By Rob Sellars, 84recruitment.
Poaching, unless it has something to do with eggs, is mostly seen in a negative light, and conjures up visions of vulnerable African wildlife being hunted down mercilessly or stealing pheasants from a wealthy English landowner.
But, poaching in the employment market is nothing like these activities and is, overall, a good thing.
Employees are not endangered rhinoceros who can be hunted down unjustly, and neither are they flocks of pheasants owned by their employers. They have their own independence, agency and are free will to work for whoever wishes to employ them.
This autonomy is a good thing for everybody, as it keeps industries competitive and the constant threat of losing employees incentivises employers to pay their people as well as possible and look after them.
The problem is that employers tend to take things personally when their staff leave for another business and often blame the ‘poacher’ for the reason they left, rather than accept the painful truth that it was most probably failings on the company’s part that led the employee to wander off to another job.
Therefore the ‘poaching’ label is a misnomer given that employees have their own liberty and choice, and when offered a job, have the implicit right to accept or decline.
Recruiters, whether working for an external consulting business or employed internally for a company, are actively incentivised to seek out talented people to fill job vacancies. Most often they are fulfilling the purpose of their job function by seeking out the people with the most relevant skills, experience, and values.
Usually, such people are gainfully employed by competitors in the same market. Herein lies the ethical quandary.
Because – if you have decided that you are prepared to hire someone from another company, then technically you are already ‘poaching’, regardless of how or why the candidate was sourced. However, if ‘poaching’ is not an effective way to describe the process, then it could be argued that everyone is fair game and there is nothing ethically wrong with offering jobs to other companies’ staff.
Are there situations where people have crossed the line when enticing someone to leave their current job for a new one? Definitely. What is the line then? Anything underhand or malicious is often unethical and possibly illegal in some cases, but probably the best course of action is– do unto others as you would have done to you.
Employees are not endangered rhinoceros who can be hunted down unjustly, and neither are they flocks of pheasants owned by their employers. They have their own independence, agency and are free will to work for whoever wishes to employ them.
The CCNZ’s code of ethics for members states: “Members shall not attempt to attract or offer employment to an employee of another Member without first advising that Member. This shall not apply where the employee has responded to an advertisement’’.
Interpreting the ‘attract or offer’ part is the hard question.
The civil construction industry here is a small place. Most senior managers have worked for other businesses in the sector at some point. If one happens to catch up with a former team member and casually drop into conversation that the new project they are working on is looking to hire people, is that an offer? Who is to judge whether it is or not?
Members of CCNZ regularly abide by the code and do inform other firms they are about to recruit someone from them. In most instances, this integrity is respected, and it is probably well acknowledged that the shoe may be on the other foot at some point in the future.
In these situations, the management must also remember that they don’t own the employee, so if someone wants to join a competing firm, who are they to stop them?
No-one likes to see their staff head to the competition, so how could ‘poaching’ ever be a good thing? First and foremost, as an employer, it allows you to ask yourself the question ‘why would this person leave?’
If you can understand the answer, then it will likely enable you to make the appropriate changes in the business to lessen the risk that others will want to do the same.
Second, it might allow you to re-structure your business better or offer opportunities to other staff. The loss of one person in an organisation can create a ripple effect, allowing multiple others to shift into other internal roles, producing opportunities for them that may not have existed otherwise. Rather lose just one person than a whole team due to stagnation in their roles.
Also, construction is so project-driven that a lack of work in one region might cause your business to have an excess of staff in an area of few projects. If another organisation happens to be busy there, then allowing your people to leave in good faith for attractive jobs near their home almost constitutes a duty of care.
Engaging in this process effectively can also strengthen the relationship with the employee and increase the chance that they may return to the firm in the future, which happens often in this industry.
This issue is not merely confined to the external job opportunities. Many people leave companies because they were prevented from moving into another position in a different area of the same business.
Too often hiring managers are prevented from ‘poaching’ other manager’s employees, or selfishly hold people back in departments, leading to an internal mobility problem and usually an increase in staff turnover. ‘Poaching’ internally is a great thing and strengthens a business as the talent disseminates across an organisation, sharing skills and knowledge to other projects or business units.
If staff are paid well, looked after in their jobs, with effective management supporting them and interesting work then no amount of recruiter phone calls with enticing offers will sway them to resign.
It is also a positive for the wider industry when people move around. It fosters innovation, spreads knowledge, and allows workers to find their niche and to be happy in their roles whilst they take care of their lives and families.
If staff are paid well, looked after in their jobs, with effective management supporting them and interesting work, then no amount of recruiter phone calls with enticing offers will sway them to resign.
With the future pipeline of infrastructure work ahead of us, and with a fundamental shortage of labour, the demand for skilled employees will likely not go away anytime soon.
Look after your own, show respect for your competitors, and think positively about employees finding their best path.
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