[Totally Hypothetical Conversation]
“Hey, do you know any good shop staff looking to make a move? They need to have about your experience level, the hours are at least as flexible as what you have now, and it pays better money. It’s a bonus if they’re floor trained and decent on the tools, like you. Anyways, if anyone comes to mind tell them to apply to me with an e-mail or text.”
“Wait, are you offering me a job?”
“No, no, we would NEVER do that. We don’t poach staff from other shops. When you, I mean they, come to us we like to be able to let your, I mean their, old boss know that you, I mean they, came to us. We’ll of course need to get that in writing from you, I mean them.”
[/Totally Hypothetical Conversation]
As far as I know, there are no formally established head hunters in mountain biking. At least not at the shop level. The good sales reps – outside & inside – act as an informal clearinghouse letting shop owners or managers know when someone decent is moving towns and letting staff know when there may be an opportunity to take a step at another shop. But I couldn’t track down anyone who’s heard of cash changing hands when the person that sells you bikes helps track down your next assistant-to-the-assistant-manager. Maybe a bottle of wine or a case of beer or two though.
It’s mid-March and the waters of the local industry are already roiled. Folks are leaving shops for service centers, leaving distributors for shops, leaving this town for cheaper pastures, and generally following all the trends of the last few years. There’s lots of work to be had – full-time or part-time – behind a bench, on the sales floor, even doing paperwork and the spots aren’t getting filled. There are already shops advertising that they’re “temporarily” only taking in bikes they’ve sold for repair or cutting back to five days a week because they can’t competently staff the full seven.
As well, I’m guessing that every shop in town recognizes that beyond generally-competent warm bodies it is also very desirable to diversify staff to better reflect who is riding mountain bikes on the Shore these days (i.e. not just lightly-dad-bodied white dudes with scratchy beards). Beyond the obvious boost to the bottom line in sales and service that comes from, for example, having a few female shredders on the sales floor it makes the workplace significantly more enjoyable when your staff comes from a wide range of experiences. At least those have been my experiences and all other things being equal, that’s the sort of shop environment I’m choosing to work in.
Looking at the lost potential to earn customers in a tumultuous time in the local bike industry, spots in the roster left unfilled or under-fulfilled, and with maybe two degrees of separation between every staff member in every shop from Gnarnaimo to Castlegnar, passive job advertising clearly isn’t working. Nor is the word-of-mouth-rep-dance and there are more folks leaving town than coming here to work in shops.
The old no-‘poaching’-norm looks like a dam in need of a breach. An old gentleman’s agreement that has existed, at least on the North Shore and in Vancouver, since I moved here but never really made sense from the perspective of an employee. ‘Poaching’ is, of course, in air quotes because it’s not pro-sports and these folks aren’t chattel.
And yes, when shops come actively knocking, looking to recruit the best staff, those businesses in the bike industry that have taken certain staff’s loyalty for granted for years, underpaying them or otherwise, are probably going to have to come up with a plan to retain their best people. And yes, it will raise wages – which probably need to go up anyways to attract more folks. And yes, it will force already maxed shops to get creative. There are compensation opportunities other than a suitcase of Elizabeths – like providing a demo bike for the year, more flexible schedules, and other perks that don’t really affect a shop’s bottom line. And yes, the shops that don’t suck to work at, or suck less to work at, are going to have an easier time recruiting people. Who wouldn’t rather have fun at work given the choice?
If you run a shop and need qualified staff then why not go out and get them? If you’re worried about losing staff to your competition then open those lines of communication and make sure they’re motivated to stay?
What am I missing?