City's workforce survey reveals stark hiring challenges

Jeremy MacLaughlin: CMH has 40 more positions than usual due to the pandemic.

Krisi Schell: SRC needs to add 100 workers in the next 30-60 days.

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Results of the city’s 2021 Momentum State of the Workforce Survey revealed a high number of respondents struggling to find qualified applicants, among other concerns, in a year disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

The seventh-annual survey findings announced Feb. 24 by the Missouri Job Center noted 68% of survey participants reported hiring difficulty in the past year. While the total was down slightly from the 71% reported in the 2020 survey, two of the job sectors – health care and for-profit – both cited high levels of hiring challenges. Roughly 86% in the health care sector, followed by 74% of for-profit businesses, reported hiring difficulties.

“This year was particularly challenging for businesses to recruit job candidates,” said Sally Payne, interim director of workforce development for the city of Springfield, who reported the survey results in a virtual event.

Jeremy MacLaughlin, director of human resources at Citizens Memorial Healthcare, said its employee count, which typically hovers between 2,000 and 2,100, was at 2,087 in early March. The Bolivar-based health system is frequently hiring and currently has 150 job openings in areas such as nursing, housekeeping and billing.

“We’ve added some positions just because of the pandemic, such as temperature monitors,” he said, noting CMH’s COVID-19 response requires staffing around 40 more positions than usual.

MacLaughlin said much like the survey results indicated, hiring qualified applicants is a struggle in the health care industry.

“The great thing about southwest Missouri is that it’s a health care hub,” he said.

However, MacLaughlin said that also can be a hindrance from a recruiting perspective.

“We’re all competing for the same people all the time,” he said. “Drawing people into our area can be a challenge.”

Hitting highs
Several of the responses for how organizations dealt with hiring difficulties over the past year hit all-time highs in the survey. Providing overtime for existing skilled workers jumped to 56% from 40% last year, while 50% said they hired less qualified applicants. That’s an increase from 32% in 2020. Those who chose to not fill the job opening also reached a high this year at 49%.

“The year 2020 presented all kinds of challenges to the health and well-being of not only our community but our local economy,” Payne said in her presentation, noting results of the survey could reflect overcoming some of the pandemic-related obstacles. “We know many of you – if not all of you – were forced into uncharted territory by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

SRC Holdings Corp. has 59 job postings on its website, said Krisi Schell, executive vice president of human resources. However, many of those represent multiple openings for company positions, she said.

“We’re currently estimating that we need to add about 100 people across the organization over the next 30 to 60 days,” she said. “We are aggressively looking at talent attraction and trying to help people to see we have openings.”

One of the company’s strategies is leaning on roughly 1,700 employees across its 10 subsidiaries to provide referrals, Schnell said.

“What we’re seeing is we’re struggling with our applicant flow to really just have enough candidates compared to our openings,” she said, noting average pay across the organization is $15 per hour. “We as an organization have been spending a lot of time really focusing on our recruiting efforts.”

Retention work
For instance, increasing wages and overtime are necessary responses at SRC to keep up with the workload and retain talent, Schnell said.

Wage adjustments also are taking place at CMH to retain employees, McLaughlin said.

“Retention has always been an issue in health care,” he said. “It’s a high-stress job in a lot of situations.”

CMH is in the midst of a five-year plan that will keep its minimum wage – currently at $10.50 per hour – ahead of the state mark, he said. The state minimum wage increased to $10.30 per hour in January as a result of Proposition B, which voters passed in 2018 to boost the minimum wage annually for five years.

“When the state gets to $12 an hour in 2023, we’ll be slightly ahead of that for all our entry-level positions,” he said.

Springfield’s annual confidential survey provides data for the Job Center to assess needs of employers, while identifying issues and challenges in the workforce. It compiles responses from businesses, municipalities, educational institutions, health care organizations and nonprofits within the center’s seven-county Ozarks region. Its coverage area is Greene, Christian, Dallas, Polk, Stone, Taney and Webster counties.

Respondents completed 303 surveys this year, down nearly 25% from a year earlier. Job Center spokesperson Katherine Trombetta said officials thought the pandemic likely contributed to fewer responses. However, survey administrator Opinion Research Specialists LLC still considered the total a valid sampling, she said. The city’s cost was $15,000.