360 successfully recruits those who left the workforce during pandemic.
Although most reports say workers are returning to work, there is still a significant group of the workforce who feel a little left out. It's those who were forced to declare early retirement upon the onset of the pandemic that now find themselves having trouble making ends meet. It's the workers between the ages of 55 and 65, early gen X and late boomers, who have been displaced without the chance of going back to the jobs they were once counting on to get them across the finish line. What lies ahead?
For Jack Turner it's an easy answer. “Oh, I am going back! It goes without saying that I have too much time on my hands, but who doesn't need the money to pay the higher prices due to inflation”?
Turner and many others have fallen victim to the job cuts, diminished marketplace and a whole new demographic of those never called back - a reality among many workers older than 55 years old. “It felt like the last three years of my career, the most important for banking those much needed retirement dollars, were pulled directly out from under me," says Turner, a former Clubhouse Manager in the Private Club Industry. “I found myself caught in the middle of an unpredictable timeline for when I might or might not return to work”. Turner had been in the Hospitality Industry for 30 years.
AARP reports that the top industries affected by job cuts were Leisure and Hospitality, Travel and Transportation, Construction, Entertainment, Personal Service, Self Employed Gig Workers and Food Manufacturing.
There was a total of 20.5 million people out of work at the peak, and the jobless rate for adults age 55 and older hit 13.6 percent. The average duration of unemployment for job seekers ages 55 to 64 was 20.9 weeks in March 2020, compared with an average of 17.5 weeks of unemployment among all workers, according to an AARP Public Policy Institute analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
So, what does that mean for service businesses that are reliant upon employees to deliver? For Stephen Newman of 360 Quality Care + Transport Services, it means a lot of things.
“First, we had to authentically commit to taking care of our people. Not just in pay and increasing our benefit packages, but we needed to inspire them and keep them that way. We listened to them and truly set forth a course to react to their needs”.
360 Quality Care + Transport Service has literally doubled since January of 2019, and they don’t see things changing any time soon. It was important to consider the alternatives to what was then the current business model.
In today's service-oriented industries, regardless of the type of business, the most successful have focused on robust recruitment programs, where talent attraction and retention are equal in importance to that of revenue generation. "Since sales and delivery of services are subjective to available talent, talent attraction and a focus on retention is at the center in our messaging" says Newman.
This means making sure that all the content in every piece of marketing and communications is understood not only by the clients and customers 360 serves, but by their employees and those they are seeking to recruit.
"Everyone is a stakeholder in today's service industry marketplace and we are the perfect fit for those caught in between retirement and making ends meet" says Newman.
“Many of the Gen X and Baby Boomer generation, who built service-oriented careers in these fields, are ideally suited to the demands of 360’s high-touch, personalized transportation service that recognizes the individual and special needs of the senior population we often serve” says Newman.
360 is a high quality, wheelchair and special assistance transportation company focused on customer service, compassion, and reliability.
####
Comments