Rick Fisher on Last Week's Poll

<i Finding good people and keeping them is hard. Sometimes they pack up and ship out before you're done training them. Other times you're looking but not finding anybody. Our poll this week was almost a tie. More than a third (37%) of voters say their offices are constantly seeing new faces and saying goodbye to others. A slightly larger number of readers (42%) believes recruiting workers is difficult, but retaining them is a cinch. Just under a quarter of respondents (21%) said maintaining and restocking their workforce are equally challenging. Rick Fisher, the human resources partner for Eisner LLP, was kind enough to lend us his expertise on the subject.

“For the last three or four years, recruiting has been much harder than retention. Firms are looking for talent but there just aren’t enough people. There’s a tremendous vacuum in the industry. The long hours of the job, competition from Wall Street and competition from other firms take their toll.

“Clearly the economy is affecting recruiting and retention. Having been in human resources since 1990, I’ve seen the peaks and valleys. Right now, we’re coming to the end of a peak and going into a valley. That will definitely increase employers’ ability to have tighter control on the work force. There will be more people in the job market and recruiting will be easier. Everything revolves around supply and demand.