Our company has had a really hard time on hiring skilled workers for several years now. No problem hiring production staff, but trying to hire the people to maintain the equipment has proved to be more difficult. Job positions will sit vacant for months and months. Luckily it was time to renew the contract and there was a lot of talk about a “skilled trades premium”. Something to help with the hiring and keep people from leaving. Unfortunately since it’s a small percentage of staff it got swept under the rug and was decided to be negotiated after the signing of the contract. Which in hindsight is a terrible idea, but at the time they had somewhat reasonable offers. But naturally once the potential threat of job action was off the table, their offer dropped to pennies on the dollar. And between some other problems and situations arising since then, the morale in the department is at an all time low.
With one of the vacant spots sitting for so long, management reached out to a hiring agency to help with that we found a new job listing. And attached on the website is the chance to read reviews left by current and former employees. 3 of them are 1 star reviews, but one is a 5 star review. Naturally at break time we started reading them aloud. We can’t help but notice that the 5 star review sounds awfully like the unique mannerisms of the senior Human Resources at our location.
All you can do is shake your head at this blatant lack of common sense and logic. “If morale is so low. Could it be the work conditions, the incompetent bosses, the insulting so called skilled trade premium? I better boost our score on the internet, that’ll bring the resumes flooding in!”