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According to the U.S.
Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the transportation industry is the country's
fourth-fastest growing sector. Mn/DOT is stepping up its efforts to recruit
new employees; one of the more recent ones hired is Gary Simon, Office
of Human Resources, above, the department's new recruitment team lead.
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There was a time—not so long ago—when the only
recruiting Mn/DOT needed was "word-of-mouth advertising" by department
employees. Today’s shrinking workforce, however, requires all employers to compete
aggressively for a much smaller pool of job candidates.
That’s why Mn/DOT hired Gary Simon as its new recruitment team lead: to tie
all of the department’s recruiting efforts (e.g. the Graduate Engineer, SEEDS
and district recruiting programs) together.
Simon, who began his duties March 5, has more than 10 years of private industry
experience in recruiting.
He noted that Mn/DOT faces a particularly "challenging" hiring crunch.
Transportation in general is a growing industry—the country’s fourth fastest
growing sector, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. The huge
number of Mn/DOT employees eligible for retirement by 2004 (455 in technical
classes alone) compounds the problem.
Simon compared this need to other Labor Bureau statistics that show a projected
decrease of 3 percent in the number of workers ages 25 to 34, and 1.1 percent
in the number of workers ages 45 to 54. (Compare this to an 8.8 percent increase
in the portion of the workforce that is between 45 and 54 years of age.) Mn/DOT’s
upcoming retirement crunch comes at precisely the time when there are fewer
workers coming into the workforce than going out, he said.
To meet this challenge, Simon said he plans to "combine Mn/DOT’s fairly
decentralized recruiting efforts with more centralized tools that the districts
and managers throughout Mn/DOT can use."
One tactic he will use is online recruiting.
"The Internet has leveled the playing field for everyone, including small
companies," Simon said. "We need to build up Mn/DOT’s Intranet and
Internet sites to help both internal employees and future external employees
as well. The districts can use these additional recruiting tools for their own
needs. "
That’s one area where Simon’s previous job experience will come in handy. He
helped design a careers recruiting site for his previous employer, Best Buy,
a Fortune 500 company with 60,000 employees around the country. That site generated
more than 1,700 resumes per month for non-sales positions in its first year.
Mn/DOT has been getting involved more and more with job fairs, school-to-work
partnerships, campus recruiting, and building students’ interest in engineering
and technical careers. Simon said his service on several college advisory boards
around the Upper Midwest should help with contacts for these activities.
As important as it is to get people in the door, Simon said it’s even more
important to keep good employees. He cited two critical methods: retention and
diversity programs.
"Besides building the recruiting function, we need to build in diversity
initiatives," he said. "When we ‘mirror’ our communities and our customer
base, we’re better positioned to adapt to our customers’ needs. You get your
best out of people when you have an environment that includes everyone."
Retention initiatives will also rank high on Simon’s list. He noted that many
of Mn/DOT’s retirees, for example, take part time jobs with us after they retire.
"Often times your new employee will not be someone fresh from school,"
he said, "but someone older, someone making a career change or changing
employers. We can’t afford to overlook this group of candidates."
So what about Mn/DOT’s "old reliable" recruiting method? Word-of-mouth
still remains an important recruiting method, Simon said. "Everybody at
Mn/DOT is a recruiter as well as a spokesperson. Employee referrals are still
our number one recruiting effort, and that’s a good sign."
Simon has a degree from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, where he majored
in business administration with a human resources emphasis, and minored in psychology.
For more information about recruiting, contact him at 651/297-7158.
Text and photo by Marsha Storck
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