How to Seek and Save Employees

As unemployment has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years, it's tough to find good workers. The real burden falls on the frontline managers who not only have to recruit and train workers who aren't exactly the creamiest of the crop, but also have to tolerate the bad service of their employees or else resume the hunt for new workers. In this overheated business climate, entire staffs can turn over three times in a year, despite $10-an-hour wages. Employees who stick around more than 90 days are often considered old hands.

Recruiters desperately seeking applicants are coming up with new strategies. Target, a big discount chain, installed kiosks in the front of its stores where prospects can fill out a computerized application and be on the job in 24 hours. "Applicants are so scarce, you have to be able to respond quickly," says vice president Betty Kimbrough. "If we don't respond to their application within a week, they're probably already working for someone else." In addition to offering fat paychecks that make a mockery of the $5.15 minimum wage, retailers like Wal-Mart are now extending medical benefits and 401 (k) savings plans to part-timers.

The luxury of leisurely training new recruits in classrooms has all but vanished. Fresh hires at Wal-Mart and McDonald's no longer spend days locked in the back room watching training videos. Most training comes on the job, and if the rookie needs more, he or she can log on to the computer in the break room.

And be awfully forgiving if you want them to stick around. With help-wanted signs papering the windows of stores everywhere, workers hold the power and managers hesitate to reprimand. Arrive late for work or don't show up at all? Don't worry. The boss will give you another chance. Even dressing down a customer is a forgivable offense. When a cashier at a 7-Eleven in Farmington Hills, Mich., recently snapped at a young woman who balked when asked to show ID to buy alcohol, owner Jim Chatham sent the worker to the back room to cool off. But he never considered firing her.