| by Bryan Ziegler,
Indian Hills Iowa SBDC, Ottumwa, IA You see them almost everywhere—the signs of a great economy. Hanging in windows and posted on restaurant marquees—"Help Wanted. Hiring All Shifts." When the jobless figures for July came out, they revealed that Iowa once again leads the nation in employment with only a 2.2 percent unemployment rate. That figure is nearly a full two points lower than the national average of 4.0 percent. While the low unemployment figures paint a rosy picture for the state's economy, it is posing a serious challenge to small businesses. Any business hiring employees today is feeling the impact of these figures—and the current low unemployment rate equals problems for small businesses that have always had in attracting and retaining employees is getting worse. The issue that's a challenge here is that there is always cost in training new employees and cost in hiring that you have to go through again if an employee leaves your employment. Therefore, one major impact of the small business is increasing cost without the ability to pass those costs onto consumers In addition to additional training and hiring costs, businesses experience troubles when their ability to produce volume is affected. Since profitability is only attained by volume, any restriction on the ability to produce volume cuts into profitability. If a business has the capacity to do more sales but cannot get them done because of a lack of employees, this issue really becomes a critical factor for small businesses to be able to brow or maintain profitability. To combat the problems posed by the employee crunch business owners have to get creative and apply good management principles. Here are a few suggestions:
 Raise salaries. Although raising salaries also raises a red flag with many employers, it can be a good strategy. Although that raising salaries implies that costs will also rise, that's not the case at all. If you pay more and get more in return per unit of dollar paid, the business is going to gain. Increasing a person's salary to retain good help is probably more cost-effective than hiring a new person at a lower wage rate.
Consider hiring "different" groups of employees. Considering recent immigrants, retired people, the disabled, and even prisoners may increase your pool of potential workers. Recruit where the workers are. Employers can make additional efforts to recruit at local high schools, local community colleges and the colleges and universities in Iowa. Consider that there may be low unemployment, but there is high underemployment in Iowa. Reconsider your fringe benefit package. At times fringe benefit packages can be created that provide a much greater impact to the employee than cost to the company. Raise prices. This won't sound like wise advice, but I say raise your prices. If you have too much business that you can't hire enough employees to keep up, by raising prices, you'll be making more money on the work that you can complete and thus, will become more profitable. In addition, by raising prices you can afford the higher costs associated with labor. Consider automation and technology. As employers apply automation and technology, it reduces direct labor costs. For additional information on how businesses can deal with the employee crunch, hotels auberge de vacances Bojnicecontact a consultant at a Small Business Development Center. > See also: Human Resources & Personnel | 
