Employers are resorting to unusual appeals to attract workers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The sack from a drive-through window at Winstead's held a hamburger, a napkin and a flier urging me to work there.

At a Chili's restaurant I hoisted my ice water and read "Would you like a job with that?" printed on the drink coaster.

Help-wanted signs in windows and employment ads aren't filling the jobs that need filling, especially in the service industry. So employers are resorting to unusual appeals.

Tom Sabina, area director for Chili's restaurants, says it's hard to know if coaster messages attract workers, "but at least they give people something to think about." That may be half the battle.

Wanda LeMaster, Winstead's district manager, thinks her sack fliers work. "They'll take `em home and two or three days later we'll get a call," she said. "I've hired two managers that way."

Other hirers are advertising incentives such as tuition assistance and quick vesting in profit-sharing plans. And starting pay often works out to be about $7 an hour; employers say they can't attract good workers at the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage.

Competition for employees isn't limited to entry-level service industry work, though. At American Century Investments, employees are earning bonuses of $250 to $10,000 for helping the company fill positions. Yes, $10,000.

I don't know what an "architecture and data warehouse" job in the information technologies field entails, but if I did -- and if I worked at American Century -- I could get $10,000 for finding the right person for that job on the company's critical-need list.

Employees last year earned $400,000 in referral bonuses for successfully suggesting 270 persons for job openings at the mutual fund company.

So far in 1999, they've earned $89,000 for 123 referrals.

Employees get half the bonus after the new hire has completed 30 days on the job and half after the new hire completes a year -- just to make sure the referral lasts.

John Guzman, who provides customer service and technical support for American Century's Web site, is $2,500 richer for referring five new employees. The company's reigning referral king, Guzman said he really hadn't become a headhunter.

"People who know me and know my seven years in the financial services industry could tell that I thought I was in a more pleasant place to work," said Guzman, who has been at American Century two years. "When they're looking for a job, they give me their resumes, I give them to the right people, and all but one of the people I referred were accepted and ended up working here."

Guzman proves that the best employment advocates are people who like working there.

Having a friend say, "Come work here," is more direct than hoping strangers respond to pieces of paper.

Jerry Bartlett, American Century senior vice president-human resources, said the company ran the numbers and the referral bonuses "are far and away the most cost-effective return on our investment" in terms of looking for and hiring workers.

In other words, everybody benefits when 3,000 employees become employment ambassadors.

Copyright 1999
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