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CHERYL HALL
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Cheryl Hall – Dallas Morning News
During the recession, America’s midmanagers were often exploited and neglected – stretched thin as companies leveled out. They endured stagnant salaries, canceled bonuses and bosses who demanded more from less.
It’s payback time.
If you need to hire a controller, plant manager, director of engineering or any other core-to-your-business personnel, chances are you’ll have to steal one from another company and pay a premium in the process.
“The single most difficult position for companies to fill – the one causing gray hair and sleepless nights – is true midmanagement,” says Rick Marshall, who owns Marshall Career Service Inc. in Fort Worth. “It’s a problem nationwide, but it’s huge one here.”
There’s a triple whammy at work. The economy is picking up. Baby boomers are beginning to retire. And most companies have failed to groom replacements.
“We’re on the front end of a candidate-driven market,” says Jon Davis, director of Texas operations for Matrix Resources Inc., which specializes in information technology jobs. “Candidates with those marketable skills are getting multiple offers and counteroffers from their current employers who don’t want to see them leave.”
It’s tough to find people with project management, leadership and technology experience, says Mr. Davis, whose recruitment is up 40 percent from a year ago.
“Many employers think the job market is like the 2001-2002 era and that they can take their time to interview people, develop these long laundry lists of wants and needs, and they’ll have people lining up to take the jobs,” he says.
“Employers in the know have clearly defined the job specs and a fast hiring process so that they can hire before the competition does.”
Crisis foreseen
Workplace futurist Roger Herman started sounding this alarm seven years ago, earning him a bit of a Chicken Little reputation.
Detractors are becoming converts but not fast enough, says the iconoclastic chief executive of Herman Group in Greensboro, N.C.
“There’s definitely a crisis brewing. When somebody leaves, retires, dies or gets promoted, there’s no one in the pipeline for normal succession. That’s going to cripple many companies.”
Dallas is vulnerable on both the white-collar and manufacturing fronts, Mr. Herman says. “Like the rest of the nation, you haven’t prepared the next wave of leaders.”
Of 75 jobs Kevin Burch is trying to fill for insurance companies, none has an internal candidate.
For example, a national carrier called last week with openings for five midmanagers at salaries of $60,000 to $73,000. The company has no one to promote because it sacrificed leadership training to focus on sales.
“In a large company like this, that’s truly sad,” says Mr. Burch, who’s president of Questpro Consultants LLC.
Mr. Marshall agrees. Midmanagement placement accounts for 80 percent of his business.
One of his best clients, an aviation manufacturer, came to him in a panic six months ago. It needed to fill two senior-level positions – plant manager and director of engineering – held by longtime employees who were retiring. Yet it was hardly a surprise that no one had been groomed to take over.
Mr. Marshall found the replacements but at a premium. “It’s not unusual for somebody to get a 25 percent to 40 percent pay raise to go to another company.”
Military advantage
Dallas does have one advantage: proximity to military bases.
The military is a prime target for talent raiding, says Ted Daywalt, president of Marietta, Ga.-based VetJobs.com Inc., a military job board. “A lot of companies have junior military officer and senior enlisted hiring programs.”
Among the most aggressive locally is BNSF Railway Corp.
Connie McLendon, manager of military staffing at BNSF, says the Fort Worth-based railroad expects to fill 25 percent of its 4,000 openings this year with military personnel. Midmanagement positions will have the most veterans.
“They come to us with wonderful leadership skills, and we teach them the railroad,” she says.
Mr. Daywalt says other North Texas companies are bound to follow BNSF’s lead.
“With an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent, the Dallas area is basically at full employment. That means you don’t have enough bodies to fill existing jobs, much less handle expansion,” he says.
“The more forward-thinking companies realize they have a serious problem.”
Are the rest in Scarlett O’Hara-like denial?
“I think you could say they’re on a riverboat cruise, yes.”
E-mail cherylhall@dallasnews.com