Presenters discuss state workforce shortage

Employer-training professionals put on a two-part presentation Wednesday in the Montana Room of the Havre Inn and Suites, where the focus was on employers creating a work environment that keeps employees.

The unemployment rate in Montana is below the national average, 4.3  percent, and projected to drop even more in the coming years. Vision West co-owner and training and development coordinator Mark Willmarth and Meagan Lannan administrator specialist at Job Service in Livingston, discussed at the workshop how employers can keep the employees who are already in the organization, how to best engage and keep them productive, and how rural-area organizations can work together to fill each other's needs.

About 20 people attended the presentation from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., among them managing representatives from Independence Bank, Gary & Leo's Fresh Foods, District 4 Human Resources and Development Council, Murphy's Pub and Havre Day Activity Center.

Willmarth started the presentation with an emphasis on culture - "this is the environment you're going to be in."

"What causes people to leave is other people," Willmarth said. "Pay does get people in the door, but it doesn't keep them."

The biggest factor in whether employees stay or leave, he said, is the supervisor.

"It's oftentimes not bad employees, it's bad supervisors that drive out good employees," Willmarth said.

One common reason for bad supervisors, he said, is promotion without further training. Willmarth said that just because someone is good in one position, it doesn't mean that would make them a good supervisor.

Leaders need to be conscientious about what the culture in their company is and intentional about what they want it to be, he said.

"If we listen better, I think we'd be more effective in our organizations," Willmarth said.

Leaders need to be clear to employees about what they expect from them and recognize and praise them, reward them with little gestures that shows they know what they like, he said.

Employee engagement is a key part when it comes to keeping employees, he added.

Wilmarth showed a video from employeengagement.com which defines employee engagement as "unlocking employee potential to drive high performance."

Among the points made were:

"Satisfaction is about doing my job, engagement is about doing my job above and beyond "; "highly engaged employees are 480 percent more committed to helping their company succeed "; "highly engaged employees are 250 percent more likely to recommend improvement "; "employees with low engagement are four times more likely to leave their jobs than those who are highly engaged "; "bad managers are creating active disengagement, costing the U.S. alone an estimated $450 billion annually "; "seven out of 10 employees are disengaged or actively disengaged "; "87 percent of C-Suite executives recognize that disengaged employees are among the biggest threat to their businesses "; the number one booster of engagement is trust in management; the top ways leaders build trust is by demonstrating competency, having integrity and caring about employees; "engaged employees focus on purpose and values and outperform competitors by six times "; "engaged employees encourage creativity "; they "encourage empowerment and innovation (not policies and procedures."

Willmarth cited a handout he had passed out that identified what engages an employee:

Engaged employees know what's expected; they have the materials needed to do their job; engaged employees have the opportunity to do what they do best every day; they receive praise; someone at work seems to care about them; someone at work encourages their development; engaged employees believe their opinion counts; the company's mission is important to engaged employees; fellow co-workers are committed to doing quality work; they have a best friend at work; in the last six months, someone at work has talked about their progress.

A member of the audience asked what to do about a situation in which having a bad employee is better than not having anyone at all.

Willmarth said the best thing to do is to sit the employee down, figure out if their behavior and attitude can be changed, and if not, it's best to part ways and figure something else out until that spot is filled with someone better. Earlier, Willmarth said it was important to change employee beliefs because behavior follows belief.

One example of figuring something out, Willmarth continued, is by filling the hours of the departed bad employee with good employees working available overtime hours until a suitable replacement is found.

Lannan spoke after lunch.

She talked about how organizations and employers in rural areas such as Havre need to work together when it comes to finding the right employees.

It's about the community - businesses, employers, education systems - coming together to identify challenges and issues and working with one another to solve those issues, she said.

For example, she said, HRDC can share their research assessments with employers, and employers can use the research to create palpable results.

Lannan brought up the Job Service Employer Committee, where employers will gather Oct. 12, as another example where a small community can convene to try and resolve employment shortage issues.

Dan Kucera, manager of Murphy's Pub, said during a break that the presentation was a "refresher." He said it was so valuable that it would have been a better investment for businesses who didn't attend to have considered closing for the day and hearing the presentation. It would have long-range benefits, he said.

Murphy's Pub provided lunch - spinach and romaine salad, bread rolls and a potato and ham soup.

Kucera gave an example of how, instead of being mad at an employee who was late earlier in the day, he told him instead how grateful he was that the man makes the best potato soup.