Competing for Talent: Tips for Associations

The nonprofit workforce is the third largest of U.S. industries and at last count, this included over 93,000 trade and professional associations employing over 1.2 million people. Nearly 1 in 10 workers in Washington, DC alone are employed by associations. The cost of hiring and firing any employee is astronomical when counting the expense of time spent and the psychology of a failed choice. Between the cost of onboarding, training, coaching, staff time, wasted salary, benefits, and administrative costs, HR professionals project that an organization can easily spend thousands of dollars on a hire that has gone wrong. So how do you get it right? Here are 9 Tips for How Associations Can Improve the Hiring Process. 1. Think about your short and long-term organizational strategy. Before you conduct your first interview or draft a job description, think about your short and long-term organizational strategy. How does the new employee fit into this vision?  Are you drafting a profile for the past, or hiring toward the future? 2. Be honest about the hurdles the prospective employee will need to overcome to achieve the goals. Be brutally honest about the obstacles and opportunities that lie ahead. Don’t shy away from asking…

Human Resources Professionals Say Their Jobs Are Harder Than Ever, As They Try To Recruit And Retain Employees In A Hot Job Market

non profit
The job market has been wild. We went from firing and furloughs during the early days of the pandemic to fighting a war to find talent. With the new Omicron variant, we now have another curveball to worry about. To gain a sense of the job market, GoCo, a leading provider of flexible software solutions for HR, benefits and payroll, conducted a survey of human resources professionals, asking them about the “current state of retention, hiring and pressures on HR to fill vacant positions.” Spoiler alert: the study shows that companies that hesitate to increase wages, enhance benefit choices or offer retention bonuses to attract and keep good workers will have a hard time recruiting and retaining top talent. Nir Leibovich, CEO of GoCo, said about the findings, “HR is under tremendous pressure to fill job positions in one of the most brutal job markets of our time.” Leibovich continued, “It will be critical for companies to listen to HR professionals and leaders about what is working and not working in talent acquisition right now. This survey reveals some critical insights into how companies can retain top talent and bring in new people despite the current challenges.” Here are some…

4 Nonprofit Tech Trends to Watch in 2022

non profit
Nonprofits facing a sluggish recovery from the pandemic might find an opportunity to bounce back with a stronger lean on digital maturity. If 2020 was a shock to the system for nonprofit organizations large and small, 2021 offered an opportunity for rebuilding that many nonprofits tried to embrace throughout the year. But the recovery has been inconsistent, according to research from Independent Sector, with nonprofits serving significantly fewer people and pre-pandemic employment levels not expected to return to normal until July 2022. Given the nature of the recovery, organizations can use this moment to make changes to position them for improvement when the recovery returns in full force, and technology can play a key role in this. There are four main trends to keep an eye on. A New Focus on Digital Maturity Throughout 2021, a common theme emerged with nonprofits: Those that put an emphasis on improving their digital maturity — whether through their marketing, their program management, their data collection or their fundraising strategy — excelled, despite the continuing challenges of the nonprofit landscape. Salesforce’s Nonprofit Trends Report found that nonprofits with high digital maturity were more likely to exceed their goals for fundraising, program delivery, marketing and…

Competition for Staff and Higher Salaries Top Issues for Nonprofits in 2022

non profit
PNP’s Annual Nonprofit Salary Report reveals competition for staff is a key focus as the demand for talent exceeds supply and salaries continue to rise. 77% of respondents reported plans to hire full time staff in 2022.   PNP Staffing Group has just released its 2022 NONPROFIT SALARIES AND STAFFING TRENDS REPORT. This is the 20th year that PNP Staffing Group has published the report, providing salary ranges for 43 key positions across five nonprofit budget sizes. PNP’s report shows demand for talent is exceeding supply, driving salaries for some positions up by an unprecedented 20%. Most highly in demand are senior program managers and experienced fundraisers. Almost two-thirds (61%) of organizations surveyed anticipate paying higher salaries in 2022. “It is clear that the challenge for nonprofit leaders will be to pay attention to offering competitive salaries to fill critical positions in their organizations”, said Gayle Brandel, CEO, PNP Staffing Group. A major trend evident in this report is a stronger emphasis on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). 58% of respondents said their organizational culture is now more focused on inclusivity, with 45% reporting DEI training being implemented throughout the entire organization. 42% of respondents reported that diversity strategies…

Fatigue and burnout: A few tips to guide you through the fog

Do you feel tired? Stressed? Don’t have the energy you used to? Don’t worry. This isn’t a pharmaceutical ad, but I do have a prescription that can help. If you’re like me, you’ve been dealing with two very real conditions in the last 18 months or so: fatigue and burnout. And—no surprise—it’s all connected to the pandemic. The American Medical Association has acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic and all the changes it has brought along have caused us to feel increasingly isolated—and it’s taking a toll on our mental health. “Even if you’re getting eight hours [of sleep], you just feel like you’re dragging through the day and it’s hard to find the pearls in the mud,” Dr. Carl Lambert told the AMA. As I’ve talked with friends, colleagues and clients in the last few months, I’ve been gathering up some of the best bits of advice for navigating this fog we find ourselves in. And I’m here to share a few of those pearls of wisdom with you. Before we dig in, though, it’s important to remember how we got to this point. The way I see it is we’ve been through two segments of the pandemic now. At first, we were suddenly thrust into a new world of working…