and seminars and I voluntarily attended many others. I assembled a plan and armed with a desire to change the archaic system I set forth only to be decimated, belittled, and spat upon by the very people that I had been supporting in the time that I was there. Today only one of five of the administration is still there. The remaining positions have retention problems. In fact, the retention issue goes well beyond the administration level.

All they had to do was acknowledge, appreciate, and listen. Today I seek an employer that understands that hierarchies should not hinder people with talent but compensated for their efforts even if it means that the top performers make more than the CEO himself does. This payment concept came from a book I read called First Break All the Rules.

If sales people generate revenues then they are the most important facet of your business. Why would you take away an account and risk the loss of your best salesperson for the sake of a few bucks? Without him, you have no revenues, and therefore nothing to keep the business running! When payroll makes a stink about how much he makes remind payroll that they too would be out of a job if it were not for the revenues he has brought in.

There are plenty of employees out there and even more good ones if you are willing to take the time to discover them. Ask yourself this; if you had a tip that there was a good chance that a winning lotto ticket was in your house somewhere and it may be worth a fortune if you can find it, how long would you wait to look?