Busy or burned out?

19 May 2021

Are you very busy? You most probably are. Hirers tell me this constantly – just scan a random selection of stories on the blog. 

“You keep thinking, next week I might get a break, but at the moment there’s never any let-up,” one hard-pressed hirer told me recently. “I’m coming in on Saturdays and Sundays to test machines that we haven’t had time to do during the week.” 

I said that he clearly didn’t have enough people.

“That’s the point,” he answered with a wry laugh. “The biggest issue for our industry over the next 12 months will be recruiting staff – getting the right people with the right approach and the right attitude for hire. 

“We’ve lost some personnel who were on furlough and decided not to come back. We recruited a couple of young lads but they kept making too many mistakes so we had to let them go. 

“Everyone in the team has raised their game even further to cope with the unprecedented demand. So we’re probably doing 20% more business with fewer people. 

“However, this can’t go on,” he continued. “We’re a small team. Everyone needs a break but I’m dreading losing personnel even for a week. They’ve all got families and I’ll probably be without most of them for a fortnight during the school holidays.” 

At the moment, this hirer is meeting the challenges with hard work and good humour. He hopes to recruit two new staff members who look promising in the next month or so. 

I am sure that a good number of suppliers are in a similar position. 

As many posts on the site have pointed out already, the scale of the upturn is bringing considerable challenges. And it's highlighting the value of good staff who can be very hard to find. 

● Read about some of those challenges here. 

Photo: Nataliya Vaitkevich/Pexels