Retaining a positive and motivated staff is vital to an organization’s success. High employee turnover increases expenses and often has a negative effect on company morale. In an ever-competitive job market, employers must focus on employee retention to help ensure key workers remain employed while maintaining job performance and productivity.
In the Vail Valley, 43% of businesses responding to our annual workforce report indicate that jobs are open 2 months or more. To little surprise, stresses on employee retention including housing and child care. Less recognized, yet vitally important, is the integration of newly relocated employees and their partners into the community.
To help address this issue, Vail Valley Partnership (VVP) and High Country Human Resource Association (HCHRA) are happy to partner on the MyPartner Career Network, a “trailing spouse” initiative designed to make it easier for local businesses to recruit and retain specialized employees by taking a broader approach to community integration and support.
MyPartner Career Network allows local businesses to collaborate to help find employment, when needed, for spouses or partners of prospective high-value employees hired from out of the region, who are often costly and time-consuming to replace.
Appropriate talent for many specialized positions often doesn’t exist within the local labor market, forcing many Eagle County firms to recruit and hire from outside the region. Doing so carries risks, such as increased timelines to fill open positions and potentially significant employee relocation costs.
Out-of-area hiring also introduces variables that often work against long-term employee retention. Chief among these risks is the fact that many professionals new to the area often bring along a “trailing spouse,” a husband, wife, or partner – thrilled to move to the mountains – but left without a career. Prospective employees may be hesitant to relocate to Eagle County in-part because their partner may struggle to find suitable employment in the valley’s relatively small trade area.
Not only is it crucial for many local households to secure a dual income arrangement to account for area living expenses, but helping trailing partners find a satisfying profession is often the key to ensuring that both partners feel connected to the community. This network will help local employers retain new talent for the long-term by assisting whole families in finding rewarding employment here in the valley.
MyPartner Career Network uses a collaborative model to allow participating businesses to share the resume of a partner or spouse of a newly-hired employee who will be relocating to Eagle County, across a network of other local businesses.
Resumes can be submitted through an online form and are distributed to all VVP and HCHRA members who have opted to participate in the program. Companies that receive a resume through the network agree to provide a “priority review” of all resumes received through the program, and are strongly encouraged to make an introduction for the candidate to another contact in the community that might assist in their job search and build their local network.
If your business has a hard time hiring and retaining quality employees for technical, managerial, or otherwise specialized positions, MyPartner Career Network can help. It is a free service to all businesses in Eagle County and our goal is to reduce the time, cost and risks of hiring for companies looking to hire for specialized positions that may be difficult to fill locally.
Don’t forget – Vail Valley Partnership’s member survey is live and can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VVPSurv17
Chris Romer is president & CEO of Vail Valley Partnership. Learn more at VailValleyPartnership.com