Often, when we consider hiring in manufacturing, the first thing we think about is low-wage hourly employees on a production line. While many of those jobs exist, manufacturing has changed. The challenge today is finding workers with the skills to do the technical and scientific work in today’s manufacturing environment.
Modern factory workers must be problem solvers with a talent for mechanics and a background in math, science or engineering technology. Because they are in a production environment, having the skills on hand when you need them is critical to operations. Manufacturers need a constant flow of skilled applicants.
In today’s hi-tech manufacturing world there is fierce competition for scientists in many areas, including fields such as materials engineering and robotics. In these jobs, top manufacturers are less interested in finding a skill match than in finding people that will fit in the over the long term to work on development projects.
Evergreen requisitions in Workday® provide the means for you to recruit continually for critical skills. Designed to track seasonal or hard to fill positions, they can be used to manage talent pools of highly qualified people where you have constant turnover.
A Workday® evergreen requisition is one you use to gather a pool of candidates, but it can’t be used to actual make an offer or process a hire. You use the evergreen requisition to create a snapshot of eligible candidates you transfer to a regular job requisition to select and hire candidates.
When your selection process is complete, you can move candidates back to the evergreen requisition to make them available at a later date. You can’t move them back if they are rejected or declined the job, and they must be candidates who applied to the evergreen requisition.
Another way you can use evergreen requisitions is to overstaff when you expect turnover. You can put them to work on temporary assignments or back-burner projects until a position comes open. We think you may find that having skilled candidates who are a good fit is much preferable to having production impacted because you are having trouble filling critical positions. You can also save time and money in the recruiting process.
What happens at your organization when one of your key people get hired by your competitor? Do you scramble to get the job posted and pray that a good candidate is available? Or do you invite the top candidates in your pipeline to an interview?
You can use evergreen requisitions to create talent pools for key positions. If you hire a superstar, it is likely that candidate aced out top-tier applicants. Had the superstar not been available, you would have hired them. By keeping them in your evergreen talent pool and maintaining a relationship you have much better possibilities when key positions open again.
The evergreen requisition can also give you an advantage by speeding up the hiring process. Highly qualified people are not on the market for long, so speed is essential. You can cut the time to hire by having applications on hand.
Evergreen requisitions require some maintenance. A person who applies to an evergreen requisition can be deemed an applicant even though there is no open job requisition. Close them periodically and invite candidates to re-apply, or you can contact candidates to ask them to update their information and remove those who don’t respond.
Workday® evergreen requisitions can be a powerful weapon in the war for talent. Use them to make sure you have a pipeline of skilled applicants.
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