Archive
By Staff Report
Jul. 12, 2000
Q Dear Workforce:
Employment agencies contact our employees directly and solicit them. What can we do to prevent this? How or what can we do to threaten agencies?
—Cindy, Massachusetts
A Dear Cindy:
Get used to it. Employment agencies will become increasingly aggressive, and all your good employees are prime targets. If they don’t find them at work, the recruiters will call your folks at home. There is no way to prevent the contacts, so the best strategy would be to concentrate on employee retention.
Make sure your people are happy and WANT to stay with you. When they consciously choose you as your employer, they brush off contacts from recruiters. They simply aren’t interested.
If you have a central phone system, you can screen some of the calls. Unless you receive very few calls and your receptionists have lots of time on their hands to do the screening (and they’re very good at it), this blocking action won’t work. And it will make you look too paranoid and fearful–not a good position.
If you want to block the agencies, you do have a bit of leverage IF you use the agencies for your own staffing. Simply tell them that part of your agreement to use their services is that they don’t solicit your employees. If they violate that requirement, you won’t continue to use them.
SOURCE: Roger E. Herman, CSP, CMC author of “Keeping Good People” and “How to Become an Employer of Choice.”
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